Through East Anglia in a Motor Car

Some hyperbole there is here, perhaps, but not much of it, for the view of land and sea is very fine and, best of all, it is hardly necessary to have the car in order to secure it. The difference between the aspect of the river, as it presents itself to us, and that which it presented to Arthur Young is all to our disadvantage. For him an out-going ship was always a sailing vessel; for us the sailing vessels are few and far between, and those of large size which still use the Thames must needs rely on a fussy, black-smoked tug to tow them down the tortuous channel. Our many steamers are not so picturesque in themselves as the tall ships making for the open sea of his day were, when the wind was favourable. Our steamers, too, belch forth clouds of smoke, befouling the air and obscuring the landscape. Still, as J. M. W. Turner and others, but Turner most of all, have proved to us, there is a weird beauty of smoke if we will but open our eyes to see it, and the Rochester barges, floating low on the water and carrying their delicious brown sails, were of Young's days no less than they are of ours. Father Thames from a height is still a sight for appreciative eyes.

Two ways to Grays are open from Horndon. By the first, turning to the right at Horndon, Orsett is reached, and then a left turn brings one to Chadwell. For the second, one keeps on straight through Horndon and, turning to the right just before reaching Stanford-le-Hope, and then turning to left a couple of miles on, one also reaches Chadwell. There is nothing to choose between the routes. One is dreary as the other. We go to Chadwell simply in order to attain Little Thurrock, a mile or so from Grays to the eastward, and just behind Tilbury Docks. In either case we pass through Chadwell, which has a certain interest in connection with the past, if none in the present, for here Daniel Defoe lived for some years, as secretary of brick and pantile works, became prosperous a second time, kept his coach, and even launched out into a pleasure boat. During this period, too, he lived at Tilbury, in "a house near the water's edge," but house and brickworks are alike gone.

We are now close to the object of our quest, "Hangman's Wood" or "Hairy Man's" Wood. "Murray" says the latter; the local gentlemen who called my attention to its strange contents certainly said the former. If the former be the correct name the explanation is obvious. Our ancestors used the noose freely, for all kinds of offenders, and displayed a partiality for hanging offenders, especially highwaymen, in a conspicuous place, which was often called in accordance with its gruesome use. Many examples might be found; the first that comes to mind is Gallows Point on the Menai Straits, about a mile on the Menai Bridge side of Beaumari. This wood, clothing a gentle eminence between Grays and Tilbury, having a road on either side of it, would have suited admirably the accomplishment of the highwayman's designs on the public in the first place, and the public's punishment of the highwayman later. He would be hanged, like a rook over sprouting wheat, conspicuously at the place of his misdeeds, to serve as an example to evildoers.

Still, information obtained by word of mouth may always be misheard, and it seemed worth while to think who could the Hairy Man be? Surely none other than "Peter the Wild Boy," who afterwards became "Peter the Wild Man," for he was, to all appearances, twelve or thirteen when he was found in 1724, and he lived until 1785. Peter was found in a field near Hamelin, the Pied Piper's Hamelin, naked, brownish, and very hairy, in the act of sucking a cow; and quite unable to speak. He was brought to England—as the time was that of our first Hanoverian King this was quite in the natural course of things—and the Princess of Wales, afterwards Queen Caroline, took an interest in him. He was placed in a hospital, very possibly in the neighbourhood of Tilbury, for safety; the name Peter was given to him, and after the efforts of many teachers had proved futile, he was handed over to the care of a farmer living near Berkhampsted, where, wearing a collar with an inscription to the effect that any person bringing him back would be rewarded, he lived to the end of his life. That he was of a roaming disposition the inscription on his collar proves, but I have no evidence to suggest that he ever wandered into this particular wood. On the other hand there is a faint suspicion that he may have done so, for Defoe, who doubtless knew the wood intimately, was interested in Peter, visited him, and made him the peg upon which to hang a pamphlet on education, including much satire on the men and manners of his time, and a savage attack on his old enemy Swift.

