“There is a tradition that Richard III. was hunting in the forest, and being missed by his courtiers was afterwards found at this house.... The beam is massive, being not less than 16 inches wide. The room, although only 9½ feet high, was originally a hall 28½ feet long, but subsequently reduced to 18½ feet by a partition, leaving a passage to the inn. Yet this partition, from the style and character of the panels, appears to have been added so early as the reign of Henry VIII. The doors to the buttery-hatch, &c., may still be traced on the wall of the passage.” Writing again to the same Magazine in December, 1845, Mr. Repton says: “I send you a sketch of a Chambermaid. The figure is now at the White Hart, Chelmsford, having been recently removed thither from the Black Boy. It was formerly the custom in ancient family mansions to introduce a painting which represents a housemaid holding a broom in her hands, which was cut out of a board, and generally placed in a passage or at the top of the stairs. The earliest specimens I have seen are of the date of Charles I., or the early part of Charles II.... The enclosed specimen is of a later period, having the Fontaine head-dress which prevailed about the time of William III. or Queen Anne.... Sometimes the figure of a soldier, like a sentry, was exhibited in like manner.... Such a figure is on the staircase of the Bull at Dartford. Another, of which I send you a sketch [see p. 129], is at the Black Boy in Chelmsford.” Mr. Chancellor of Chelmsford writes that--