If but that only one, saved stucco-free,
Wimbledon, evermore for pilgrims' feet
Kept sacred, noble Spencer, thanks to thee!
Thy generous charter gives us scope to flee
Still thither from the hubbub and the heat.
In the following year he appeals to other Commons—Wandsworth, Barnes and Streatham—to follow the lead of Wimbledon, and when in 1866 Victoria Park was threatened with the erection of the Imperial Gas Company's works, Punch wrote:—
Let Companies shape their projects to scrape
Up wealth, and dividends share,
But dim their eyes if ever they tries
To rob a poor man of fresh air.