'Knotting-barns,' in Stockdale's new map of the so here the various inns and taverns would appear country round London, 1790; 'Knolton Barn,' to have shown by their signs a tendency to the now 'Notting-barns,' was carved out of the original sports of the road, for within a short distance we find manor of Chenesitun.'' From an inquisition "The Black Lion," "The Swan," "The Feathers," taken at Westminster, in the reign of Henry VIII., "The Nag's Head," "The Horse and Groom," and it appears that "the manor called Notingbarons, "The Coach and Horses," many of which, no doubt, alias Kensington, in the parish of Paddington, was were, half a century ago, the resorts of highwayheld of the Abbot of Westminster as of his manor men when they had done a little bit of business on of Paddington by fealty and twenty-two shillings the Uxbridge or the Harrow Road, and which, if rent;" but since the time of the Reformation their mute walls could speak, might tell many a "Notting-barns" seems to have been considered a tale of coaches robbed, and the plunder shared part of Kensington. Notting Barns Manor was between the "knights of the road" and obliging held successively by the De Veres, and by Robert landlords. Fenroper, Alderman of London, who exchanged with King Henry VIII. It was afterwards granted to Pawlet, Earl of Wiltshire, from whom it passed to Lord Burghley. The manor was next held by the Copes, Andersons, and Darbys, and in 1820 it was owned by Sir William Talbot. Down to a very recent period, much of the district through which we are about to pass bore rather a bad character for thieves and housebreakers, and was somewhat noted for its piggeries and potteries; but these have all been swept away by the advancing tide of bricks and mortar. The "potteries" are still kept in remembrance by Pottery Lane, in which is the Roman Catholic Church of St. Francis of Assisi, referred to in a previous chapter. The ground about Notting Hill lies high, and the soil is a stiff clay, while that of Kensington proper is chiefly sand and gravel; but in reality, Notting Hill forms part and parcel of Kensington itself, which stretches away some distance northward in the direction of Kensal Green. "The principal street," writes Faulkner, in 1820, "runs along the high road for about three furlongs. The village enjoys an excellent air and beautiful prospects on the north, and lying in the direct road for Uxbridge and Oxford, it is enlivened every hour by the passage of mail-coaches, stages, and wagons."

The neighbourhood has become, of late years, a favourite residence for artists and sculptors, among whom may be reckoned Mr. J. Philip, Mr. Watts, Mr. Holman Hunt, and also Mr. William Theed. On either side of a narrow lane leading from Campden Hill towards Holland House is a nest of mansions, each standing in its own grounds, known as the "Dukery." Among its present and late occupants are the Dukes of Argyll and Rutland, the Dowager Duchess of Bedford, and Lords Airlie and Macaulay.

Cornelius Wood, a celebrated soldier of fortune, characterised in the Tatler under the name of Silvio," died here in 1711. As in most of the suburbs of London which lay along the main roads,

The parish extends along the Uxbridge Road as far as Shepherd's Bush. On the left of the road was a piece of waste ground, known till recently as "Gallows Close," so called from the fact of two men having been executed here for a highway robbery in 1748. The gallows, or part of it, remained till about 1800. The ancient highway from London to Turnham Green is said by Faulkner, in his "History of Kensington" (1820), to have passed by Tyburn to the Gravel Pits, and to have branched off to the left at Shepherd's Bush, through a field, at the western extremity of which (he adds) the road is still visible, though now entirely impassable from the overhanging branches of the trees on both sides of the road, and from having become a deep slough in the neighbourhood of Pallenswick Green. This was the road where the Earl of Holland drew up his forces previous to the Battle of Brentford, as related in "Clarendon's History of the Rebellion.” But we must not travel too far afield.

We have already spoken of Kensington Gravel Pits. This must be understood as a vague name for an undefined district, lying partly to the north and partly to the south of the Uxbridge Road; indeed, the greater part was on the north side: this is evident from the fact that the house belonging to Lord Craven, at Craven Hill, which was borrowed by Queen Anne as a nursery for her children, is mentioned by contemporary writers as being "situated at Kensington Gravel Pits." Several local tradesmen's tokens, dated in 1660-70, at the Gravel Pits, are engraved by Faulkner. Since the disappearance of the actual gravel pits, their name seems to have been superseded by the joint influence of the new streets on Notting Hill and in Bayswater. Leigh Hunt, in his "Old Court Suburb," says:-"Readers may call to mind a remnant of one of the pits, existing but a few years ago, to the north of the Palace in Kensington Gardens, and adding greatly to their picturesque look thereabouts. A pleasant poetical tradition was connected with it, of which we shall have something further to say.

