April 23rd, 1961 Meadow House Essex

• April 23rd, 1961
• Meadow House Essex
• Cloudy in A.M. Fair in PM

Went to church this morning to a little old place in Essex. After Mass, we set out to drive about the Essex countryside.  Visited one of the oldest churches in Eng. about 900 in Greensted.* Made of logs and a miracle of preservation. Then drove to Chiqwell to have dinner at the Kings Head-the inn made famous in Dickens' "Barnaby Rudge". Dickens stayed here when he wrote the book, and called it the Maypole in his novel. Entertaining atmosphere. Here were held the Quarterly Courts in Pre-Elizabethan and Elizabethan days. Built about 15th cent. Later visited an Old Saxon-Norman church dating from 1154.

*Bones of St Edmonds rested here in 1013 on the way to his resting place in Bury St Edmonds