Hangman's Wood, or Hairy Man's Wood, call it which you will, contains something very much more interesting than Peter the Wild Man is to us now, in the shape of what are called locally the "Dene Holes," or sometimes "King Cunobelin's Gold Mines"; for Peter is dead long since, his enigma perished with him, and when all is said and done the chances are that he was neither more nor less than an idiot boy, who grew into an idiot man. On the other hand, these Dene Holes are with us still, and nobody has succeeded in reading their enigma. I obtained an entry to them two or three years ago, having journeyed to Grays for the purpose, simply because the proprietor of the principal hotel in Grays was anxious that some writing person should see and describe these very peculiar excavations, which certainly have not secured anything approaching to adequate notice in recent years from the learned. The hotel-keeper's motives may not have been purely altruistic; altruism, indeed, is not the most conspicuous quality of the average hotel-keeper. He may have suspected that, if the existence of this curiosity were more generally known, visitors would come to Grays, and to his hotel, requiring refreshment and conveyance to Hangman's Wood, both of which he might provide to his profit. To the philosophical mind that makes no difference. The things are either worth seeing, at the expense of some trouble, or they are not. My firm conviction is that they are very well worth seeing indeed, and an attempt shall be made to justify it by describing that which I saw and that which, no doubt, anybody else may see upon applying at this hotel, the name of which has escaped memory. That again does not matter, for once at Grays, there will be no difficulty in finding the hotel that is interested in the Dene Holes.

Let a word of preliminary warning be given. Not long after this expedition to Grays, and before its results had appeared in print, it was my fortune to meet as a fellow-guest an eminent member of the Society of Antiquaries, an official, I fancy, of that august body, to whom it seemed right that I should mention these holes in the ground of Hangman's Wood (of which, indeed, my mind was very full) and describe them to the best of my ability. He listened patiently, with an appearance of interest, and then observed that the holes were "dene-holes," and that there were similar cavities in many other parts of England. The answer was really rather disappointing, not because it seemed to prick my little bubble of interest, but because it was what I had found in a good many books, written by persons who were in no way to blame, because the chance of seeing these particular holes had not been open to them, and because, judging by descriptions, the other dene-holes were not in the least identical with those of Hangman's Wood. I felt very much in the position of the questioner who, on asking what the duties of an archdeacon might be, received the sterile and stereotyped reply that an archdeacon performs archidiaconal functions. An enigma is not explained by giving a name to it. It is worth while to read an account at first hand of the dene-holes of Hangman's Wood, even though you are under the impression that you know all about dene-holes, unless indeed you have seen these particular holes. If so you cannot have failed to be deeply interested in them.

On the occasion under notice we drove about a mile or a mile and a half from Grays to the nearest corner of this wood, where the road forks to Orsett and to Chadwell. From an article written when the scene was fresh in memory it appears that this wood left the impression on me that it was not a recent and artificial plantation, that it might even be primeval. In this wood are some fifty shafts, some of which had been opened at the time of my visit, while others remained overgrown with brushwood but easily traceable. Attention had, indeed, been directed towards these shafts not long before by the horrid discovery of the decaying body of a man at the bottom of one of them. It was, indeed, a singular thing that traces of more such catastrophes were not discovered when examination was made of the holes. It was a consequence, perhaps, of the very unpleasant way upon which the holes had forced themselves upon public attention that a windlass and cage had been rigged up over the mouth of one of them—the apparatus was clearly meant to be permanent—for the purposes of descent and ascent. The cage was but small—big enough to accommodate one passenger only—for though the mouths of the shafts are funnel-shaped, because if they were not the gravel sides would fall in, the shafts become cylindrical so soon as they enter the coherent Thanet sand, and are of such a width that a man of middle height may place his back against one side and ascend, or descend, without much difficulty by the aid of footholes cut on the other side. After the gravel the shaft passes through the Thanet sand for some twenty feet more and for a very short space, after the Thanet sand ends, through the chalk. Then at last the cage feels the bottom of the shaft. The passenger emerges, and can see dimly that he is in a vaulted chamber of chalk.

