Teste meipso apud Westm. vij. die Julij anno tercesimo septimo Henrici octavi 1546. Of Hornsey Wood itself, the chief portion left is Bishop's Wood, extending nearly all the way from Highgate to Hampstead; a smaller fragment, known as Highgate Wood, lies on the north side of Southwood Lane, near the "Woodman" Tavern, but this was much cut up in forming the Highgate and Edgware Railway; another piece, somewhat less encroached upon, lies at the end of Wood Lane. North Hill, as the broad roadway north of the "Gate House" is called, is cut through what was once part of the Great Park or bishop's land, and joins the main road about half a mile beyond Southwood Lane. The road may be said to form part of the village of Highgate, for its sides are almost wholly occupied by villas and rows of cottages, among which are several public-houses, including the "Red Lion," one of the principal coaching houses of former times, and one where the largest number of persons were "sworn on the horns,” as stated above. The "Bull Inn," on the descent of the Great North Road towards Finchley, is worthy of note as one of the many such residences of the eccentric painter, George Morland, to whom we have frequently alluded. It is recorded that he would stand for hours before this hostelry, with a pipe in his mouth, bandying jests and jokes with the drivers of all the coaches which travelled by this route to Yorkshire and the North. We may observe, in conclusion, that, in the opinion of many persons, Highgate does not possess the same variety of situations and prospects as Hampstead, nor is it so large and populous a place; but its prospects to the south and east are superior to those in the same direction from Hampstead. CHAPTER XXXIII. HORNSEY. "To vie with all the beaux and belles, Spirit of the Public Journals, 1814. Etymology of Hornsey-Its Situation and Gradual Growth-The Manor of Hornsey-Lodge Hill-The Bishops' Park-Historical Memorabilia— The New River-Hornsey Wood and "Hornsey Wood House "-An Incident in the Life of Crabbe-Finsbury Park-Appearance of this District at the Commencement of the Present Century-Mount Pleasant-Hornsey Church-The Grave of Samuel Rogers, Author of "The Pleasures of Memory "-A Nervous Man-Lalla Rookh Cottage-Thomas Moore-Muswell Hill-The Alexandra Palace and ParkNeighbourhood of Muswell Hill, as seen from its Summit-Noted Residents at Hornsey-Crouch End, As we have in the preceding chapters been dealing | New River flows. This place is a favourite resort with Highgate—which, by the way, was originally but a hamlet situated within the limits of Hornsey -it is but natural that we should here say something of the mother parish. This once rural, but now suburban village, then, lies about two miles to the north-east from the top of Highgate Hill, whence it is approached either by Hornsey Lane or by Southwood Lane. The etymology of this locality must be sought for in its more ancient appellation. From the thirteenth to the sixteenth century public records call it "Haringea," "Haringhea," or "Haringey." About Queen Elizabeth's time it was usually called Harnsey," or, as some will have it, says Norden, "Hornsey." Lysons, indulging in a little pleasantry, observes that "if anything is to be gathered relating to its etymology, it must be sought for in its more ancient appellation, Har-ringe, the meadow of hares." In "Crosby's Gazetteer," 1816, Hornsey is described as "a pleasant village situated in a low valley five miles from London, through which the of the good citizens of London." Hornsey and London since that time have approached much nearer to each other, and it appears probable that before long it will form a portion of the metropolis. The opening of the Alexandra Park doubtless tended strongly to stretch London considerably in the direction of Hornsey. The citizens of London, instead of making it a place of occasional resort, have made it a place of residence. Crosby continues :-"In its vicinity is a small coppice, known by the name of Hornsey Wood. The Hornsey Wood House is a famous house of entertainment." Both the Wood and the "Wood House” have been swept away, and the sites have been taken into Finsbury Park. In 1818, as we learn from advertisements of the time, "coaches go daily from the White Bear,' Aldersgate Street, at eleven in the morning; in the afternoon at seven, in the winter, and at four and eight in the summer." Such, however, have been the changes brought about by the whirligig of time, that now, during the day, there are railway trains to and from London and various parts of Hornsey to the number of upwards of fifty each way. The Manor of Hornsey has belonged to the Bishops of London from a time antecedent to the Norman Conquest; and in the centuries immediately following that event, those prelates had a residence here long before they owned a palace on the banks of the Thames at Fulham. Mr. Prickett has shown pretty conclusively, in his "History of Highgate," that the site of this residence is to be looked for in the centre of Hornsey Great Park, about half a mile to the north-west of the "High Gate." Norden, in his "Speculum Britanniæ," thus describes it :-"There is a hill or fort in Hornsey Park, called