CHAPTER II.

A Forsaken Church-East Horndon-The resting place of Queen Anne Boleyn's Head-Relics-Herongate-An old Coaching Inn— Chat with an Ostler-A Wayside Memorial-A Fine Sign-The Pleasures of Photography-Ingatestone-The Scene of Lady Audley's Secret'-Margaretting-A Unique Brass-A Quaint Signboard.

LEAVING our rustic little hostel we proceeded along the crest of the Langdon hills past a new stone. church that has been built upon the very summit-a landmark for miles around-then we descended by a tree-shaded winding lane that would not have discredited Devonshire to the lowland country once again. The hill side to our right, sloping down to the sunlit country, was covered with woods, the ground beneath the trunks of the trees was literally carpeted with wild hyacinths, a miracle of colour, a deep pure ultramarine that made even the blue of the sky above seem pale. How nature can paint when she chooses! Proceeding on our way, we came upon the cosy little vicarage, whose gable ends peeped pleasantly through the foliage, and whose chimneys, we observed, were ingeniously planned to prevent their smoking; the design, manifestly the outcome of necessity, was not the ungainly feature such contrivances mostly are, but quaintly original, and picturesque rather than the reverse, a vast improve

ment upon the graceless chimney-pots and hideous cowls that pretend to cure smoky chimneys in London. And if the arrangement answers its purpose, and it looked as if it should, it goes to prove that utility need not always be synonymous with ugliness.

Reaching the foot of the hill we came to an ancient and forsaken-looking church; deserted, dilapidated, and picturesque, manifestly disused now that a new and larger edifice has been raised upon the top of the hill. More spacious this latter, possibly more convenient for modern worship, certainly more pompous, but having no history it did not appeal to our feelings as did this tiny humble fane, grey and worn with age, whose lowly walls are hallowed with the prayers of departed generations of the rude forefathers of the hamlet,' who now sleep so peacefully in the modest graves around. For the warrior and statesman, for the noble and the rich, the ostentatious altar-tomb, or at least a marble monument; for the poor tiller of the fields, whose ceaseless toil has made the beauty of the land, a nameless, unnoted, grass-grown mound!

These humble village fanes that are such a characteristic feature of the English country are truly sermons in stones' as eloquent as any poem. What a sad and solemn note they sometimes strike in the smiling landscape, with their sorrowful colony of graves and mournful yews, when all around seems so mutable and full of life! But enough of moralising-let us away into the sweet sunlit country, where the men are busy haymaking in the meadows,

AN INSPIRITING DAY.

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(whose labour is, surely, the very poetry of toil), to the open country where the birds are singing in the hedges and the woods right merrily, and where all Nature seems in a joyous mood. Even the momentary glance we had in passing of that forsaken and mournful churchyard made us feel still more, by the cheerful contrast, the gladsomeness and brightness of that summer day, the enlivening effect of the golden sunshine and the inspiriting greeting of the bracing breezes that met us as we drove along.

A pleasant stretch of level country, with nothing particular of note on the way, took us through Dunton to East Horndon, which latter village possesses a very interesting church with nothing melancholy about it. This church contains a chapel, with monuments to the Tyrell family, whose crest, a Boar's Head, is still represented on the sign of the village inn; in the chapel are preserved an ancient tilting helmet with crest, an old sword, and a pair of gauntlets. On the floor is an incised memorial slab bearing the date of 1422, said to be the finest known. It is to Alice Lady Tyrell, and gives her figure at full length and almost life size, with the peculiar head-dress of the period, her body being draped with a loose robe. This fine slab also contains representations of her ten children, each one bearing a scroll with his or her separate name thereon. But perhaps even more interesting than all is an altar-tomb beneath which, tradition states, is buried the head of the unfortunate Queen Anne Boleyn, and, as an old body sagely remarked to me, 'there is no record of her head being buried else

A very

where, so the tradition must be true.' simple and ready way it seemed to me of proving facts and making history. I may state here that there was hardly a church that we visited during our drive but was fraught with interest for us. Strange and even ghastly relics that somehow escaped the ruthless hands of the Puritans (though, to do him justice, from what we could gather the notorious William Dowsing during his visitation in these parts did his utmost to utterly destroy all superstitious pictures, relics, crucifixes, and the like); many curious brasses we also discovered, sundry quaint epitaphs, strange and puzzling inscriptions, singular frescoes, odd conceits in carved wood and stone, besides numerous other things that would gladden the heart of any antiquary; but as all these will be described in detail hereafter, there is no need to say more of them at present. I would only add that were this eastern portion of England really 'as flat as a pancake,' and as entirely devoid of scenic attractions as many people wrongly imagine it to be, still even then the journey we took would have been well worth the taking, if only to see the rare old churches, to say nothing of the grand old manor houses, stately half-timbered homes, ruined castles, picturesque old coaching inns, the ancient country towns full of irregular rows of gabled buildings, so delightfully unlike the uniform streets of commercial cities, and other tokens of man's past presence and handiwork.

The next place that we came to was Herongate, a primitive village like most others in these parts—

ANCIENT CUSTOMS.

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primitive, but fairly claiming to be picturesque as well, with its spreading green and small sheet of water, beside which stands the rural hostel. An artist might find more than one picture at this spot. We noticed here, what we have now and again, though not very frequently, observed in various other parts of the country, the name of the village plainly painted on the Post Office. This information, being no news for the inhabitants, must of course be for the benefit of travellers by road, and as these now are few and far between, we presume that the name of the place being thus shown is a relic of the past coaching-days not yet (in these parts, where changes come slowly and ancient customs linger still) improved away.

If Herongate is picturesque in itself, it is blest with two of the ugliest places of worship, I think, that we have ever come upon. I make this statement after due deliberation, for in course of our many drives through different portions of England (covering altogether some thousands of miles) we have certainly come across not a few unique specimens of ungainly structures; but these, I verily believe, excel them all for perfected ugliness, for it almost seems as if there could be a perfection of ugliness as well as a perfection of beauty.

The first of the two edifices in question was a small square brick structure, the design of which was surely taken from a box, with holes cut in for windows and a top just to keep the rain out-simplicity itself, but without any added charm of picturesqueness. We learnt from a notice-board that this was the