this important gathering, was undertaken the sub-division of the whole county into Monthly Meetings, a term which, contrary to appearances, denoted a geographical area more than a period for holding business meetings. The six areas were centred round Colchester, Coggeshall, Felsted, Witham, Thaxted, and Ham (since divided into East and West Ham, each of which is now a huge metropolitan borough), with which Waltham Abbey and Waltham Cross were united.

The Felsted Friends soon acquired for their own use a separate Meeting House, the erection of which was due chiefly to John Child, who must have been fairly well-to-do before he joined the Society, and had, like the other members of it, so much of his substance taken away for non-payment of tithes, or in fines for attending meetings.

The Felsted Meeting House was erected upon a piece of ground called Little Oxeneys, purchased by John Child for £100, of the lady of the manor, for a term of 499 years eleven months. Before they had a public building of their own in which to shelter, the Felsted Friends met upon a curious mound upon Bannister Green,

where the Meeting House was built. Its situation was just over a mile from Felsted church, so that even under the oppressive Conventicle Act, they could, for a time, be suffered to assemble in peace. The mound has long held the name of Quaker's Mount. The trustees of the Felsted Meeting House in 1687 were John Jesper and Stephen Chopping, yeomen of Stebbing; Henry Smith and William Crow, of Felsted, yeomen; Joseph Foster, of Felsted, and Zachary Child, described as a husbandman, brother of the donor of the Meeting House.

At Stebbing and Saling, both within five or six miles, were also Meetings. In the latter place, Friends became very numerous, being joined on Sundays by those living at Bardfield, where the Meeting House was not built until some long time after. The Monthly Meeting of Felsted was dissolved in 1747, having become very small.

The oldest existing Meeting House in the county is that at Stebbing. Although now, I believe, unused, even for an annual gathering, it has been the scene, during 240 years, of many remarkable ministrations. It was built in 1675, nineteen years after Parnell's death, and

was visited by George Fox two years after, as he records in his Journal. The date appears upon some ornamental scroll work over the door. At this same time he preached in the small meetinghouse at Saling, now a cottage, but still the property of the Monthly Meeting. When the original Meeting House at Felsted was built rather earlier, it was probably foreseen that the centre of the village of Stebbing was a more desirable site for so large and substantial a building, than the outlying green with its scattered houses, a mile or more from the village of Felsted.

To return to the Friends imprisoned in Colchester Castle. In 1656, the very year of Parnell's death, they arrived from every part of the county. John Sewell, of Gestingthorpe, near Castle Hedingham, was committed on a warrant of that same busy magistrate, Dudley Templar, for "speaking to the priest," i.e. for asking the priest who had been baptising an infant, to prove his practice by Scripture. The next year he was again committed. Jonathan Bundock, of West Bergholt, was despatched there by order of Parnell's accuser, Dionysius Wakering; Stephen Hubbersty and John