ITS TOPOGRAPHY
47
Thames from his creditors in an open boat. His
wife died broken-hearted, the custody of his
children was taken from him by the Court of
Chancery, Wanstead House was pulled down,
and, though he had succeeded in the meantime
to the headship of his own family as Earl of
Mornington, he died a pensioner of his younger
brother, the great Duke of Wellington. The
estates came to his son, an estimable gentleman,
but one who lived chiefly abroad and took no
interest in them. Mortgaged up to the lips, the
broad acres about Rochford, Ongar, Halstead,
and elsewhere were sold. The remnant of the
property the last Earl left away from his mother's
family to his cousin on the father's side, the late
Earl Cowley.
After being shut up for a great number of
years, in 1880 the ornamental portions of the
Park, comprising the woods, four lakes, and their
islands, in all about 180 acres, were acquired by
the Corporation of London in exchange for several
pieces of Forest land, of great value for building,
but of little or no use to the public, £8000 being
paid in addition as a make-weight. The whole
has been added to the Forest, but the grounds
round the great lake are closed at night. There
are three entrances to Wanstead Park—one from
the south, near the Brickfield Pond, one from
the west, towards the Avenues, and one from the
north, by the new road from Red Bridge Lane.
AMBRESBURY BANKS AND LOUGHTON CAMPS
These two ancient camps are in the heart of
the Forest, and owe their state of preservation
in some measure to that fact, and their consequent
immunity from the levelling action of agriculture.
Ambresbury Banks lies about a mile south of the
town of Epping, and close to the high road (see
Route N); the latter on a buttress of the ridge
to the north of Earl's Path (see Route P). Anti-
quarians have been much exercised about the
origin and date of these earthworks; but their