Notting Hill.]

THE GRAND JUNCTION WATERWORKS.

Now, the Gravel Pits were the fashionable suburb resort of invalids, from the times of William and Anne to the close of the last century. Their 'country air,' as it was called, seems to have been preferred, not only to that of Essex, but to that of Kent. Garth, in his 'Dispensary,' makes an apothecary say that sooner than a change shall take place, from making the poor pay for medicine to giving it them gratis—

"Alps shall sink to vales,

And leeches in our glasses turn to whales ;
Alleys at Wapping furnish us with new modes,
And Monmouth Street Versailles' riding hoods;
The rich to th' Hundreds in pale crowds repair,
And change "the Gravel Pits" for Kentish air.'

The spot, in fact, has long been held in high repute
for the salubrity of the air, and in the last generation
it had become a noted place for the residence of
artists. The neighbourhood, too, has long been
a favourite haunt and home of laundresses; and
no wonder, for Faulkner, in his "History of Ken-
sington," speaks of an overflowing spring on the
Norland House Estate as "peculiarly soft, and
adapted to washing," the same water being "leased
to three persons, who pay each seven shillings a
week for it, and retail it about the neighbourhood
at a halfpenny a pail."

These were really gravel pits half a century ago, and the inequality of the surface bore testimony to the fact. Sir A. Calcott's house was in a hollow, artificially made, and his garden was commanded from above by that of his next-door neighbour, Mr. Thomas Webster, then a rising artist, but who retired from the Royal Academy in 1876. Faulkner thus writes in his "History of Kensington," published in 1820 :-"The valley on the north is laid down with grass, and the whole of this district appears to have undergone but little alteration, in respect to culture and division of the land, for several ages. Although the distance from London is scarcely three miles, yet the traveller might imagine himself to be embosomed in the most sequestered parts of the country, for nothing is heard to interrupt the course of his meditations but the notes of the lark, the linnet, or the nightingale. In the midst of these meadows stands the Manor House of Notting Barns, now occupied by William Smith, Esq., of Hammersmith. It is an ancient brick building, surrounded by spacious barns and other out-houses; the public road to Kensal Green passes through the farm-yard." How altered the appearance of the neighbourhood at the end of half a century !

170

London, acres which, only half a century ago, were
still nursery-grounds and market-gardens, have been
forced to give place to railways and their approaches,
and to the building of suburban towns.
To use
the words of a writer in the Cornhill Magazine in
1866:-"The growth of London has gradually
pushed the market-gardener into the country; and
now, instead of sending up his produce by his own
wagon, he trusts it to the railway, and is often
thrown into a market fever by a late delivery. To
compensate him, however, for the altered state of the
times, he often sells his crops, like a merchant upon
'Change, without the trouble of bringing more than
a few hand-samples in his pockets. He is nearly
seventy years of age, though he looks scarce fifty,
and can remember the time when there were
10,000 acres of ground under cultivation for vege-
tables within four miles of Charing Cross, besides
about 3,000 more acres planted with fruit to supply
the London consumption. He has lived to see the
Deptford and Bermondsey gardens sadly curtailed;
the Hoxton and Hackney gardens covered with
houses; the Essex plantations pushed further off;
and the Brompton and Kensington nurseries-the
home of vegetables for centuries-dug up, and sown
with International Exhibition temples, and Italian
Gardens, that will never grow a pea or send a single
cauliflower to market. He has lived to see Guernsey
and Jersey, Cornwall, the Scilly Isles, Holland,
Belgium, and even Portugal, with many other still
more distant places, competing with the remote out-
skirts of London, and has been staggered by seeing
the market supplied with choice early peas from
such an unexpected quarter as French Algeria."

Building operations would seem to have commenced about this neighbourhood, on either side of the main road, in the early part of the present century. Much later, about the year 1857, a portion of the north margin of Holland Park, abutting upon the roadway, and extending from Holland Lane to Addison Road, was cut off and laid out for building purposes, and two rows of mansions, with large gardens before them, have been erected.

Close by, on the top of Campden Hill, but separated from the main road by Notting Hill Square and Grove, are the reservoirs and enginehouse of the Grand Junction Waterworks Company. The chief works in connection with this company are situated on the north bank of the Thames, a little above Kew Bridge. The water is taken by a large conduit pipe from the middle of the river to the works on the shore, where it is pumped into It is much to be lamented by the lovers of filtering reservoirs, &c., and then supplied to the rural scenery that here, as indeed on every side of town. In connection with the works at Kew is