My life : a record of events and opinions - Wallace-online.org

CHAPTER XVIIHOME LIFE AND WORK(187O-1885)In March, 1870, I took an old cottage at Barking,where I was still almost in London. Though Barkingwas a miserable village, surrounded by marshes andugly factories, there were yet some pleasant walksalong the Thames and among the meadows, whilewithin a quarter of a mile of us was a well-preservedtumulus close to an old farmhouse. Here, too, wehad some very pleasant neighbours. Sir AntonisBrady at Stratford, whom I had often visited with myfriend Silk, and who had a fine collection of fossilsfrom the gravels of the district ; Mr. C. M. Ingleby,the Shakespearean commentator, who was interestedin spiritualism ; and more especially Colonel Hope,V.C., who was living at Parsloes, an old manor housewithin an easy walk, and with whose amiable andintellectual family we spent many pleasant Sundayafternoons.In the following year I found near the village ofGrays, on the Thames, twenty miles from London, apicturesque old chalk-pit which had been disused solong that a number of large elms and a few othertrees had grown up in its less precipitous portions.The chalk here was capped by about twenty feet of