(or way leading four ways), called the Four Wants, where late was placed and yet is a certain side of a whale, called the _Whale bone_.” From this it would appear that the spot was known as the Whalebone long before Cromwell’s death. Possibly, however, there is an error in the above date, Charles I. being inserted instead of Charles II. A good deal of discussion upon the subject took place several years ago in the pages of _Notes and Queries_. In 1871 (p. 4), “G. S.” wrote that he had often seen whales’ bones set upright in Holland for cattle to rub against, and that he “was once struck with the same in a large park between Ingatestone and Chelmsford. The owner was a Dutch gentleman, who had introduced this sensible idea into England.” Other correspondents wrote that they knew of whales’ bones having been set up in various parts of England. Later on (p. 195), Mr. J. Perry, of Waltham Abbey, wrote that-- “There is (or was lately) a pair of whale’s ribs placed over the old toll-gate at Chadwell Heath, near Romford, Essex, which form a kind of Gothic arch across the roadway. They must have been there for a considerable period, as it is beyond the memory of any of the good old country-folks living in the locality to tell when first erected. At a little distance from the toll-house occurs a similar pair, set up over the carriage entrance to a residence.” Afterwards (1878, p. 397) “S. P.” wrote as follows:-- “When I was a boy, there stood by the roadside, about two miles west of Romford, at the east end of the long straggling village of Chadwell Heath, and on the left hand going from London, a tremendous pair of bones, forming an arch. The bases were deeply rooted in the earth, but even then the space spanned was considerable. Near by was a toll-house, with its bar, known from the adjacent relic as ‘Whalebone Gate.’ I think, too, if I remember rightly, there stood near the spot a road-side inn called by the sign of ‘the WHALEBONE.’ My father, an Essex man, long since dead, used to tell me that he had it from his grandfather, that the bone was the upper [should be lower] jaw of an immense whale, which had been cast ashore about three miles to the south of the spot, on the north bank of the Thames, at Dagenham, while the Great Storm was raging on the night that Oliver Cromwell died. In course of time, toll on suburban roads was abolished; the toll-house and gate were cleared away; and the jaw was appropriated to serve as an entrance arch to the front garden of a neighbouring suburban villa--the rural residence, I believe, of a Whitechapel pork-butcher--an edifice known, and still indicated on suburban maps of a tolerably modern date, as ‘Whalebone House.’ ... What became of the worthy tradesman I have above alluded to, I do not know. Probably his