Lodge Hill, for that thereon stood some time a lodge, when the park was replenished with deer; but it seemeth by the foundation that it was rather a castle than a 'lodge;' for the hill is trenched with two deep ditches, now old and overgrown with bushes; the rubble thereof, as brick, tile, and Cornish slate, are in heaps yet to be seen; the which ruins are of great antiquity, as may appear by the oaks at this day standing, above a hundred years' growth, upon the very foundations of the building." Lysons, writing at the close of the last century, says that "the greater part of it is now covered with a copse, but the remains of a moat or ditch are still to be seen in an adjoining field." Lysons adds a remark to the effect that "Bishop Aylmer's house at Hornsey, the burning of which put him to 200 marks expense, must have been upon another site.". When the bishop's lands were sold, the Manor of Hornsey passed into the hands of Sir John Wollaston, of whom we have spoken in the previous chapter; he held it till his death, in 1658, after which his widow enjoyed it till the Restoration. Mr. Prickett adds, that in his time (1842) the form of the moat which surrounded it was still visible, and that it covered seventy yards square. He writes, "The site of the castle is still uneven, and bears the traces of former foundation; it is somewhat higher than the ground outside the trenches. The portion of the moat which still remains consists of a spring constantly running, and is now used as a watering-place for cattle." It is almost needless to say here that the park of the Bishops of London must have been originally a portion of the great forest of Middlesex, which we have mentioned in our account of Primrose Hill (page 287). It occupied a somewhat irregular triangle, the base of which would extend from Highgate to Hampstead, while its apex reached nearly to Finchley northwards. In fact, a great 429 portion of it still remains as forest-land, though regarded as a part of Caen Wood. Hornsey Park is not altogether without its scraps of history, for it is said to have been the place where, in the year 1386, the Duke of Gloucester, the Earls of Arundel, Warwick, and other noblemen, assembled in a hostile manner, and marched thence to London to oppose Richard II., and to compel him to dismiss his two favourite ministers the Earl of Suffolk and Robert Duke of Ireland from his councils. As we learn from Stow's "Annals," the Lodge in Hornsey Park, then the residence of the Duke of Gloucester, was, in the reign of Henry VI., the scene of the reputed witchcraft in which Eleanor Duchess of Gloucester was concerned; for here the learned Robert Bolingbroke, an astrologer, and Thomas Southwell, a canon of St. Stephen's, are alleged to have "endeavoured to consume the king's person by necromantic art," Southwell having said masses over the instruments which were to be used for that purpose. Bolingbroke was executed as a traitor at Tyburn; Southwell died in the Tower; whilst the Duchess had to do penance in the public streets, an incident which Shakespeare has rendered familiar to his readers in the second part of the play of Henry VI. Once more, when the ill-fated and short-lived Edward V. was brought to London, after his father's death, under the escort of his uncle, Richard of Gloucester, he was here met by the Lord Mayor and 500 citizens of London. Hall, in his "Chronicles," quaintly tells us that, “When the kynge approached neere the cytee, Edmonde Shawe, goldsmythe, then Mayre of the cytie, with the Aldermenne and shreves [sheriffs] in skarlet, and five hundreth commoners in murraye, receyved his grace reverently at Harnesay Parke, and so conveighed him to the cytie, where he entered the fourth day of May, in the fyrst and last yere of his reigne." Henry VII., on his return from a victory in Scotland, was likewise here met by the Lord Mayor and citizens of London, and conducted on his progress to the City in like manner. Miss Jane Porter states, in her "Scottish Chiefs," that "the remains of Wallace were secretly removed and deposited temporarily in the chapel of Hornsey Lodge; and that Robert Bruce was concealed at Lodge Hill, in the garb of a Carmelite, when Gloucester sent him a pair of spurs, as an intimation that he must depart with all speed;" but it should be added that neither Lysons nor Prickett, in his history of the place, mentions these facts, so that possibly they are somewhat apocryphal. Few villages near London have retained so rural telling fortunes to the rustics; a showman's a character down to quite recent times as that of drummer on the stage before a booth beating up Hornsey; this may perhaps be accounted for by for spectators to the performance within, which the fact that both the high north road and the the show-cloth represents to be a dancer on the thoroughfare leading to Cambridge leave the place tight-rope; a well-set-out stall of toys, with a untouched. "The surrounding country," writes woman displaying their attractions; besides other the author of the "Beauties of England and really interesting 'bits' of a crowded scene, deWales," "is rendered attractive by soft ranges of picted by no mean hand, especially a group coming hills; and