The low-lying districts of Walthamstow parish, which before the Thames embankment was made were constantly flooded, were some years ago turned to good account by the East London Waterworks Company for the formation of their fine reservoirs, {70} which resemble a vast lake dotted with picturesque islets. During the progress of the excavations, moreover, many very important geological discoveries were made, with the aid of which the whole life-story of the valley of the Lea can be read backwards to the time when the forest of Essex was the home of the elephant, the elk, the reindeer, and the wild ox, as well as of the red and fallow deer of modern times. [Sidenote: Wanstead] Wanstead, the name of which may possibly be a corruption of the word Woden's Stede, or the place sacred to Woden, near to which many traces of Roman occupation have been found, was not very long ago a pretty rambling village on the very outskirts of the forest, but is now practically a town; and close to it is the somewhat dreary district known as Wanstead Flats, once a beautiful furze-clad common with clumps of fine old trees that has given place to brickfields and gravel-pits. The manor of Wanstead has, however, an interesting history, for it was once the property of the Abbey of Westminster, and owned a famous manor-house known as Naked Hall Hawe, that was pulled down in the sixteenth century by its then owner, Lord Chancellor Rich, who built in its place a stately mansion, in which Queen Mary rested on her way from Norwich to be crowned in London, and Queen Elizabeth was more than once entertained by Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, who had bought the estate in 1577. Later it changed hands again and again, and in 1683, as proved by an entry in John Evelyn's diary, it was owned by Sir Joshua Child, to whom there is an interesting monument in the parish church, whose {71} son replaced the Earl of Leicester's house with an even more magnificent one, which he filled with art treasures, and that was considered one of the finest private residences in England. In 1794, through the death of the then owner and his only son within a few months of each other, the valuable estate passed to Miss Tylney Long, then a mere child, during whose long minority the mansion was let to the Prince of Condé, and was for a time the house of Louis XVIII. and other members of the French royal family. Unfortunately Miss Long married a profligate spendthrift, the Honourable W. Tylney-Long Wellesley, who quickly dissipated his wife's wealth, necessitating the sale of the Wanstead property. The art treasures were dispersed, and the mansion sold for building materials, but fortunately the gardens and grounds were bought for the nation by the London corporation, and thrown open to the public in 1882. {72} CHAPTER IV HAINAULT FOREST, WOOLWICH, AND OTHER EASTERN SUBURBS OF LONDON [Sidenote: Hainault Forest]