CHAPTER IV.

This picture is not over-coloured; and it is to the following occurrence in the main Fulham Road that the removal of these offensive exhibitions is to be attributed. Two or three fashionable parsons, who had sacrificed superabundantly to the jolly god at Fulham, returning to London, where they desired to arrive quickly, had intellect enough to discover that the driver of their post-chaise did not make his horses proceed at a pace equal to their wishes, and, after in vain urging him to more speed, one of them declared that, if he did not use his whip with better effect, he should be made an example of for the public benefit, and hanged up at the first gibbet. The correctness of the old saying, that “when the head is hot thehand is ready,” was soon verified by the postboy being desired to stop at the gibbet opposite Walnut-tree Walk, which order, unluckily for himself, he obeyed, instead of proceeding at a quicker pace. Out sprung the inmates of his chaise; they seized him, bound him hand and foot, and throwing a rope, which they had fastened round his body, over the gibbet, he soon found himself, in spite of his cries and entreaties, elevated in air beside the tarred remains of the Chelsea pensioner.

The reverend perpetrators of the deed drove off, leaving the luckless postboy to protest, loudly and vainly, to “the dull, cold ear of death,” against the loathsome companionship. When the first market-gardener’s cart passed by, most lustily did he call for help; but every effort to get free only tended to prolong his suspense. What could the carters and other early travellers imagine upon hearing shouts proceeding from the gibbet, but that the identical murderer of Mr. Knight had by some miracle come to life, and now called out, “Stop! stop!” with the intention of robbing and murdering them also? And they, feeling that supernatural odds were against them, ran forwards or backwards, not daring to look behind, as fast as their feet could carry alarmed and bewildered heads, leaving the fate of their carts to the sagacity of the horses. Finding that the louder he called for help the more alarm he excited, the suspended postboy determined philosophically to endure the misery of his situation in dignified silence. But there he was suffered to hang unnoticed; or, if remarked, it was only concluded that another criminal had been added to the gibbet, as its second tassel. Thecircumstance, however, of a second body having been placed there speedily came to the knowledge of a magistrate in the neighbourhood, who had taken an active part in the apprehension of Mr. Knight’s murderers; and he proceeded, without delay, to the spot, that he might satisfy himself as to the correctness of the report. Judge, however, his astonishment on hearing himself addressed by name from the gibbet, and implored, in the most piteous manner, to deliver from bondage a poor postboy, whose only offence was that he would not goad on two overworked horses to humour a pair of drunken gentlemen. These “drunken gentlemen” are said to have been men of rank and influence: their names have never transpired, but the outrage with which they were charged led to the immediate removal from the Fulham Road of the last pair of gibbets which disgraced it.

Upon the ground which was occupied by the gibbet where the kind-hearted postboy was strung up, a solitary cottage stood some years ago; and tradition asserted, that both the murderer and his gibbet were buried beneath it.Solitary cottageThis cottage is now pulled down; Lansdowne Villas and Hollywood Place have been erected on the spot, and villas and groves continue to the ‘Gunter Arms,’ a public-house thattakes its name from Richard Gunter, the well-known confectioner, by the side of which is Gunter Grove. This is now the starting-point of the Brompton omnibuses, which formerly did not go beyond Queen’s Elm. Edith Grove, a turning between Lansdowne Villas and Gunter Grove, is in a direct line with Cremorne Gardens.

Proceeding on our road towards Fulham, the next point which claims attention is the extensive inclosure of the West of London and Westminster Cemetery Company,—a company incorporated by act of parliament 1st of Victoria, cap. 180. The burial-ground was consecrated on the 12th of June, 1840, and extends from the Fulham Road to what is called, generally, “Sir John Scott Lillie’s Road,” and sometimes “Brompton Lane Road,” which, in fact, is a continuation, to North End, Fulham, of the line of the Old Brompton Road,—the point, as the reader may recollect, that we turned off from at the Bell and Horns, in order to follow the main Fulham Road to Little Chelsea. The public way on the east of the burial-ground is called Honey Lane, and on the west the boundary is the pathway by the side of the Kensington Canal. The architect of the chapel and catacombs is Mr. Benjamin Baud. The cemetery is open for public inspection, free of charge, from seven in the morning till sunset, except on Sundays, when it is closed till half-past one o’clock. The first interment took place on the 18th of June, 1840, from which time, to the 22nd of November, there were thirty-four burials, the average number being then four per week. It is scarcely necessary to add, that a considerable average increase has taken place; but the first step in statistics is always curious.

One of the most interesting instances of longevity which the annals of the West of London and Westminster Cemetery Company present occurs on a stone in the north-east corner of the burial-ground, where the age recorded of Louis Pouchée is 108; but this does not agree with the burial entry made by the Rev. Stephen Reid Cattley—“Louis Pouchée, of St. Martin’s in the Fields, viz., 40 Castle Street, Leicester Square, buried Feb. 21, 1843, aged 107.”

This musical patriarch, however, according to a statement in the ‘Medical Times,’[128]was admitted as a patient to St. George’s Hospital November 24, 1842. January 4, went out, and died, about three months afterwards, of diarrhoea and dysentery.

Another instance of longevity, though not so extraordinary, is one which cannot be contemplated without feeling how much influence the consciousness of honest industry in the human mind has upon the health and happiness of the body. A gravestone near a public path on the south-east side of the burial-ground marks the last resting place of Francis Nicholson, landscape-painter, who died the 6th March, 1844, aged 91 years.

Mr. Nicholson originally practised as a portrait-painter, but the simplicity and uprightness of his heart did not permit him to tolerate or pander to the vanities of man (and woman) kind. To flatter was with him an utter impossibility; and, as he could not invariably consider the “human face divine,” he was incapable of assuming the courtly manners so essential in that branch of theprofession. He never, indeed, quite forgave himself for an approach to duplicity committed at this time upon an unfortunate gentleman, who sat to him for his portrait, and who squinted so desperately, that in order to gain a likeness it was necessary to copy moderately the defect. The poor man, it seemed, perfectly unconscious of the same, on being invited to inspect the performance, looked in silence upon it a few moments, and, with rather a disappointed air, said—

“I don’t know—it seems to me—does it squint?”

“Squint!” replied Nicholson, “no more than you do.”

“Really! well, you know best of course; but I declare I fancied there was aqueer lookabout it!”

The opening of the Water-Colour Exhibition, in 1805, may be dated as the commencement of Mr. Nicholson’s fame and success in London. In conjunction with Glover, Varley, Prout, and others, an advance in the art of watercolour painting was made, such as to astonish and call forth the admiration of the public.

In a manuscript autobiography which Mr. Nicholson left behind him, and which is full of curious anecdotes, he gives the following account of the formation of that exhibition.

“Messrs. Hills and Pyne asked me to join in the attempt to establish such a society, which I readily agreed to. It was a long time before a number of members sufficient to produce so many works as would be required to cover the walls of the exhibition room in Brook Street could be brought to join it. Artists were afraid they might suffer loss by renting and fitting up the room, the expense being certain and the success very doubtful. After a great while the society was formed, and, in the first and second exhibition, the sale of drawings was soconsiderable, and the visitors so numerous, that crowds of those who had refused to join were eager to be admitted into the society.”

Nicholson’s GraveSince the annexed sketch of Mr. Nicholson’s grave was taken, the stone bears the two additional melancholy inscriptions of Thomas Crofton Croker, son-in-law of Francis Nicholson, who died 8th August, 1854, and Marianne, widow of Thomas Crofton Croker, who died 6th October, 1854; and an iron railing has been erected on either side of the grave.

St. Mark’s ChapelOpposite to the Cemetery gates is Veitch’s Royal Exotic Nursery.

