There can, I think, be little doubt that Stansstede, in Mr. J. H. Parker's list, is Stanstead Hall, near Halstead in Essex. I have never seen Stanstead Hall, but about a month since I was in company with the late occupant; from whom I learned, in casual conversations, that it was an ancient house, with moat and fortifications. In addition to this I may state, that there are monuments in the old church (St. Andrew) of Halstead to some of the Bourchier family. These facts, taken together, seem to fix the locality with sufficient precision. One of the monuments just referred to is a brass, commemorating Sir Bartholomew Bourchier and his two wives; which, when I copied it in 1847, was under the flooring of a pew in the south aisle. He died May 8, 1409; and was previously the possessor of Stanstead Hall: so I learn from my own MS. Catalogue of brass rubbings in my collection, but I am not able to give any better reference to authenticate the statement.
W. Sparrow Simpson.
Heyheved, mentioned in Mr. Parker's list, is Highhead Castle in Cumberland. In the reign of Edward II. it was a peel house (pelum de Heyheved) possessed by Harcla, Earl of Carlisle. In modern times it became the property of a family named Richmond, one of whom erected the present house, after a plan by Inigo Jones. But he died before it was finished, leaving co-heirs, who quarrelled about the partition of the estate, and actually put a hedge through the centre of the house. Eventually one-half came into the hands of Lord Brougham, who is understood to have purchased the other, and will probably restore the whole.
K.
NEWSPAPER FOLK LORE.
(Vol. vi., pp. 221. 338. 466.; Vol. ix., pp. 29. 84.)
It may be instructive to collate the four stories recorded in the above references, and compare them with a case that was brought before Mr. Jardine at Bow Street Police Court; and which was reported in The Times for February 22, 1854. Let the following extract suffice: it is descriptive of the operations of extracting a worm from the body of one Harriet Gunton, by a female quack of the name of Jane Browning:
"I laid myself on the bed as she desired, and she told Mrs. Jones to hold my mouth to prevent my breathing. Mrs. Jones held me from behind, and nearly suffocated me. She kept me down, while the prisoner tried to get the worms out of my body with her hands. This lasted for about a quarter of an hour, and caused me dreadful pain. The prisoner told me that one of the worms had bit her finger, and slipped away again, and she could not get at it. She tried a second time, and said the worm had bit her again. I then begged her to leave off, if she could not succeed in getting it away; for I believed I should die under the operation. She tried a third time, and said she had broken two skins of it, which would prevent it getting up my body. ... She then put her hand under the clothes. I felt something touch me like a cloth, and she drew away her hand; throwing something into the pan, which sounded with a heavy splash. She said she had been trying at it all night, and had got it away at last."
Mr. Robert Biggs, the medical attendant, pronounced the "reptile" to be a fine conger eel, which he believed had often done duty in the same way.