The ascending cage, entering the cylinder of the shaft, leaves him in total darkness, but soon, as one passenger comes down after another, a sufficient exploring party is formed, lanterns are lit, and examination begins. It reveals the fact that each shaft communicates with a group of chambers, all similar in design, all originally distinct from one another. Imagine an ash leaf pressed between the pages of a book, but having its middle rib cut off short at the base of the lowest leaflets, and that middle rib seven or eight times broader, in proportion to the leaflets, than in nature. In that you have the ground plan of the chambers, in principle at least, but no object in nature, so far as I am aware, corresponds exactly with the design. So far we have ground plan only. Let us proceed to dimensions. The extreme length of each group of chambers is about 80 ft. Each chamber is vaulted, about 20 ft. high, from 10 to 15 ft. wide, and somewhat wider a few feet above the floor than at the floor level. The whole is beautifully and symmetrically hewn out, the marks of the implements used for the purpose are plainly visible. Of such groups of chambers, all originally distinct, all hewn with the same exact precision, but directed to all sorts of points of the compass, so that there is no suspicion of orientation, there are a large number. If it be asked why learned writers have been so sparing of allusion to subterranean works of such manifest interest, the answer is that until the years 1884 and 1887, when the Essex Field Club made a fairly thorough examination, the materials for learned discussion were not available. Camden knew the "Dane holes," or knew of their existence, and figured one of them with tolerable accuracy in his Britannia. Dr. Plot (History of Oxfordshire, 1705) talks of "King Cunobeline's Gold Mines in Essex," and a Cambrian Register of "Gold Mines at Orsett." For a long time before 1884 the matter does not seem to have attracted the serious attention of the learned, and it has been neglected since.

Of the writers who dealt with it at all before 1884 the writer of Murray's Guide, using for basis Mr. Roach Smith's Collectanea Antiqua, Vol. VI, gives perhaps as clear an account as any other; and it is quoted for purposes of criticism. "Excavations called Dane-pits are numerous in the chalk near East Tilbury. A passage is said to have led from these caverns to others resembling them at Chadwell near Little Thurrock." (Note in passing that no passage could possibly have led to these pits as a whole, because each group is entirely separate and distinct, except where the ancient divisions have been broken through by explorers.) "The entrances are from above, by narrow circular passages, which widen below and communicate with numerous apartments, all of regular forms." (Our passages, or shafts, are wide at the top, narrow as soon as they reach the Thanet sand, an important factor which "Murray" does not seem to have observed, and never grow any wider while they remain shafts.) "The size and depth vary. It is uncertain for what purpose these pits (which occur in various localities throughout the chalk districts on either side of the Thames) were originally excavated, although it is now generally believed that they were made for the sake of the chalk itself which was largely exported at an early period."

Let us dispose of this hypothesis at once. It is impossible. Chalk wells, of course, have been known since the time of Pliny, who explains in his Natural History (XVII 8) that the fine white chalk used by silversmiths is won out of "pits sunk like wells, with narrow mouths, to a depth of 100 ft. where they branch out like the veins of mines." He adds "Hoc maxime Britannia utitur" (Murray). That may have been, and it still is, the custom, because the deep-lying chalk is found to be closer and finer in texture. But the value of the depth of a chalk well is that it reaches the deep-lying chalk, whereas in Hangman's Wood the shaft ceases and the excavated chambers begin practically so soon as the chalk has been penetrated far enough to leave room for the chambers under an adequate roof. What our unknown ancestors dug out here was surface chalk, not deep-lying chalk at all, and if surface chalk was good enough to export there was plenty of it available without being at the pains to dig through a mass of gravel and Thanet sand. No unprejudiced man, and I was assuredly such a one when I descended into these holes, can possibly explore the excavations in Hangman's Wood and go away capable of believing that they were originally chalk wells. Apart from the question of quality of chalk, the neatness of the chambers, their precise symmetry, and above all the fact that they were a distinct and separate group belonging to each shaft, although the partitions, when broken through by explorers were often only a foot or two thick, disposes of the theory absolutely.

The explorers of 1884 and 1887 did their work in a most praiseworthy manner. At the bottoms of shafts that had remained open there was naturally a good deal of débris, by sifting which they secured sundry bones and pieces of pottery. But the potsherds, examined by experts, told no story, and the bones, submitted to naturalists of high authority, were shown to be such that they might have belonged to animals of the last century. There are no marks of fire. There are no niches to point to a use for storing sepulchral urns; the chalk is singularly sterile of flints, so there is no likelihood that here, as at Brandon, the shafts were sunk for flints. In any case the symmetrical shape and the unity of design would negative that theory. The case is one for pure, but not therefore of necessity unprofitable, speculation. King Cunobelin's Gold Mines, as gold mines, may be discarded. Neither he or anybody else has yet found, in chalk and placed there by the process of nature, gold, or anything more like gold than pyrites, although a Press-man, greatly daring, "interviewed" Sir William Ramsay not long since on the presence of gold in sea-water. The putative ancestor of "Old King Cole" may have stored some of his gold there, for our rude forefathers had considerable store of gold; and the tradition may have crystallized into the phrase "King Cunobelin's Gold Mines." It is not likely that any men in the twentieth century will spend money in searching for gold in chalk. Still, in the days of the South Sea Bubble they were foolish enough for that, and the legend of King Cunobelin induced them to try these very excavations. The suggestion has also been made that these were granaries, similar to some used on the Continent in days gone by; but again the elaborate shape is a difficulty although the separation of the groups is not.