St. Mark’s Chapel, within the grounds of the college, stands opposite to St. Mark’s Terrace, a row of modern houses immediately beyond the cemetery. The grounds extend to the King’s Road, and contain about eleven acres, surrounded by a brick wall; and the entrance to the National Society’s training college is from that road.Stanley House, or Stanley Grove House, which was purchased in 1840 for upwards of £9000 by the society, stood upon the site of a house which Sir Arthur Gorges, the friend of Spenser, allegorically named by him Alcyon,[131]built for his own residence; and upon the death of whose first wife, a daughter of Viscount Bindon, in 1590, the poet wrote a beautiful elegy, entitled ‘Daphnaida.’ In the Sydney papers mention is made, under date 15th November, 1599, that, “as the queen passed by the faire new building, Sir Arthur Gorges presented her with a faire jewell.” He died in 1625; and by his widow, the daughter of the Earl of Lincoln, the house and adjacent land, then called the “Brickhills,” was sold, in 1637, to their only daughter, Elizabeth, the widow of Sir Robert Stanley; which sale was confirmed by her mother’s will, dated 18th July, 1643. The Stanley family continued to reside here until 1691, when by the death of William Stanley, Esq., that branch of this family became extinct in the male line.

The present house, a square mansion, was built soon afterwards; and the old wall, propped by several buttresses, inclosing the west side of the grounds, existed on the bank of the Kensington Canal until it was washed down by a very high tide. This new or square mansion remained unfinished and unoccupied for several years. In 1724 it belonged to Henry Arundel, Esq. and on the 24th May, 1743, Admiral Sir Charles Wager, a distinguished naval officer, died here, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. After passing through several hands,Stanley Grove became the property of Miss Southwell, afterwards the wife of Sir James Eyre, Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, who sold it in 1777 to the Countess of Strathmore.

Here her ladyship indulged her love for botany by building extensive hot-houses and conservatories, and collecting and introducing into England rare exotics.

“She had purchased,” says her biographer, “a fine old mansion, with extensive grounds well walled in, and there she had brought exotics from the Cape, and was in a way of raising continually an increase to her collection, when, by her fatal marriage, the cruel spoiler came and threw them, like loathsome weeds, away.”

Mr. Lochee, before mentioned, purchased Stanley Grove from the Countess of Strathmore and her husband, Mr. Bowes. It was afterwards occupied by Dr. Richard Warren, the eminent physician, who died in 1797, and who is said to have acquired by the honourable practice of his profession no less a sum than £150,000. In January 1808, Mr. Leonard Morse, of the War Office, died at his residence, Stanley House, and about 1815 it was purchased by the late Mr. William Richard Hamilton, who ranks as one of the first scholars and antiquaries of his day. Between that year and 1840 Mr. Hamilton resided here at various periods, having occasionally let it. He made a considerable addition to the house by building a spacious room as a wing on the east side, in the walls of which casts from the frieze and metopes of the Elgin marbles were let in.

When Mr. Hamilton proceeded as envoy to the court of Naples in 1821, Stanley Grove House became the residenceof Mrs. Gregor, and is thus described by Miss Burney, who was an inmate at this time, in the following playful letter[133]to a friend, dated 24th September, 1821:—

“Whilst you have been traversing sea and land, scrambling up rocks and shuddering beside precipices, I have been stationary, with no other variety than such as turning to the right instead of the left when walking in the garden, or sometimes driving into town through Westminster, and, at other times, through Piccadilly. Poor Miss Gregor continues to be a complete invalid, and, for her sake, we give up all society at home and all engagements abroad. Luckily, the house, rented by Mrs. Gregor from William Hamilton, Esq. (who accompanied Lord Elgin into Greece) abounds with interesting specimens in almost every branch of the fine arts. Here are statues, casts from the frieze of the Parthenon, pictures, prints, books, and minerals;fourpianofortes of different sizes, and an excellent harp. All this to study does Desdemona (that’s me) seriously incline; and the more I study the more I want to know and to see. In short, I am crazy to travel in Greece! The danger is that some good-for-nothing bashaw should seize upon me to poke me into his harem, there to bury my charms for life, and condemn me for ever to blush unseen. However, I could easily strangle or stab him, set fire to his castle, and run away by the light of it, accompanied by some handsome pirate, with whom I might henceforward live at my ease in a cavern on the sea-shore, dressing his dinners one moment, and my own sweet person the next in pearls and rubies, stolen by him, during some of his plundering expeditions, from the fair throat and arms of a shrieking Circassian beauty, whose lord he had knocked on the head. Till these genteel adventures of mine begin, I beg you to believe me, dear Miss ---,“Yours most truly,“S. H. Burney.”

“Yours most truly,“S. H. Burney.”

Theodore Hook notes, in one of his manuscript journals, “5th July, 1826. W. Hamilton’s party. Stanley Grove.”

About 1828, Stanley Grove was occupied by theMarquess of Queensberry; and, in 1830–31, by Colonel Grant, at the rent, it was said, of £1000 per annum.

On the west side of the house the National Society added a quadrangle, built in the Italian style after the design of Mr. Blore; and, in the grounds near the chapel, an octagonal building as a Practising School, for teaching the poor children of the neighbourhood.

Practising School

Crossing the Kensington Canal over Sandford Bridge,Sandford Bridgesometimes written “Stanford” and “Stamford,” we enterthe parish of Fulham. The road turning off on the west side of the canal is called “Bull Lane;” and a little further on a footway existed not long since, known as Bull Alley; both of which passages led into the King’s Road, and took their names from the Bull public-house, which stood between them in that road.Bull AlleyBull Alley is now converted into a good-sized street, called Stamford Road, which has a public-house (the Rising Sun) on one side, and a bookseller’s shop on the other. Here, for a few years, was a turnpike, which has been recently removed and placed lower down the road, adjoining the Swan Tavern and Brewery, Walham Green, established 1765.No. 4, No. 3 Stamford VillasHouses are being built in all directions opposite several “single and married houses,” with small gardens in front and the rear, known asStamford Villas, where, at No. 2, resided, in 1836 and 1837, Mr. H. K. Browne, better known, perhaps, by hissobriquetof “Phiz,” as an illustrator of popular periodical works.

No. 3 and No. 4 are shown in the annexed cut, and No. 3 may be noticed as having been the residence of Mr. Kempe, the author of ‘A History ofSt. Martin-le-Grand,’ the editor of the ‘Losely Papers,’ and a constant contributor, under the signature of A. J. K., to the antiquarian lore of the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine.’ Mr. Kempe died here on 21st August, 1846. The three last houses of the Stamford Villas are not “wedded to each other,” and in the garden of the one nearest London, Mr. Hampton, who made an ascent in a balloon from Cremorne, on the 13th June, 1839, with every reasonable prospect of breaking his neck for the amusement of the public, came down by a parachute descent, without injury to himself, although he carried away a brick or two from the chimney of the house, much to the annoyance of the person in charge, who rushed out upon the aeronaut, and told him that he had no business to come in contact with the chimney. His reply exhibited an extraordinary coolness, for he assured the man it was quite unintentional upon his part.

The milestone is opposite the entrance to No. 20 Stamford Villas, which informs the pedestrian that it is one mile to Fulham; and passing Salem Chapel, which is on the right hand side of the main road, we reach the village of Walham Green.

walham green to fulham.

