[189] Millfield Lane is said to be a very ancient road. This was the road traversed by the mounted messenger in 1780 who was despatched for the military, while the would-be wreckers of Lord Mansfield’s house were being regaled by the landlord of the Spaniards Inn.
[190] A fungus so called.
[191] Hammond’s house was in Elm Row.
[192] Some persons have asserted that Lord Byron was one of Leigh Hunt’s visitors in the Vale of Health, but Hunt himself tells us that though Lord Byron visited him in Horsemonger Lane Gaol, he did not afterwards. His interviews with Lord Byron took place at his lordship’s town-house.
[193] In the garden of which her three-year-old son celebrated his mother’s birthday by eating laburnum seeds, which nearly killed him.
[194] Those who have had experience of forestry consider the mighty beeches and oaks in Caen Wood to be the real descendants of the primeval giants of the old Forest of Middlesex.
[195] Lloyd’s ‘Caen Wood and its Associations.’ A lecture.
[196] State Calendars of Charles I. and II., April 24, 1630, and September 21, 1660.
[197] There is a tradition that the ponds were enlarged, if not made, by the Monks (Lloyd).
[198] The old mill has still a local tradition in Millfield Lane, by which it was approached from the hamlet of Green Street, Kentish Town (ibid.).