AMONG THE ESSEX HILLS
The title given above to this particular tour is one eminently calculated to astonish those who have derived their ideas of Essex from guide-book writers. It has long been the fashion to describe Essex as a flat and monotonous county. Probably the compilers of those miscalled “guides” have known Wanstead Flats and Barking Level, and have ventured along the Thames marshes; but that anyone who has travelled Essex through could still describe it as flat is simply inconceivable. Certainly no cyclist who knows his Essex well would deny its much more than undulating general character.
This tour is frankly planned for the purpose of visiting the most prominent among the hills of Essex, and so, as some rough roads will be met at one spot, and as some walking, both up and down hill, will be necessary, the itinerary does not extend to more than thirty-four miles. Let it not, however, be supposed that, as a whole, this is a route of hill-climbing and bad roads. Starting at Brentwood, we are upon the main highway from London to Colchester, and on the crest of a steep hill which cyclists coming from London must needs climb. By training to the town we just escape it, and the succeeding five miles along this old coaching highway are chiefly on the down grade. Brentwood is well worth exploring. Its fine broad High Street still retains the decayed trunk of the old oak marking the spot where the Protestant martyr, William Hunter, was burnt in 1555. The trunk is carefully bricked up to preserve it. A monument also serves to keep the martyr’s memory green. The old galleried courtyard of that old-time coaching inn, the “White Hart,” should be seen; it is one of the very few examples now remaining of a bygone style of hostelries whose days ended when railways came in.
Brentwood, originally called “Burntwood,” probably takes its name from a portion of the once dense forest of Essex, burnt at some indefinite period, on whose site the town arose; and, sure enough, along the whole course of this tour—and, indeed, of many another one could make in Essex—relics of this vanished forest are encountered in almost every old church, built more or less largely of ancient timbers. Here at Shenfield, which we reach through a beautiful common, a mile distant from Brentwood, a portion of the nave arcade is of wood, and at Mountnessing, the next place on our itinerary, the tower is framed in massive oak. The name of Mountnessing presents difficulties to local tongues, and so it is known round about these parts as “Money’s End.” Ingatestone, succeeding to Mountnessing, is a decayed coaching town, with a name corrupted from “Ing-atte-Stone”—the Meadow by the Milestone, as some would say. By “stone,” however, it is more likely that the old Roman stone-paved way is meant.
Turning off this high road here to the right, we make for Stock, along a hilly lane. Stock, a scattered village situated on high ground, commanding beautiful views southward toward the valley of the Thames, is of little interest for itself; but here, again, we find a very remarkable church, with ancient timbered and weather-boarded tower, surmounted by a shingled spire, springing from a roofed lower stage with cavernous eaves, the whole dating back to the close of the fifteenth century, and restored, apparently, over two hundred years ago, according to the inscription, “R R. E H 1683,” still sharp and distinct, on the woodwork of the belfry. Like most of these Essex wooden churches, this of Stock is of curiously Scandinavian aspect, and own sisters to it may be found in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Even the elaborate tracery and the mullions of the windows in this tower are in wood, and, moreover, in excellent preservation.
STOCK CHURCH.