The village of Walham Green, which is distant from Hyde Park Corner between two and a half and three miles, appears to have been first so called soon after the revolution of 1688. Before this, it was known as Wansdon Green, written also Wandon and Wandham; all of which names, according to Lysons, originated from the manor of Wendon, so was the local name written in 1449, which in 1565 was spelled Wandowne. As the name of a low and marshy piece of land on the opposite side of the Thames to Wandsworth, through whichwanderedthe drainage from the higher grounds, or through which the traveller had toWendon(pendan) his way to Fulham; it would not be difficult to enter into speculations as to the Anglo-Saxon origin of the word, but I refrain from placing before the reader my antiquarian ruminations while passing Wansdown House, for few things are more fascinating and deceptive than verbal associations. Indeed, if indulged in to any extent, they might lead an enthusiast to connect in thought the piers of Fulham (bridge) with thePiersofFulham, who, in the fourteenth or fifteenth century, “compyled many praty conceytis in love under covert terms of ffyssyng and ffowlyng;” and which curious poem may be found printed in a collection ofAncient Metrical Tales, edited by the Rev. Charles Henry Hartshorne.[138]

Two of “some ancient houses, erected in 1595, as appeared by a date on the truss in the front of one of them,” were pulled down at Walham Green in 1812; after which the important proceedings in the progress of this village in suburban advancement consisted in the establishment of numerous public-houses; the filling up of a filthy pond, upon the ground gained by which act a chapel-of-ease to Fulham, dedicated to St. John, has been built, after the design of Mr. Taylor, at the estimated expense of £9683 17s. 9d. The first stone was laid on the 1st of January, 1827; and it was consecrated by the Bishop of London on the 14th of August, 1828. This was followed by the building of a charity-school upon an angular patch of green, or common land, where donkeys had been wont to graze, and the village children to play at cricket. Then the parish pound was removed from a corner of the high road, near a basket-maker’s, to a back lane, thereby destroying the travelling joke of “Did you ever see the baskets sold by the pound?” And, finally, Walham Green has assumed a new aspect, from the construction of the Butchers’ Almshouses, the first stone of which was laid by the late Lord Ravensworth, on the 1st of July, 1840. Since that time, fancy-fairs and bazaars, with horticultural exhibitions, have been fashionably patronised at WalhamGreen by omnibus companies, for the support and enlargement of this institution.

“Hail, happy isle! and happier Walham Green!Where all that’s fair and beautiful are seen!Where wanton zephyrs court the ambient air,And sweets ambrosial banish every care;Where thought nor trouble social joy molest,Nor vain solicitude can banish rest.Peaceful and happy here I reign serene,Perplexity defy, and smile at spleen;Belles, beaux, and statesmen, all around me shine;All own me their supreme, me constitute divine;All wait my pleasure, own my awful nod,And change the humble gardener to the god.”

Thus, in the ‘London Magazine’ for June 1749, did Mr. Bartholomew Rocque prophetically apostrophise Walham Green,—the “belles, beaux, and statesmen,” by which he was surrounded being new varieties of flowers, dignified by distinguished names. In 1755, he printed a ‘Treatise on the Cultivation of the Hyacinth, translated from the Dutch;’ and in 1761 an ‘Essay on Lucerne Grass,’, of which an enlarged edition was published in 1764. Mr. Rocque[139]resided in the house occupied by the late Mr. King, opposite to the Red Lion, where Mr. Oliver Pitts now carries on business as builder and carpenter.

Immediately after leaving Walham Green, on the south, or left-hand side, of the main Fulham road, behind a pair of carriage gates, connected by a brick wall, stands themansion of Lord Ravensworth; in outward appearance small and unostentatious, without the slightest attempt at architectural decoration, but sufficiently spacious and attractive to have received the highest honour that can be conferred on the residence of a subject, by her Majesty and Prince Albert having visited the late lord here on the 26th of June, 1840. The grounds at the back of the house, though not extensive, were planted with peculiar skill, care, and taste, by the late Mr. Ord; and on that occasion recalled to memory the words of our old poet, the author of ‘Britannia’s Pastorals,’ William Browne:—

“There stood the elme, whose shade so mildely dymDoth nourish all that groweth under him:Cipresse that like piramides runne topping,And hurt the least of any by the dropping;The alder, whose fat shadow nourishethEach plant set neere to him long flourisheth;The heavie-headed plane-tree, by whose shadeThe grasse grows thickest, men are fresher made;The oak that best endures the thunder-shocks,The everlasting, ebene, cedar, boxe.The olive, that in wainscot never cleaves,The amourous vine which in the elme still weaves;The lotus, juniper, where wormes ne’er enter;The pyne, with whom men through the ocean venture;The warlike yewgh, by which (more than the lance)The strong-arm’d English spirits conquer’d France;Amongst the rest, the tamarisks there stood,For housewives’ besomes only knowne most good;The cold-place-loving birch, and servis-tree;The Walnut-loving vales and mulberry;The maple, ashe, that doe delight in fountains,Which have their currents by the side of mountains;The laurell, mirtle, ivy, date, which holdTheir leaves all winter, be it ne’er so cold;The firre, that oftentimes doth rosin drop;The beech, that scales the welkin with his top:All these and thousand more within this grove,By all the industry of nature stroveTo frame an arbour that might keepe within itThe best of beauties that the world hath in it.”

Since the royal visit, Lord Ravensworth’s residence has been calledPercy Cross, but no reason has been assigned for the alteration of name from Purser’s Cross, which is mentioned as a point “on the Fulham road between Parson’s Green and Walham Green,” so far back as 1602, and at which we shall presently arrive.View of Percy CrossNo connection whatever that I am aware of exists between the locality and the Percy family, and it only affords another, very recent local example of what has been as happily as quaintly termed “the curiosity of change.” The most favourable aspect of the house is, perhaps, the view gained of it from a neighbouring garden across a piece of water called Eel Brook, which ornaments an adjacent meadow.

John Ord, Esq., the creator of Lord Ravensworth’s London residence, is better known as “Master Ord.” He was the only son of Robert Ord, Chief Baron of the Court of Exchequer in Scotland. In 1746 Mr. Ord entered Trinity College, Cambridge, and in 1762, vacated a lay fellowshipby marriage with Eleanor, the second daughter of John Simpson, Esq., of Bradley, in the county of Durham. After being called to the bar, Mr. Ord practised in the Court of Chancery; and, in 1774, was returned to parliament as member for Midhurst. In 1778 he was appointed Master of Chancery; and the next session, when returned member for Hastings, was chosen chairman of “Ways and Means,” in which situation his conduct gave much satisfaction. Mr. Ord retired from parliament in 1790, and in 1809 resigned his office of Master in Chancery, and that of Attorney-General for Lancaster the following year, when “he retired to a small place at Purser’s Cross, in the parish of Fulham, where he had early in life amused himself in horticultural pursuits, and where there are several foreign trees of his own raising remarkable both for their beauty and size.”

Lysons, in 1795, says—

“While I am speaking upon this subject” (the trees planted by Bishop Compton in the gardens of Fulham Palace), “it would he unpardonable to omit the mention of a very curious garden near Walham Green in this parish, planted, since the year 1756, by its present proprietor, John Ord, Esq., Master in Chancery. It is not a little extraordinary that this garden should, within the space of forty years (such have been the effects of good management and a fertile soil), have produced trees which are now the finest of their respective kinds in the kingdom. As a proof of this may be mentioned thesophora Japonica, planted anno 1756, then about two feet high, now eight feet in girth, and about forty in height; a standardGinkotree, planted about the year 1767, two feet three inches in girth; and an Illinois walnut, two feet two inches in girth, growing where it was sown about the year 1760. Among other trees, very remarkable also for their growth, though not to be spoken of as the largest of their kind, are a black walnut-tree (sown anno 1757), about forty feet high, and five feet four inches in girth; a cedar of Libanus (planted in1756), eight feet eight inches in girth; a willow-leaved oak (sown anno 1757), four feet in girth; the Rhus Vernix, or varnish sumach, four feet in girth; and a stone pine of very singular growth. Its girth at one foot from the ground is six feet four inches; at that height it immediately begins to branch out, and spreads, at least, twenty-one feet on each side, forming a large bush of about fourteen yards in diameter.”

The second edition of Lysons’ ‘Environs of London’ appeared in 1810, when the measurement of these trees, in June 1808 and December 1809, was placed in apposition. Faulkner’s ‘History of Fulham,’ published in 1813, carries on the history of their growth for three years more; but as, from the marginal pencil note signed J. M., and dated January 1835 in Lysons’, I am led to conclude that some of these interesting trees exist no longer, the following tabular view compiled from these sources may not be unacceptable to the naturalist, who is well aware that

“Not small the praise the skilful planter claims,From his befriended country.”

About the time of Mr. Ord’s death, 6th June, 1814, his garden contained much that is remarkable in horticulture:—

“There was,” we are told, “a good collection of American plants; amongst others, a fineAndromeda Arborea, planted about eight inches high in March 1804; and now (1812) eleven feet eight inches high.“TheGlastonbury Thornflowered here on Christmas day, 1793.“In the kitchen garden is (1812) a moss-rose, which has been much admired. Many years ago Mr. Ord ordered his gardener to lay a moss-rose, which, when done, he thought looked so well, he would not allow the layers to be taken off, but laid them down year after year, till it covered the ground it does at present, viz. a diameter of forty-seven feet; want of room has confined it to its present size for several years.”

