[84] Fenton House has had many tenants in modern times, amongst them the Honourable Miss Murrays and the Baroness Grey. It has been called the Clock House, a resident, some thirty years ago, having placed a sham dial-plate on the front of the entrance porch.
[85] Park, the historian of Hampstead, so often referred to in these pages.—C. W.
[86] I have a clinging impression that much of the ‘Vanity of Human Wishes’ was composed in Greenwich Park without being committed to paper, but I cannot refer now.—Note by C. A. Ward, Esq.
[87] Mrs. Desmoulins had lived with Mrs. Johnson for some before her marriage with the Doctor.
[88] Mr. G. W. Potter reminds me that a very interesting discussion and much correspondence has recently (May, 1899) taken place as to the house inhabited by Dr. Johnson, the result being that Park’s account is believed to be quite correct, viz., that it was the last house south in Frognal. Park’s father had lived for years in Hampstead, and at the same time as Dr. Johnson; he must, therefore, have given his son accurate information on the point. The house in question is now called Priory Lodge, and the difficulty arose from its being a large house with a very large garden and stabling. ‘I was enabled,’ continues my correspondent, ‘to point out that the large garden and stables were taken from Frognal Hall only some thirty-five years since, and that at the same time large additions were made to the house itself. A Mr. Watson, whose father I well remember, saw my letter in the Hampstead Express, and corroborated it, saying that his father, who had lived in it—i.e., Priory Lodge—some fifty years ago, had also enlarged it. An inspection of the house shows that it has grown from a very moderate-sized house to a much larger building.’
[89] Howitt.
[90] In 1868 Frognal House was used as the Sailors’ Daughters Orphan School, and continued for some twelve years to be so used, till the house on Green Hill was ready for their occupation.
[91] The original house was known as North Court, and a public well which existed on Branch Hill, Park tells us, was known as North Hole.
[92] Lord Burlington was the friend of Handel, who lived in his house for three years. ‘He used to drive down to the Foundling Hospital with Gay in his coach-and-four, to hear Leveridge sing there—“Leveridge, with his voice of thunder.”’ Lord Burlington patronized music, literature, painting, and architecture.
[93] Exactly opposite Montagu House is the modern North London Consumption Hospital, on Mount Vernon.