Essex erratic boulders: a gazetteer
Great Horkesley
Four sarsens are situated by the entrance to Greenbank House (TL 981321), in Boxted Church
Road near the junction with Holly Lane. Each is about 90x60x40 in size. The garden of the house
contains over 20 sarsens, each one brought here by the owner from fann land in the nearby Stour
valley. Greenbank House is a private residence.
Messing
A sarsen (60x45x30) lies adjacent to the churchyard entrance gate (TL 897189).
Mount Bures
Outside the churchyard entrance (TL 904325) is a puddingstone (70x40x35). Further south, on
the side of the road by the entrance to Fen House (TL 904321). is a sarsen (90x50x40) and a
puddingstone (60x30).
Wakes Colne Green
At the road junction (TL 897300) are three sarsens by a pond (the largest 100x100x30) (Salter
1914).
EPPING FOREST DISTRICT
Beauchamp Roding
On the top of the hill, in the churchyard of St. Botolph's Church (TL 578098) is an upright sarsen
(120x110x30) with veins of flint pebbles running through it (Salter 1914; Rudge (E.A.) 1962).
Many superstitions are associated with this stone and it therefore has been cited in articles and
books more often than any other sarsen in Essex. The stone was originally lying flat and Salter
gives a size of 160x130x30 indicating that a substantial portion is now below ground.
Copthall Green
A large (180x90x30) sarsen sits on the grass at the junction of two farm tracks by Lodge Farm (TL
424016).
Fyfield
By the south-west buttress of Fyfield Church (TL 572067) is a sarsen (80x60) almost completely
buried (Salter 1914).
Hainault Forest
On private farmland one kilometre cast of Cabin Hill, just south of the Essex border (TQ 49099375).
is a sarsen (145x70x40) beneath a large oak tree (Salter 1914). The proximity of the stone to a
nearby patch of Anglian till suggests that this is a glacially-transported boulder. For its size, this
may be the most southerly glacial erratic boulder in England.
Lambourne
Near the entrance to Lambourne Hall (TQ 479960) a very weathered boulder of coarse Jurassic or
Cretaceous sandstone with fossils (85x75x70) sits by the road.
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