“TheGlastonbury Thornflowered here on Christmas day, 1793.

“In the kitchen garden is (1812) a moss-rose, which has been much admired. Many years ago Mr. Ord ordered his gardener to lay a moss-rose, which, when done, he thought looked so well, he would not allow the layers to be taken off, but laid them down year after year, till it covered the ground it does at present, viz. a diameter of forty-seven feet; want of room has confined it to its present size for several years.”

Girth at 3 feet from the ground in 1793

Girth in June 1808

Girth in December 1809

Girth in 1812 (Faulkner)

Girth in Jan 1835 J.M.

f. i.

Sophora japonica,[144a]in 1809, about 50 feet in height; it flowered for the first time in August 1807, and has continued to flower the two succeeding years.

8 0

9 4

9 7½

10 1

0 0

Ginko-tree(Ginko biloba, standard) about 37 feet high.

2 3

3 6

3 9

3 10

0 0

A tree from an Illinois-nut, given by Mr. Aiton to Mr. Ord, about 40 feet high.[144b]

2 2

2 10

2 11

3 0

0 0

A black walnut-tree, (juglans niger), sown where it stands in 1757, about 64 feet high in 1809.

5 4

6 11[144c]

7 3

10 0

A cedar of Lebanon, when planted being two years old, in 1809 being about 55 feet high.

8 8

9 11[144d]

9 9

10 0

A willow-leaved oak, sown in 1757.

4 0

5 5[144e]

5 7

5 10

Therhus vernix, or varnish sumach.

4 0

4 10

5 1

Fraxinus ornus, which is covered with flowers every year.

3 10

Gleditsia triacanthus, sown in 1759, produced pods 2 feet long in 1780, but the seeds imperfect.

4 8

Acacia common, sown in 1757, planted where it stands in 1758.

7 7

Ilex

6 9

Tulip-tree, sown where it stands in 1758, first flowered in 1782.

5 6

Cyprus deciduus, sown in 1760

5 6

Corylus colurna(Constantinople hazel), between 30 and 40 feet high, bears fruit, but imperfect.

3 2

Virginian cedar, (red) sown in 1758

4 0

Guilandina dioica, orbonduc

2 1

Juglans alba, or white hickory.

3 1

Lombardy, orPo poplar, a cutting in 1766 near 100 feet high.

10 0

Poplar, planted in 1772

8 6

Another column headed 1845, carrying out this view, would be an important addition to statistical observation.

Two agaves, or American aloes, flowered in Mr. Ord’s greenhouse in the summer of 1812, one of which was a beautiful striped variety. The plants had been there since the year 1756. Amid all these delightful associations, there is one melancholy event connected with the place. On the night of the 9th September, 1807, a fire broke out in the garden-house of Mr. Ord’s residence (a cottage upon the site of the present stables): the flame raged so furiously as to burn the principal gardener, an old and valued servant, almost to ashes before any help could be afforded to him. Upon the following Sunday (13th), the Rev. John Owen, the then curate of Fulham, preached so effective a sermon upon the uncertainty of the morrow,[145]that having printed a large impression “without any loss to himself,” a second edition appeared on the 3rd of the following month.

In the second volume of the ‘Transactions of the Horticultural Society,’ a beautifully-coloured representation of ‘Ord’s apple’ may be found, illustrative of Mr. Salisbury’s communication respecting it, which was read to the Society on the 17th of January, 1817. After acknowledging his obligations to Mrs. Anne Simpson, the sister of Mrs. Ord, and who Mr. Salisbury represents as “being as fond of gardening as her late brother-in-law, Mr. Ord,” it is stated that,—

“About forty years ago, the late John Ord, Esq. raised, in his garden atPurser’s Cross, near Fulham, an apple-tree from the seed of the New-town pippin, imported from North America. When this tree began to bear, its fruit, though without any external beauty, proved remarkably good, and had a peculiar quality, namely, amelting softness in eating, so that it might be said almost to dissolve in the mouth. The late Mr. Lee, of Hammersmith, often had grafts of this tree, and he sold the plant so raised first with the name of Ord’s apple, and subsequently with the name of New-town pippin. . . . .“This seedling tree,” continues Mr. Salisbury, “is now (1817) of large dimensions, its trunk being four feet four inches round at a yard above the ground; but it has of late years been very unhealthy, and scarcely borne any fruit worth gathering, its roots having, no doubt, penetrated into a stratum of unfavourable soil.”

“This seedling tree,” continues Mr. Salisbury, “is now (1817) of large dimensions, its trunk being four feet four inches round at a yard above the ground; but it has of late years been very unhealthy, and scarcely borne any fruit worth gathering, its roots having, no doubt, penetrated into a stratum of unfavourable soil.”

Mrs. Anne Simpson sowed some pippins from this remarkable tree,—

“And two of the healthiest seedlings of this second generation were planted out to remain in the kitchen-garden, which are now (1817) about twenty years old. One of these trees began to bear fruit very soon, which is not unlike that of its parent in shape, with a thin skin; and, being a very good apple, grafts of it have been distributed about the metropolis with the name ofSimpson’s pippin. The other seedling of the second generation was several years longer in bearing fruit; and, when it did, the apples were quite of a different shape, being long, with a thick skin and poor flavour, and so numerous as to be all very small. Of late years, however, they have gradually improved so much in flavour, as to become a remarkably spirited, juicy apple, attaining a good size, which has probably been promoted by thinning them, though a full crop has always been left upon the tree; and they are now greatly esteemed by all who taste them.”

This apple is in perfection for eating from Christmas to the middle of March. The skin is thick, and always of a green colour while on the tree, but tinged with copper-coloured red, and several darker spots on the sunny side; after the fruit has been gathered some time, the green colour changes to a yellowish cast. It may be mentioned that, before the death of the late Lord Ravensworth, the house was inhabited by those celebrated artistes, Madame Grisi and Signor Mario.

On the opposite side of the road to Lord Ravensworth’s, and a few yards beyond it, on the way to Fulham, is Walham Lodge, formerly Park Cottage, a modern well-built house, which stands within extensive grounds, surrounded by a brick wall. This was for some years the residence of Mr. Brand, the eminent chemist, who particularly distinguished himself by the course of lectures which he delivered on geology, at the Royal Institution, in 1816; and which may be dated as the popular starting point of that branch of scientific inquiry in this country.

A house, now divided into two, and called Dungannon House and Albany Lodge, abuts upon the western boundary wall of the grounds of Walham Lodge.Dungannon House—Albany LodgeTradition stoutly asserts that this united cottage and villa were, previous to their division, known by the name ofBolingbroke Lodge, and that here Pope did, more than once,

“Awake my St. John,”

by an early morning visit.

At Albany Lodge, the farthest part of the old house in our view (then Heckfield Villa), resided Mr. Milton, before-mentioned as having lived at Heckfield Lodge, Little Chelsea; both of which names were introduced on the Fulham Road, from that gentleman’s attachment to the name of his reverend father’s living, near Basingstoke.

Dungannon House formerly went by the name of Acacia Cottage, and was so called from a tree in the garden. It was for many years the country residence of Mr. Joseph Johnson, of St. Paul’s Churchyard, a publisher worthy of literary regard; and here he died on the 20th of December, 1809. He was born at Liverpool, in 1738; and, after serving an apprenticeship in London, commenced business as a medical bookseller, upon Fish Street Hill; “a situation he chose as being in the track of the medical students resorting to the hospitals in the Borough, and which probably was the foundation of his connexions with many eminent members of that profession.”

