At Great Baddow we turn to the right and then climb to the upland known as Galleywood Common, and already seen; and after that we climb again, a hundred feet as nearly as may be in a mile, to a nameless point of the road two miles west of West Manningfield. The air grows fresher, more invigorating, and if there be a suspicion of easterly direction in the breeze the breath of the sea will be recognized. Prospect, to use the expressive word beloved of the ancient topographer, is wider and more comprehensive than that to which we have been accustomed of late, for most of the country between us and the estuary of the Thames is very flat indeed, and in such a country a hill of 314 feet gives a very wide survey. Nine miles or thereabouts, mostly on a downward gradient, takes us to Billericay, but this ancient town itself stands on a hill. Why Billericay? Of a truth it is not possible to say, for the etymologies suggested are purely conjectural and not at all convincing, and all we know is that it was known as Billerica in the latter part of the fourteenth century. This is rather annoying, for most place-names are either susceptible of some explanation or of such a simple character that there seems to be no particular reason why they should not exist. "Billericay," on the other hand, is an etymological puzzle, and, at the same time, much too odd a title to have come into existence casually. Billericay was one of the places visited by Arthur Young on his Six Weeks' Tour, and his description of the country is quoted both for the sake of variety and because it contains a useful reference to our destination of the day. He had been to Chelmsford, which he considered a pretty, neat, and well-built town, and he had remarked that all the cart-horses he saw from Sudbury to Chelmsford were of a remarkably large size. "From the latter town I proceeded to _Billericay_; the country very rich, woody, and pleasant, with abundance of exceeding fine landscapes over extensive valleys. The husbandry, I apprehend, not equal to that in use about Chelmsford; for their principal course is fallowing for wheat, then sowing oats and laying down with clover and ray-grass, which is a very faulty custom on land which, like this, lets in general from 15s. to 20s. an acre; nor did I see many good crops. The principal manure they use about _Billericay_ is chalk, which they fetch in waggons from _Grays_, and costs them generally by the time they get it home 5-1/2d. or 6d. a bushel. They seldom use it alone, but mix it with turf, fresh dug, and farmyard dung, and then lay it on for wheat, now and then for turnips, which are however seldom sown in this neighbourhood. All this manure is sometimes spread at the expense of £10 an acre."