TRAVELLERS by road who fleet from Hockerill on to Newport, turning neither to the right nor left, pass through Stansted Street and know nothing of the ancient village of Stansted Mountfitchet, of which it is an offshoot. It is a pity, for that village is a distinctly interesting place. Turning to the right hand at the cross-roads, one arrives at the centre of the old settlement in less than half a mile. It was originally built in a deep hollow, under the heavy shadow of the giant earthworks on whose shoulders the Gernons or Montfichets in early Norman times built a tremendous Giant Blunderbore of a castle. Somewhere here, in very remote times, stood a stone building, probably a ruined Roman villa, whence the Saxon name of Stane Stead derived; but its site and its history are alike unknown, and the knightly deeds of the Montfichets are equally forgotten. That Norman family obtained its original name of Gernon from some ancestor who especially distinguished himself by going unshaven in times when (if we may believe the evidence of the clean-shaven, or merely moustached, effigies of Norman warriors) it was the fashion to shave. His comrades, like the vulgar boys of the present day, who shout “there’s ’air!” after any inordinately hairy person, gave him the nickname of “Les Gernons,” which means “Whiskers”; and, in a manner common at that time, when family names derived from individual peculiarities, it was as “Whiskers” that his descendants became known, whether they went whiskered or whiskerless. They are found referred to as “Gernon” and “Grenon,” but it was not very long before they dropped the name for that of their castle, built on the ancient mound that was here when they came, and named by them “Mont Fiché,” or “firm mount.” [Illustration: THE “WHITE BEAR,” STANSTED. _From a drawing by P. Palfrey._]