Having entered into partnership, he removed to Paternoster Row, where his house and stock were destroyed by fire, in 1770: after which, feeling the advantage of a peculiar locality, he carried on business alone, until the time of his death, at the house which all juvenile readers who recollect the caterers for their amusement and instruction will remember as that of “Harris and Co., corner of St. Paul’s Churchyard.” This step was considered at the time, by “the trade,” as a bold and inconsiderate measure; but it was successfully imitated by the late Mr. Murray, in his removal from Fleet Street to Albemarle Street; and, indeed, John Murray, as a publisher, seems only to have been a fearless copyist, in many matters, of Joseph Johnson. Whether, as a tradesman, he was judicious or not in so doing, is a question upon which there may be two opinions; but there can be no hesitation about the perfect application of Dr. Aikin’s words to both parties:—

“The character Mr. Johnson established by his integrity, goodsense, and honourable principles of dealing, soon raised him to eminence as a publisher; and many of the most distinguished names in science and literature during the last half century appear in works which he ushered to the world.”

The imprint of Johnson is to be found upon the title-pages which first introduced Cowper and Darwin to notice:—

“The former of these, with the diffidence, and perhaps the despondency, of his character, had actually, by means of a friend, made over to him (Johnson) his two volumes of poems, on no other condition than that of securing him from expense; but when the public, which neglected the first volume, had discovered the rich mine opened in theTask, and assigned the author his merited place among the first-rate English poets, Mr. Johnson would not avail himself of his advantage, but displayed a liberality which has been warmly acknowledged by that admirable, though unfortunate, person.”

A score of equally generous anecdotes might be told of Murray. In one particular, however, there was, as publishers, a decided difference between the views of Johnson and Murray. Those of Johnson are at present in the ascendancy; but they may produce a revolution in favour of the opinion of John Murray against cheap literature. Johnson was the opponent of typographical luxury. Murray, on the contrary, supported the aristocracy of the press, until obliged, “by the pressure from without,” in some degree to compromise his views by the publication of the ‘Family Library.’

In the wing (comparatively speaking a modern addition) attached to this house, and in the room where Mr. Johnson died, is a remarkable chimney-piece, of a monumental character; but I can learn nothing respecting it.

The history of Dungannon House when Acacia Cottage, could we procure a correct record of all the ideas whichChimney-piecehave passed through the human mind within its walls, respecting literature and art, would form a chronicle of singular interest. The late Mr. Hullmandel, well known as one of the most experienced and successful practitioners of lithography in England, resided here in 1839 and 1840, when he discovered a new process in his favourite art, by simple mental reasoning, upon the application of the process of copperplate aquatint to lithographic purposes. For this discovery—and it is one of considerable importance—he subsequently took out a patent, under the name of lithotint. Ever since the infancy of lithography, hundreds of persons connected with the art, beginning with its inventor himself, Senefelder, had endeavoured to produce impressions from stone of subjects executed with the brush, in the same manner as drawings are made with sepia, or Indian ink.And it was natural enough that artists should have made every effort to supersede the tedious and elaborate process by which alone a liquid could be rendered available for the purpose of drawing on stone. The mode of drawing technically called “the ink style,” consists merely of a series of lines, some finer, some thicker, executed on the white surface of the stone, with ink dissolved in water, by means of a fine sable or a steel pen, in imitation of an etching on copper. All attempts, however, at producing variety of tints, by using the ink thicker or thinner, failed,—the fainter lines either disappearing altogether, or printing as dark as thick ones. In every attempt made to use this ink as a wash, the result was still more disastrous, producing only one dirty mass of indistinctness, amid which the original drawing was scarcely to be traced. For twenty years did Mr. Hullmandel labour to attain some mode of printing drawings, made by a series of washes, with a brush, on stone, feeling this to be the great desideratum in the art. Lithographers in Germany, in France, and in this country, had pronounced it to be “utterly impossible;” when the idea suddenly flashed upon him, that, if he could effect a minute granulation of the ink, by treating it as a copperplate engraver would the ground of an aquatint plate, the relative strength of the different washes might be preserved. He hastened from Acacia Cottage to his printing-office in London, to put his theory into practice, and was rewarded by the most satisfactory results.

Since that period, several prints, by this process of lithotint, were produced by Mr. Hullmandel, from drawings made by Harding, Nash, Haghe, Walton, and other cleverartists, in which all the raciness, the smartness, and the beauty of touch, are apparent, which hitherto could only be found in the original drawing.Arundel House—frontArundel House—backIn fact, lithotint was not a translation, but a multiplication of the original; and its discovery, or, rather, the proper application of knowledge, became an eventful era in the history of the fine arts.

Arundel House, a few yards beyond Dungannon House, stands on the same side of the road, opposite to Parson’s Green Lane, which leads to the King’s Road. It is a house of considerable antiquity, judging from the stone mullions brought to light by some repairs,—probably as old as the time of Henry VIII.; although the brick front, as shown above, appears to be the work of the latter part of the seventeenth century.

The back of Arundel House is quite different in character, and retains anold porch leading into the garden. At the farther end of the garden a venerable yew-tree arbour exists; and notArundel House porch and Yew Tree Arbourfar from it used to stand a picturesque old pump, with the date 1758 close to the spout; which pump is now removed, and a new one put in its place. Upon a leaden cistern at the back of Arundel House, the following monogram occurs beneath an earl’s coronet, with the date 1703:—Old Pump and monogramNotwithstanding that this is obviously compounded of the letters L. I. C., or C. I. L., and at the first glance with theconnexion of an earl’s coronet and a date would appear to present no difficulty respecting the correct appropriation, I must confess my inability to state to whom the monogram belonged. For the name of Arundel I am equally unable to account. No mention whatever is made of this house by Mr. Faulkner; nor does the name of Arundel occur in the parish records of Fulham, although in 1724, as before mentioned, Stanley Grove House appears to have been in the possession of Henry Arundel. In the midst of this obscurity, the residence of the late Mr. Hallam, the historian, who occupied Arundel House in 1819, invests it with a literary association of interest.

On the opposite side of the road is the carriage entrance to Park House, which stands in Parson’s Green Lane. A stone tablet has been let into one of the piers of the gateway, inscribed

Purser’s Cross,7th August,1738.

This date has reference to an occurrence which the monthly chronologer in the ‘London Magazine’ thus relates:—

“An highwayman having committed several robberies on Finchley Common, was pursued to London, when he thought himself safe, but was, in a little time, discovered at a public-house in Burlington Gardens, refreshing himself and his horse; however, he had time to remount, and rode through Hyde Park, in which there were several gentlemen’s servants airing their horses, who, taking the alarm, pursued him closely as far as Fulham Fields, where, finding no probability of escaping, he threw money among some country people who were at work in the field, and told them they would soon see the end of an unfortunate man. He had no sooner spoke these words but he pulledout a pistol, clapped it to his ear, and shot himself directly, before his pursuers could prevent him. The coroner’s inquest brought in their verdict, and he was buried in a cross road, with a stake drove through him; but ’twas not known who he was.”[155a]

In the ‘Beauties of England and Wales,’ “Purser’s Cross” is said to have been corrupted from “Parson’s Cross,” and the vicinity of Parson’s Green is mentioned in support of the conjecture. However, that Purser, and not Percy Cross, has been for many years the usual mode of writing the name of this locality is established by the ‘Annual Register’ for 1781, where the following remarkable coincidence is mentioned:—

“Died, 30th December, 1780, at Purser’s Cross, Fulham, Mrs. Elizabeth and Mrs. Frances Turberville, in the seventy-seventh year of their ages, of ancient and respectable west country family; they were twin sisters, and both died unmarried. What adds to the singularity of this circumstance, they were both born the same day, never were known to live separate, died within a few days of each other, and were interred on the same day.”

Park House presents a fac-simile of an old mansion which stood precisely on the same site, and was known as Quibus Hall, a name, as is conjectured, bestowed upon it in consequence of some dispute respecting possession between the coheirs of Sir Michael Wharton, who died about 1725.[155b]When rebuilt by Mr. Holland for the late Mr. Powell, it was called High Elms House, and was for some time occupied as a school, conducted by the Rev.Thomas Bowen, who published in 1798 ‘Thoughts on the Necessity of Moral Discipline in Prisons.’ After Mr. Bowen’s death in the following year, his widow, with the assistance of the Rev. Joshua Ruddock, carried on the establishment until 1825, since which time Park House became the occasional residence of Mr. Powell, of Quex, in the Isle of Thanet, until his death in 1849. A cottage opposite (formerly “Brunswick Cottage”) was called “Rosamond’s Bower,” during the time the late Mr. Crofton Croker lived in it (1837–46).

