SUBTERRANEAN PASSAGES.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
Snt,—If any one wishes to prove or disprove the existence of a secret passage, he need not go far afield. If he takes train from Liverpool Street to Lower Edmonton, and asks his way to "Judge Jeffreys's house" (a misnomer), he will find a beautiful little Tudor house with an oriel window over the road, and some charming panelling in one of the upper rooms. In the dining-room, also panelled, is a small door by the side of the fireplace, with steps leading down to an underground passage,—said to lead to Lower Edmonton Church, nearly a mile distant. The writer has seen it many times, as the present tenant is most kind in showing the house ; but he had it bricked up when he went there some twenty years ago, as he feared that his children might be lost in it, so no further investigation was possible. Close by is a fine old mansion, Bury Hall, inhabited in Charles I.'s reign by Bradshaw the lawyer, who drew up the King's indictment. There was a tradition in the neighbourhood that a secret passage ran from Bury Hall to another large house at Upper Edmonton, two miles away; but as the other house was pulled down eight or nine years ago that can only be cited as a tradition. It was supposed these passages were made at the time of the war between King and Parliament, as many Puritans lived in that part of the
Previous page