We are therefore, as before stated, reduced to pure conjecture, and the expression "dene-holes" helps us not at all; for denn is simply Anglo-Saxon for a cave, and a dene-hole is a "cave-hole," bilingual tautology and nothing more. Ruminating over the known facts on many occasions during recent years, for it is impossible to see these strange burrowings and to banish them from the mind, it has occurred to me, often enough to have become almost a firm theory, that the traditional name of "Dane holes" may supply the complete explanation. In the absence of evidence to the contrary tradition is entitled to more respect than it commonly gains from the antiquary; and here there is no evidence at all against tradition. "Murray" speaks of British coins found in dene-holes; certainly none such have been found in the holes in Hangman's Wood. The terror of the Danes was frequent and very real; and the men who lived on the banks of the estuary of the Thames were more exposed to Danish raids, more familiar with their ruthless mood, than most of the inhabitants of our island. It is not difficult to imagine that the heads of families in these parts selected Hangman's Wood as a suitable spot in which to dig out hiding places, separate ones for each family. From its eminence, like rabbits sitting over their burrow, they could strain their eyes down the estuary of the Thames to watch for the incoming fleet of warrior-bearing keels; and, when they saw it, they could scuttle into their holes at once. Fires, of course, they dare not kindle within, while the invaders were at hand, for the smoke would have betrayed them; and when the invaders were gone away they could come above ground again and live their ordinary lives. They did not, according to this theory, begin by making these groups of chambers in their full and careful detail. They began by digging a shaft, the mouth of which they masked with brushwood, and a hole at the bottom in which they could cower with their families until the tyranny was overpast. But the danger came again and again for years and hundreds of years. The refuge of the pits was used many times; quarters were crowded; it was not easy to pass the weary hours of captivity. The refugees wiled away the time, and added to their own comfort by gradually quarrying away more and more rooms round the original hole, some for storage of food, some for sleeping, and so on; and they showed their true national spirit by keeping all the groups of chambers absolutely separate. The fancy is at least harmless.

These speculations, it is to be feared, will be apt to weary some of those who do not see the Dane-pits of Grays, but if they induce any persons to visit them, those persons will assuredly be rewarded, for the burrowings are of mysterious and compelling interest. But we are at Grays, where none except a native would dream of spending the night, so we must go. Colchester is our imaginary home, and the best way of returning to it by car is by the roads which brought us here. An alternative is to send the car back with the man and, if we have prudently made arrangements beforehand, and the sea be smooth, to run from Tilbury to Clacton by motor-launch, and at Clacton to take the train for Colchester. Except Rayleigh there is nothing left of Essex to the eastward worth visiting by land, and the whole of the peninsula between the estuaries of the Blackwater and the Thames, permeated as it is by the estuaries of the Crouch and the Roach, is almost impassable by land, and of a most dreary flatness into the bargain. It is this part of the county which gives Essex so undeservedly bad a name. Still it looks well enough from the water, and the distance by sea to Clacton, for a motor-boat of light draught, cannot be much more than forty-five or fifty miles. In the estuary of the Crouch, too, if the tide be full, may be seen a very charming congregation of white-winged yachts. Moreover, motor-boats congregate there on occasion—they had a regatta there in 1906. The yacht clubs are very hospitable, and there is one capital inn. In fact, if the little journey be made in a motor-boat, it will be quite a wise thing to put in at Burnham, which is a place not wanting in picturesque quality and as completely sui generis as may be imagined. But by no means choose the sea unless it be fairly smooth. A staunch motor-yacht will stand a lot of weather without suffering much herself, but for her passengers, no matter how hardy seamen or seawomen they may be, rough water in a motor-yacht spells sheer misery. She is worse than a torpedo-boat destroyer, and that is very bad indeed.