In a privately printed description of this cottage, when the residence of Mr. Croker, of which but a very few copies were distributed to his friends, Mr. Croker himself writes:—

“In what, it may be asked, originates the romantic name of ‘Rosamond’s Bower?’ A question I shall endeavour to answer. The curious reader will find from Lysons’ ‘Environs of London’ (II. 359), that the manor of Rosamonds is an estate near Parson’s Green, in theOld Rosamond’s Bower and Park House, from a Sketch made about 1750parish of Fulham. Lysons adds, ‘the site of the mansion belonging to this estate, now (1795) rented by a gardener, is said, by tradition, to have been a palace of Fair Rosamond.’ There seems to be, however, no foundation beyond the name for this tradition, and it is unnoticed by Faulkner in his ‘History of Fulham,’ published in 1813. He merely mentions, adjoining High Elms, or Park House, an old dwelling, which ‘ancient house,’ continues Faulkner, ‘appears to be of the age of Elizabeth, and is commonly called Rosamond’s Bower.’ This ‘ancient house’ was taken down by Mr. Powell, in the year 1826, and the present stables of Park House are built upon the site. But I have recently learned that the name of ‘Rosamond’s Dairy’ is still attached to an old house probably built between two and three hundred years, which stands a little way back from the high-road at the north-west corner of Parson’s Green.“I have always felt with Dr. Johnson that relics are venerable things, and are onlynotto be worshipped. When, therefore, I took my cottage, in 1837, and was told that the oak staircase in it had belonged to the veritable ‘Rosamond’s Bower,’ and was the only relic of it that existed; and when I found that the name had no longer a precise ‘local habitation’ in Fulham, I ventured, purely from motives of respect for the memory of the past, and not from any affectation of romance, to revive an ancient parochial name which had been suffered to die out, ‘like the snuff of a candle.’ In changing its precise situation, in transferring it from one side of Parson’s Green Lane to the other, a distance, however, not fifty yards from the original site, I trust when called upon to show cause for the transfer, to be reasonably supported by the history of the old oak staircase. Indeed I may here venture to assert that the change of name from ‘Brunswick Cottage,’—so was ‘Rosamond’s Bower’ called when I took it,—and the assumption of that name, if contrasted with the name changing and name travelling fashion of the district, is a proceeding in which I am fully borne out by numerous precedents.“Miss Edgeworth, in her reply, dated 31st January, 1840, to the letter of a juvenile correspondent (then nine years of age) inquires, ‘Is Rosamond’s Bower a real name?’ And I well remember the gestures and even some of the jests which the omnibus passengers made when ‘Rosamond’s Bower’ was first painted upon the stone caps of the gate piers, such as Father Prout’s ‘Rosy-man’s Bower near theWhiteSheaf’ (Wheatsheaf). But the novelty wore off in a week ortwo, and the name has long since ceased to be an object of speculation to any but the inquisitive. For their information I may state, that in the time of Elizabeth all the gardeners’ cottages in this neighbourhood were called bowers. It was the Saxon term for a room, and, therefore, applied to the dwelling occupied by the labouring class. And Rosamond, or Rosaman, is said to have been the name of a family of gardeners bestowed upon the district which they had long cultivated—possibly a sobriquet derived from the fame of their roses in times when that flower was a badge of party distinction. . . . It only remains for me to add, that ‘Rosamond’s Bower’ stands 22 feet back from the high road, and has a small garden or court before it, measuring, exclusive of the stable-yard, 63 feet. The garden behind the house is of that form called a gore, gradually narrowing from 63 to 22 feet, in a distance of 550 feet or 183 yards—five turns up and down which ‘long walk’ may be reckoned, by exercise meters, ‘a full mile,’ it being 73 yards over and above the distance, an ample allowance for ten short turnings. Of the old ‘Rosamond’s Bower’ three representations have been preserved; two of these are pen-and-ink sketches by Mr. Doherty, made about the middle of the last century, one of which is an authority for the name of Pershouse Cross. The third view appears in a well-executed aquatint plate of ‘Fulham Park School taken from the Play Ground.’“The foundation of the present ‘Rosamond’s Bower,’ judging from the brickwork on the south side, and the thickness of the walls, is probably as old as the time of Elizabeth—I mean the original building which consisted of two rooms, one above the other, 12 feet square, and 7 feet in height. On the north side of this primitive dwelling was a deep draw-well. Subsequently two similar rooms were attached, one of which (the present hall) was built over the well, and two attics were raised upon this very simple structure, thus increasing the number of rooms from two to six. Then a kitchen was built (the present dining-room), and another room over it (the present drawing-room), at the back of the original building, which thus from a labourer’s hut assumed the air of an eight-roomed cottage. It was then discovered that the rooms were of very small dimensions, and it was considered necessary to enlarge four of them by the additional space to be gained from bay windows in the dining-room, drawing-room, blue bedchamber, and dressing-room. But the spirit of improvement seldom rests content, and when it was found that thekitchen, which looked upon the garden, was a more agreeable sitting-room, both as to aspect and quiet, than the more ancient and smaller room which looked upon the road, it was determined to create another attachment on the north side, by building a kitchen of still larger dimensions, with a scullery and storeroom behind, to replace the old scullery and out-offices by a spacious staircase, and over this new kitchen to place a room of corresponding size, or equal to that of the two bedrooms upon the same line of building. Thus in 1826 did ‘Rosamond’s Bower’ become a cottage of ten rooms; and as it was soon afterwards presumed from the march of luxury that no one could live in a decade cottage without requiring a coachhouse and stable, an excellent one was built not far from the north side, making the third, though not the last, addition in that direction.“Parva domus! nemorosa quies,Sis tu quoque nostris hospitium laribusSubsidium diu: postes tuas Flora ornetPomonaque mensas.”THE GARDEN.“It is much more difficult to describe the garden of Rosamond’s Bower than its shape. I may, however, mention that by means of a sunk fence[159]and a wen-like excrescence upon the original gore, made in the Spring of 1842, the extensive meadow of Park House, with the piece of water which adorns it, appear to belong to my residence so completely, that so far as the eye questions the matter, ‘I am monarch of all I survey.’Distant View of ‘Rosamond’s Bower’ from the adjoining MeadowThe first lawn of the garden rejoices in two very remarkable trees, one a standard Ayrshire rose, rising ten feet in height from a stem ten inches in circumference, and from which, during sunny June, ‘every breeze, of red rose leaves brings down acrimson rain.’[160]The other a weeping ash of singularly beautiful proportions. It has been trained, or rather restrained, to the measurement of fifty-six feet in circumference, the stem being two feet round, and the branches shooting out at the height of five feet with incredible luxuriance. Under its branches I had the pleasure of seeing no less than thirty-eight friends sit down to breakfast on the 22nd June, 1842; and Gunter, who laid covers for forty-four, assured me, that another arrangement with circular tables, made for the purpose, would have comfortably accommodated sixty. A miniature shrubbery, not in height, but in breadth, intervenes between the first lawn and the flower garden, where, in the centre of beds, stands the ‘Baylis Vase’—a memorial, I sincerely trust, of a more enduring friendship. Miss Aikin’s question—but a very long acquaintance with that lady’s fame warrants me here writing ‘Lucy Aikin’s question—to me, one evening while walking down the garden, whether that urn had been placed over the remains of any favourite, was the occasion of the following lines being painted on it:—Think not that here was placed this urnTo mark a spot o’er which to mourn.Should tender thoughts awake a tearFor fading flowers or waning year,Remember that another spring,Fresh flowers and brighter hopes will bring.Two elevated strawberry beds, facetiously termed ‘twin strawberry hills,’ rear themselves between the vase and the back lawn, the further corners of which are respectively protected from wheelbarrow intrusion by an Irish Quern and a Capsular Stone, venerated in Irish tradition—the former a remarkably perfect, the latter an exceedingly compact specimen, having on one side a double, and on the other a single hollow. . . . The remaining points of interest in my garden may be noticed in a very few words. It gradually decreases in breadth, and is fenced off on one side from the garden of a very kind neighbour (which contains two of the finest walnut trees in the parish) by an oak paling partially covered with broad, or Irish, and embellished by the picturesque narrow-leaved ivy.“On the other side a trim hedge, kept breast high, which runs beside ‘the long walk,’ separates it from the extensive meadow ofPark House, and at the termination the following inscription from one of Herrick’s poems has been placed—Thine own dear grounds,Not envying others larger bounds,For well thou knowest ’tis not the extentOf land makes life, but sweet content.“The garden produces plenty of strawberries, an abundance of raspberries, and generally a good crop of apples and pears, but few vegetables; the cultivation, except of asparagus (of which there are two excellent beds), having been abandoned, as the bird monopoly of peas, caused every shilling’s worth that came to table to cost five, and the ingenuity of the slugs and snails having completely baffled all amateur gardening schemes of defence against their slimy invasions.Rustic benchAmong many experiments I may mention one. Some vegetables were protected by a circumvallum of salt; but, notwithstanding, the slugs and snails contrived to pass this supposed deadly line of demarcation by fixing themselves on dry leaves which they could easily lift, and thus they wriggled safely over it. My greatest enjoyment in the garden has been derived from a rustic bench at the north side of the shrubbery, through the back and arms of which a honeysuckle has luxuriantly interlaced itself; there, particularly when recovering from illness, I have sat, and have found, or fancied, that pain was soothed, and depressed spirits greatly elevated, by the monotonous tone of the bees around me.”

