house is still standing, but I am unable to identify it now by its former title or peculiar gate. I am under the impression that what remains of the relic has been transferred to its original site; for I was past the spot where, so far as my memory serves me, it formerly stood, on July 25th in this year. Half the arch (_i.e._, one bone) stood upright, still deeply rooted in the earth, but alone, forgotten and deserted, by the side of the high road in a fallow field. No one in the neighbourhood seemed to know anything about it or its history.” To this, Mr. J. A. Sparvel-Bayly, of Billericay, wrote (1879, p. 58):-- “In the little village of East Tilbury in Essex, situate on the banks of the Thames, and not far from Romford, is a house known as ‘Whalebone Cottage,’ in front of which is an arch composed of the jawbones of a huge whale. From their weather-worn appearance they may possibly have belonged to that alluded to by S. P.” In reply to this, Mr. W. Phillips (p. 338) stated that-- “The jawbones spoken of by Mr. Sparvel-Bayly as being at East Tilbury, ‘not far from Romford’ (it is twelve miles from Romford as the crow flies), cannot be identical with those mentioned by S. P., whose account I can corroborate, so far as knowing the jawbones he mentions, forty years ago, when travelling on the box-seat of the old Colchester Coach alongside a coachman of the Mr. Weller sort, of some sixty-five summers. The two bones were then in existence on the north side of the road near the tenth milestone, and two miles the London side of Romford, in front of a roadside public-house with the sign of the ‘WHALEBONE,’ which my coachman said used to be the resort of the many highwaymen that once infested Chadwell Heath close by. He spoke of his being told when a boy that the bones had been there from the time of Cromwell.” From the foregoing, it is clear that there were formerly _two_ pairs of bones set up near together; indeed, Mr. J. Perry distinctly says there were. One pair has now entirely disappeared. The other pair still stand (although S. P. seems to have overlooked them), as described, over the entrance of an adjoining house, known to this day as “Whalebone House” or “Lodge,” and marked as such in local directories. There is also in the immediate vicinity a “Whalebone Farm,” as well as a “Whalebone Lane.” The bones (of which an illustration is here given) are of the following dimensions:-- Feet. Inches. Height out of ground (along curve) 15 6 Circumference (at base) 3 3½ “ (near top) 2 0 Breadth at base (flat inner side) 1 5 “ (round outer side) 1 10½ [Illustration: GATEWAY AT WHALEBONE HOUSE. (_Chadwell Heath._)]