BY MRS. ARTHUR G. BELL WITH SIXTEEN ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR BY ARTHUR G. BELL AND SEVENTEEN OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS METHUEN & CO. 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. LONDON First Published in 1907 CONTENTS CHAP. I. HAMPSTEAD AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS II. HIGHGATE, HORNSEY, HENDON, AND HARROW III. SOME INTERESTING VILLAGES NORTH OF LONDON, WITH WALTHAM ABBEY AND EPPING FOREST IV. HAINAULT FOREST, WOOLWICH, AND OTHER EASTERN SUBURBS OF LONDON V. GREENWICH AND OTHER SOUTH-EASTERN SUBURBS OF LONDON VI. OUTLYING LON

In his remarkable work Les Récits de l'Infini , the famous French astronomer, Camille Flammarion, hit upon a somewhat original device to bring vividly before his readers the fact that the heavenly bodies are seen by the dwellers upon earth, not as they are now, but as they were when the light revealing them left them countless ages ago. Having endowed an imaginary observer with immortality, he takes him from star to star, showing him all the kingdoms of the world at the various stages of their d

Highgate Perched on a hill that is twenty-five feet higher than the loftiest point of Hampstead Heath, Highgate originally commanded as fine a prospect as it, but unfortunately many of the best points of view are now built over, though from the terrace behind the church, and parts of the cemetery, some idea can still be obtained of the beautiful scene that was the delight of Hogarth and of Morland, of Coleridge and Wordsworth, and many other artists and poets who, at one time or another, resided

Of the many beautiful villages north of London that have of late years been transformed into suburbs of the ever-growing metropolis, few retain any of their original character, or can, strictly speaking, be called picturesque. Tottenham, in spite of its fine situation, with the river Lea forming its eastern and the New River its western boundaries, is to all intents and purposes a town, the restored High Cross, about which there has been so much learned controversy, the ancient parish church, an

Hainault Forest The once beautiful district known as Hainault Forest, said to have been named after the wife of Edward III., extending on the north to Theydon Bois, on the west to Leytonstone, on the east to Havering-atte-Bower, and on the south to Aldborough Hatch, belonged in early Norman times to Barking Abbey, and passed, at the dissolution of the monasteries, to the Crown. It was almost as favourite a resort of the Tudors and Stuarts as Epping Forest itself, and is nearly as full of interes

Greenwich Occupying as it does a unique position on the Thames, which is here often crowded with British and foreign shipping, owning in the group of buildings collectively known as the Hospital one of the masterpieces of eighteenth-century domestic architecture, and in its park one of the most beautiful open spaces near the capital, whilst its Observatory gives to it the distinction of a leader in astronomical research, Greenwich has long ranked as one of the most important and popular suburbs

Dulwich Of the many villages of Northern Surrey that have during the last half-century been converted into popular suburbs of London, few have had a more interesting history than Dulwich, which has, moreover, in spite of all the changes that have taken place in it and its surroundings, retained something of the sylvan character that distinguished it when it was a mere outlying forest hamlet of the monastery of Bermondsey. On the dissolution of the religious houses the manor of Dulwich was given

Croydon Situated near the source of the Wandle at the entrance to a beautiful valley that is shut in on the east by wooded hills, and on the west and south-west by breezy uplands, the prosperous modern town of Croydon occupies the site of a very ancient settlement that owned before the Conquest a church and a mill, as proved by the detailed description given of it in Doomsday Book. Now one of the largest and most important, though by no means the most picturesque of the Surrey suburbs of London,

A century ago a charming little hamlet, traversed by the limpid stream of the Wandle, after which it is named, and surrounded on every side by breezy undulating commons, the thriving, bustling, and, in its poorer quarters, somewhat squalid town of Wandsworth has now little that is attractive about it except two or three ancient mills which, with the tawny-sailed barges, generally grouped at the mouth of the river that here joins the Thames, present a really picturesque appearance. There is, more

Wimbledon Scarcely less interesting than the charming riverside districts of Surrey described above is the neighbouring parish of Wimbledon, that stretches southwards from Wandsworth, Putney, Roehampton and Barnes to Merton and Cheam, and westwards to Kingston, the river Wandle dividing it from Mitcham on the east. Long before the Conquest, Wimbledon Common, that was then but a small portion of vast unenclosed wild lands, was the scene of events that had their share in determining the fate of so

Mortlake Few villages near London have undergone such vicissitudes of fortune as Mortlake, of which Wimbledon, Putney, and Barnes were once dependencies, but which is now a somewhat uninteresting suburb, redeemed from the commonplace by its situation on the river alone, and but for the one day in the year, when the University boat-race is run, and it is crowded with those interested in the contest, deserted by all but its residents. A great brewery and numerous malt-kilns replace the palace that

In addition to the many interesting historic memories connected with its palace, Richmond has associations with a number of important religious houses, of which, unfortunately, no actual trace now remains, though their names are preserved in those of certain modern roads. Henry V., soon after his accession, founded in the Old Deer Park, near the site of the present Observatory of Kew, a Carthusian monastery, which he called the House of Jesus of Bethlehem, one of several endowed by him in expiat

Fulham Although unfortunately much of the romantic beauty that for centuries distinguished riverside Middlesex has gone for ever, there still remain here and there picturesque survivals of the long-ago, recalling the days when it rivalled its opposite neighbour, Surrey, in rural charm. Some fifty years ago indeed, even Fulham, now indissolubly linked with London, was a country place, with market gardens sloping down to the Thames, and fishermen's cottages dotted here and there upon its banks. Th