“I have always felt with Dr. Johnson that relics are venerable things, and are onlynotto be worshipped. When, therefore, I took my cottage, in 1837, and was told that the oak staircase in it had belonged to the veritable ‘Rosamond’s Bower,’ and was the only relic of it that existed; and when I found that the name had no longer a precise ‘local habitation’ in Fulham, I ventured, purely from motives of respect for the memory of the past, and not from any affectation of romance, to revive an ancient parochial name which had been suffered to die out, ‘like the snuff of a candle.’ In changing its precise situation, in transferring it from one side of Parson’s Green Lane to the other, a distance, however, not fifty yards from the original site, I trust when called upon to show cause for the transfer, to be reasonably supported by the history of the old oak staircase. Indeed I may here venture to assert that the change of name from ‘Brunswick Cottage,’—so was ‘Rosamond’s Bower’ called when I took it,—and the assumption of that name, if contrasted with the name changing and name travelling fashion of the district, is a proceeding in which I am fully borne out by numerous precedents.

“Miss Edgeworth, in her reply, dated 31st January, 1840, to the letter of a juvenile correspondent (then nine years of age) inquires, ‘Is Rosamond’s Bower a real name?’ And I well remember the gestures and even some of the jests which the omnibus passengers made when ‘Rosamond’s Bower’ was first painted upon the stone caps of the gate piers, such as Father Prout’s ‘Rosy-man’s Bower near theWhiteSheaf’ (Wheatsheaf). But the novelty wore off in a week ortwo, and the name has long since ceased to be an object of speculation to any but the inquisitive. For their information I may state, that in the time of Elizabeth all the gardeners’ cottages in this neighbourhood were called bowers. It was the Saxon term for a room, and, therefore, applied to the dwelling occupied by the labouring class. And Rosamond, or Rosaman, is said to have been the name of a family of gardeners bestowed upon the district which they had long cultivated—possibly a sobriquet derived from the fame of their roses in times when that flower was a badge of party distinction. . . . It only remains for me to add, that ‘Rosamond’s Bower’ stands 22 feet back from the high road, and has a small garden or court before it, measuring, exclusive of the stable-yard, 63 feet. The garden behind the house is of that form called a gore, gradually narrowing from 63 to 22 feet, in a distance of 550 feet or 183 yards—five turns up and down which ‘long walk’ may be reckoned, by exercise meters, ‘a full mile,’ it being 73 yards over and above the distance, an ample allowance for ten short turnings. Of the old ‘Rosamond’s Bower’ three representations have been preserved; two of these are pen-and-ink sketches by Mr. Doherty, made about the middle of the last century, one of which is an authority for the name of Pershouse Cross. The third view appears in a well-executed aquatint plate of ‘Fulham Park School taken from the Play Ground.’

“The foundation of the present ‘Rosamond’s Bower,’ judging from the brickwork on the south side, and the thickness of the walls, is probably as old as the time of Elizabeth—I mean the original building which consisted of two rooms, one above the other, 12 feet square, and 7 feet in height. On the north side of this primitive dwelling was a deep draw-well. Subsequently two similar rooms were attached, one of which (the present hall) was built over the well, and two attics were raised upon this very simple structure, thus increasing the number of rooms from two to six. Then a kitchen was built (the present dining-room), and another room over it (the present drawing-room), at the back of the original building, which thus from a labourer’s hut assumed the air of an eight-roomed cottage. It was then discovered that the rooms were of very small dimensions, and it was considered necessary to enlarge four of them by the additional space to be gained from bay windows in the dining-room, drawing-room, blue bedchamber, and dressing-room. But the spirit of improvement seldom rests content, and when it was found that thekitchen, which looked upon the garden, was a more agreeable sitting-room, both as to aspect and quiet, than the more ancient and smaller room which looked upon the road, it was determined to create another attachment on the north side, by building a kitchen of still larger dimensions, with a scullery and storeroom behind, to replace the old scullery and out-offices by a spacious staircase, and over this new kitchen to place a room of corresponding size, or equal to that of the two bedrooms upon the same line of building. Thus in 1826 did ‘Rosamond’s Bower’ become a cottage of ten rooms; and as it was soon afterwards presumed from the march of luxury that no one could live in a decade cottage without requiring a coachhouse and stable, an excellent one was built not far from the north side, making the third, though not the last, addition in that direction.

“Parva domus! nemorosa quies,Sis tu quoque nostris hospitium laribusSubsidium diu: postes tuas Flora ornetPomonaque mensas.”

THE GARDEN.

“It is much more difficult to describe the garden of Rosamond’s Bower than its shape. I may, however, mention that by means of a sunk fence[159]and a wen-like excrescence upon the original gore, made in the Spring of 1842, the extensive meadow of Park House, with the piece of water which adorns it, appear to belong to my residence so completely, that so far as the eye questions the matter, ‘I am monarch of all I survey.’Distant View of ‘Rosamond’s Bower’ from the adjoining MeadowThe first lawn of the garden rejoices in two very remarkable trees, one a standard Ayrshire rose, rising ten feet in height from a stem ten inches in circumference, and from which, during sunny June, ‘every breeze, of red rose leaves brings down acrimson rain.’[160]The other a weeping ash of singularly beautiful proportions. It has been trained, or rather restrained, to the measurement of fifty-six feet in circumference, the stem being two feet round, and the branches shooting out at the height of five feet with incredible luxuriance. Under its branches I had the pleasure of seeing no less than thirty-eight friends sit down to breakfast on the 22nd June, 1842; and Gunter, who laid covers for forty-four, assured me, that another arrangement with circular tables, made for the purpose, would have comfortably accommodated sixty. A miniature shrubbery, not in height, but in breadth, intervenes between the first lawn and the flower garden, where, in the centre of beds, stands the ‘Baylis Vase’—a memorial, I sincerely trust, of a more enduring friendship. Miss Aikin’s question—but a very long acquaintance with that lady’s fame warrants me here writing ‘Lucy Aikin’s question—to me, one evening while walking down the garden, whether that urn had been placed over the remains of any favourite, was the occasion of the following lines being painted on it:—

Think not that here was placed this urnTo mark a spot o’er which to mourn.Should tender thoughts awake a tearFor fading flowers or waning year,Remember that another spring,Fresh flowers and brighter hopes will bring.