the New River, which winds in a from a church in the distance, apparently a wedding tortuous progress through the parish, is at many procession, the females well looking and well points a desirable auxiliary of the picturesque." dressed, wearing ribbons and scarfs below their Hone, in the second volume of his "Every-day Book," gives an engraving of "The New River at Hornsey," the spot represented being the garden of the "Three Compasses " inn. But," says Mr. Thorne, in his "Environs of London," " the New River would now be sought for there in vain; its course was diverted, and this portion filled up with the vestigia of a London cemetery." "About a mile nearer to London than Hornsey," observes the Ambulator, in 1774, "is a coppice of young trees called Hornsey Wood, at the entrance of which is a public-house, to which great numbers of persons resort from the City." Hornsey Wood House," for such was the name of this place of entertainment, stood on the summit of some rising ground on the eastern side of the parish. It was originally a small roadside public-house, with two or three wide-spreading oaks before it, beneath the shade of which the weary wayfarer could rest and refresh himself. The wood itself, immediately contiguous to the house, for some time shared with Chalk Farm the honour of affording a theatre for cockney duellists. The building was just beyond the "Sluice House," so celebrated for its eel-pies in the last generation. Anglers and other visitors could pass to it through an upland meadow along a straight gravelwalk anglewise. It was a good, plain, brown-brick, respectable, modern, London-looking building. Within the entrance, to the left, was a light and spacious room of ample accommodation and dimensions, of which more care seems to have been taken than of its fine leather folding screen in ruins, which Mr. Hone, in his "Every-day Book," speaks of as "an unseemly sight for him who respects old requisites for their former beauty and convenience." "It still bears," he further tells us, "some remains of a spirited painting spread all over its leaves, to represent the amusements and humours of a fair in the low countries. At the top of a pole, which may have been the village May-pole, is a monkey with a cat on his back; then there is a sturdy bear-ward in scarlet, with a wooden leg, exhibiting Mr. Bruin; an old woman waists in festoons. The destruction of this really interesting screen, by worse than careless keeping, is much to be lamented. This ruin of art is within a ruin of nature. 'Hornsey Tavern' and its grounds have displaced a romantic portion of the wood, the remains of which, however, skirt a large and pleasant piece of water formed at considerable expense. To this water, which is well stored with fish, anglers resort with better prospects of success than to the New River; the walk round it, and the prospect from its banks, are very agreeable." With advancing years, the old tavern became more and more frequented, and in the end it was altered and enlarged, the grounds laid out as teagardens, and the large lake formed, which was much frequented by cockney anglers. For some time previous to the demolition of the house, in 1866, the grounds were used for pigeon-shooting by a gun-club section of the "upper ten thousand;" but it was soon superseded as such by the attrac tions of the "Welsh Harp" and of "Hurlingham.” Hone, in the first volume of his "Every-day Book" (1826), speaks thus of the old house and its successor : The old Hornsey Wood House' well became its situation; it was embowered, and seemed a part of the wood. Two sisters, a Mrs. Lloyd and a Mrs. Collier, kept the house; they were ancient women, large in size, and usually sat before their door on a seat fixed between two venerable oaks, wherein swarms of bees hived themselves. Here the venerable and cheerful dames tasted many a refreshing cup with their good-natured customers, and told tales of bygone days, till, in very old age, one of them passed to her grave, and the other followed in a few months afterwards. Each died regretted by the frequenters of the rural dwelling, which was soon afterwards pulled down, and the oaks felled, to make room for the present roomy and more fashionable building. To those who were acquainted with it in its former rusticity, when it was an unassuming 'calm retreat,' it is, indeed, an altered spot. To produce the alteration, a sum of £10,000 was expended Hornsey.] HORNSEY WOOD HOUSE. 