I have mentioned already some of the heaths, those which remain at the present moment. It will be a matter of surprise to the reader to hear of the many waste and wild places which have been appropriated and built over in the last two hundred years. In the parish of Lambeth alone, an extensive tract, it is true, there was nearly 500 acres of commons: namely, Kennington, Norwood, Norwood Common (in another part of Norwood), Hall Lane, Knight's Hill Green, Half Moon Green, Rush Common, South Stockwell Common, South Lambeth and North Stockwell Common. With the exception of the first all these are now gone.
[Illustration: ALLEYN'S ALMSHOUSES, 1840]
Look at Dulwich--the peaceful and picturesque village of Dulwich on this map of 1834. It lies among its trees, its gardens, and its fields: the venerable college of Alleyn is the glory of the village--nothing more beautiful than this almshouse with its hall and its picture gallery. Yet the people flocked out to Dulwich less for the picture gallery than the shady walks, the fields, and a certain tavern--the Greyhound--which was beloved by everybody, and believed to contain a particular brew of beer, a particular kind of old Jamaica for punch, and a particular vintage of port not to be found anywhere else, even in a City company's cellars. There was, in fact, no more favourite place of resort for the better sort of citizens of London than Dulwich in the summer. For the poorer sort it was too far off, and cost too much in conveyance. The Dulwich stage ran two or three times a day: it was not too long a drive from the city; the young men rode--in those days the young men could all ride--even John Gilpin thought he could ride; they hired a horse as we now get into a cab. For those who lived in any suburb on the south, Dulwich was an easy walk. Not far from the college and the village--Mr. Pickwick lived there in 1834--were the Dulwich Fields, as beautiful and interesting as those of Battersea were the contrary: there were, I think, five of them in succession: the little stream called the Effra rose somewhere in the neighbourhood, and ran about, winding through the fields in a deep channel with rustic bridges across. In older days--at the end of the eighteenth century, for example, the Effra, a bright and sparkling stream, ran out of the fields above what is now called the Effra Road, and so along the south side--or was it the north?--of Brixton Road. Rustic cottages stood on the other side of the stream, with flowering shrubs--lilac, laburnum, and hawthorn--on the bank, and beds of the simpler flowers in the summer: the gardens and the cottages were approached by little wooden bridges, each provided with a single rail painted green. That, however, was before my time. In the 'fifties the boys used to play in these fields, jumping over the stream: when they left the fields and got into the village they looked about for Mr. Pickwick and for Sam Weller, if haply they might see either. But I do not learn that either sage or servant ever gratified those eyes of faith by an incarnation.