Two elevated strawberry beds, facetiously termed ‘twin strawberry hills,’ rear themselves between the vase and the back lawn, the further corners of which are respectively protected from wheelbarrow intrusion by an Irish Quern and a Capsular Stone, venerated in Irish tradition—the former a remarkably perfect, the latter an exceedingly compact specimen, having on one side a double, and on the other a single hollow. . . . The remaining points of interest in my garden may be noticed in a very few words. It gradually decreases in breadth, and is fenced off on one side from the garden of a very kind neighbour (which contains two of the finest walnut trees in the parish) by an oak paling partially covered with broad, or Irish, and embellished by the picturesque narrow-leaved ivy.

“On the other side a trim hedge, kept breast high, which runs beside ‘the long walk,’ separates it from the extensive meadow ofPark House, and at the termination the following inscription from one of Herrick’s poems has been placed—

Thine own dear grounds,Not envying others larger bounds,For well thou knowest ’tis not the extentOf land makes life, but sweet content.

“The garden produces plenty of strawberries, an abundance of raspberries, and generally a good crop of apples and pears, but few vegetables; the cultivation, except of asparagus (of which there are two excellent beds), having been abandoned, as the bird monopoly of peas, caused every shilling’s worth that came to table to cost five, and the ingenuity of the slugs and snails having completely baffled all amateur gardening schemes of defence against their slimy invasions.Rustic benchAmong many experiments I may mention one. Some vegetables were protected by a circumvallum of salt; but, notwithstanding, the slugs and snails contrived to pass this supposed deadly line of demarcation by fixing themselves on dry leaves which they could easily lift, and thus they wriggled safely over it. My greatest enjoyment in the garden has been derived from a rustic bench at the north side of the shrubbery, through the back and arms of which a honeysuckle has luxuriantly interlaced itself; there, particularly when recovering from illness, I have sat, and have found, or fancied, that pain was soothed, and depressed spirits greatly elevated, by the monotonous tone of the bees around me.”

The pamphlet from which the above has been taken then enters into a minute description of the curiosities, pictures, &c., collected by Mr. Croker at ‘Rosamond’s Bower,’ which it is unnecessary further to refer to; indeed, although intended for private circulation only, it was not completed, as Mr. Croker was led to believe it might appear but an egotistical description of an unimportant house.

The following particulars, connected with ThomasMoore’s visit to ‘Rosamond’s Bower,’ may prove interesting:—

On the 6th October, 1838, Moore wrote to Mr. Crofton Croker as follows:—

“Many thanks for your wish to have me at Rosamond’s Bower, even though I was unlucky enough not to profit by that wish—some other time, however, you must, formysake, try again; and I shall then be most ready for a rummage of your Irish treasures. Already, indeed, I have been drawing a little upon your ‘Researches in the South of Ireland;’ and should be very glad to have more books of yours to pilfer.“Yours, my dear Mr. Croker,“Very truly,“Thomas Moore.”

“Yours, my dear Mr. Croker,“Very truly,“Thomas Moore.”

On the 18th November, 1841, Major-General (then Colonel) Sir Charles O’Donnell lunched at Rosamond’s Bower; before luncheon Mr. Croker happened to point out to him the passage in the preface of the fourth volume of Moore’s Works, p. xxxv, in which the poet says—

“With the melody entitled, ‘Love, Valour, and Wit,’ an incident is connected, which awakened feelings in me of proud, but sad pleasure, to think that my songs had reached the hearts of some of the descendants of those great Irish families, who found themselves forced, in the dark days of persecution, to seek in other lands a refuge from the shame and ruin of their own;—those whose story I have associated with one of their country’s most characteristic airs:—‘Ye Blakes and O’Donnells, whose fathers resign’dThe green hills of their youth, among strangers to findThat repose which at home they had sigh’d for in vain.’“From a foreign lady, of this ancient extraction,—whose names, could I venture to mention them, would lend to the incident an additional Irish charm,—I received about two years since, through the hands of a gentleman to whom it had been intrusted, a large portfolio, adorned inside with a beautiful drawing representing Love, Wit, and Valour, as described in the song. In the border that surrounds the drawingare introduced the favourite emblems of Erin, the harp, the shamrock, the mitred head of St. Patrick, together with scrolls containing each, inscribed in letters of gold, the name of some favourite melody of the fair artist.“This present was accompanied by the following letter from the lady herself—”

‘Ye Blakes and O’Donnells, whose fathers resign’dThe green hills of their youth, among strangers to findThat repose which at home they had sigh’d for in vain.’

“From a foreign lady, of this ancient extraction,—whose names, could I venture to mention them, would lend to the incident an additional Irish charm,—I received about two years since, through the hands of a gentleman to whom it had been intrusted, a large portfolio, adorned inside with a beautiful drawing representing Love, Wit, and Valour, as described in the song. In the border that surrounds the drawingare introduced the favourite emblems of Erin, the harp, the shamrock, the mitred head of St. Patrick, together with scrolls containing each, inscribed in letters of gold, the name of some favourite melody of the fair artist.

“This present was accompanied by the following letter from the lady herself—”

It is unnecessary to quote this letter, but the gentleman alluded to was Sir Charles O’Donnell, who had brought the parcel from the Continent, and being about to proceed to Canada, and personally unacquainted with Moore, requested Mr. Croker to get it safely delivered; who took the present opportunity of pointing out to Sir Charles this public acknowledgment that his commission had been executed.

They had not been at luncheon many minutes when Mr. Moore was announced, and appeared to be no less pleased at meeting Sir Charles O’Donnell, than the latter was at being introduced to Moore.

A few days afterwards, Mr. Croker received the following note from Mr. Moore:—

“November24, 1841.“Dear Croker,“I was obliged to leave London much sooner than I originally intended, and thus lost the opportunity of paying you another visit. . . . My next visit to London will, I hope, be sufficiently free from other avocations to allow me to devote a good deal of time to the examination of your various treasures. Pray give my kind remembrances to Mrs. Croker.—I constantly think of my great good luck in lighting by chance on so agreeable a dinner-party that day. The only drawback was, that it spoiled me—both mentally and physically speaking—for the dinner that followed.“Yours very truly,“Thomas Moore.”

“November24, 1841.

“Dear Croker,

“I was obliged to leave London much sooner than I originally intended, and thus lost the opportunity of paying you another visit. . . . My next visit to London will, I hope, be sufficiently free from other avocations to allow me to devote a good deal of time to the examination of your various treasures. Pray give my kind remembrances to Mrs. Croker.—I constantly think of my great good luck in lighting by chance on so agreeable a dinner-party that day. The only drawback was, that it spoiled me—both mentally and physically speaking—for the dinner that followed.

“Yours very truly,“Thomas Moore.”

The name ofMoorewas subsequently cut by Mr. Croker on the back of a chair which the poet occupied during thisvisit. It produced the following epigram by the Rev. Francis Mahony (Father Prout):—

“This is to tell o’ daysWhen on this Cathedra,He of the MelodiesSolemnly sat, agrah!”

Mr. Thomas James Bell, the next tenant of ‘Rosamond’s Bower,’ altered the name to ‘Audley Cottage,’ which it now bears, and the agreeable associations connected with the former title are in the recollection of many who may be unaware of the change, and may regret the substitution of a name, for which there appears to have been very little reason.

Parson’s Green Lane continues from Rosamond’s Bower to Parson’s Green. It is for the most part composed of small cottages. On the left-hand corner of the Green is the ‘White Horse’ public-house, the sign of which was, some few years ago supported by the quaint piece of iron-work shown in the annexed cut. It is now altered.

Iron-work sign and White Horse Public-House

East End House, on the east side of the Green, next thepond, was originally built by Sir Francis Child, who was Lord Mayor of London, in 1699. It was afterwards the residence of Admiral Sir Charles Wager; and Dr. Ekins, Dean of Carlisle, died here 20th November, 1791. The house was subsequently modernized by the late John Powell, and became the residence of Mrs. Fitzherbert, who erected the porch in front of the house as a shelter for carriages. Here the Prince of Wales (afterwards George IV.) was a frequent visitor. Piccolomini lived here for a short time lately.

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