431 by the present proprietor; and Hornsey Wood sanctioning the formation of this park was passed Tavern' is now a well-frequented house. The so far back as 1857. The site is what was formerly pleasantness of its situation is a great attraction known as Hornsey Wood, which is associated with in fine weather." The lake was used not merely many interesting events in the history of North for fishing, but also for boating, which was largely London. It commands a view of Wood Green, indulged in during the summer months. Indeed, Highgate, the Green Lanes, and other suburban the attractions of the place seem to have been so retreats. The ground has a gentle southern slope, great as to inspire the mind of the prosaic anti- from Highgate on the west and towards Stoke quary, Mr. Hone, who commemorates it in the Newington on the east; and is skirted on the following sentimental lines :— south by the Seven Sisters Road and on the east by the Green Lanes. The Great Northern Railway bounds it by a cutting and embankment on the western side, and latterly the London, Edgware, and Highgate Railway has been made with a station adjoining the park. There are several pleasant walks and drives, and in the centre of the park a trench has been cut, into which water will be brought from the New River, and in this way a pretty artificial lake will be added to the other attractions. The cost of the freehold land was And yet, "A house of entertainment-in a place Through life for happy people. They are so." We are told in the "Life of Crabbe," by his son, that Hornsey Wood was one of the favourite haunts of the poet when he first came to London, and that he would often spend whole afternoons here in searching for plants and insects. "On one occasion," writes his son, "he had walked further than usual into the country, and felt himself too much exhausted to return to town. He could not afford to give himself any refreshment at a publichouse, and much less to pay for a lodging; so he sheltered himself upon a hay-mow, beguiled the evening with Tibullus, and when he could read no longer, slept there till the morning." Hornsey Wood House was pulled down in 1866, at which time the tea-gardens and grounds became absorbed in the so-called Finsbury Park, a large triangular space, some 120 acres in extent, laid out with ornamental walks and flower-gardens. It was opened by Sir John Thwaites, under the auspices of the Metropolitan Board of Works, in 1869, as a public recreation-ground and promenade for the working classes. Why the place is called "Finsbury" Park it would be difficult for us to say, seeing that it lies some miles away from Finsbury, the districts of Holloway, Islington, and Hoxton intervening, and that the site has always been known as Hornsey Wood. It ought to be styled, in common honesty, Hornsey Park. The Illustrated London News, in noticing the opening of the park in 1869, says: "The Act about £472 per acre. The funds were principally raised by a loan, in 1864, of £50,000, at 4 per cent., for thirty years, and £43,000 borrowed on debenture in 1868." The lake above mentioned is an oblong piece of water surrounded by pleasant walks, and in parts shaded by trees, and in it are one or two islands well covered with young trees, which give to the lake somewhat the appearance of the "ornamental waters" in St. James's Park, a similitude borne out by the number of ducks and other water-fowl disporting themselves on its surface. The Seven Sisters Road, skirting the south side of Finsbury Park, was constructed in 1832, prior to which time there was no thoroughfare through Holloway and Hornsey to Tottenham. In a map of the suburbs of London in 1823, "Duval's Lane" is shown as running from Lower Holloway towards Crouch End, with scarcely a house on either side. A small and crooked road, marked Hem Lane, with "Duval's House" at the corner, leads also through fields towards "Hornsey Wood House," and so into the Green Lanes-all being open country. The now populous district of Crouch End appears here as a small group of private residences. Between the "Wood House" and Crouch End is Stroud Green, around which are five or six rustic cottages. On the other side of the "Wood House" is the "Sluice House," where privileged persons and customers of "mine host" went to fish in the New River and to sup upon eels, for which that place was famous, as stated above. Upper Holloway itself figures in this map as a very small collection of houses belonging apparently to private residents. ! A pretty walk from Finsbury Park to Hornsey view from the neighbouring uplands. With the Church in fine dry weather is by the pathway exception of the tower, the present fabric is comrunning in a northerly direction over Mount Plea- paratively modern, dating only from about the year sant, a somewhat steep hill, from which some 1833; it is built of brick, and is of Gothic archipleasant views are to be obtained of the surround- tecture. Its predecessor, which was pulled down ing country, embracing Highgate, the Alexandra Palace, Epping Forest, Tottenham Church, and the valley of the river Lea. The summit of Mount Pleasant is upwards of 200 feet above the level of the river; and its eastern end, from its peculiar shape, has been called the Northern Hog's Back. The parish church of Hornsey lies, at some little distance from the village, in a valley near the Hornsey Station on the Great Northern Railway, and its tower forms a conspicuous object in the in 1832, is stated by Norden and Camden to have been built with stones taken from the ruins of the palace of the Bishops of London, about the year 1500. The Ambulator, in 1774, describes the church as "a poor, irregular building, said to have been built out of the ruins of an ancient castle." The tower, which is now profusely covered with ivy, is built of a reddish sandstone, and is embattled, with a newel turret rising above the northwest corner. On the western face of the tower are |