It also passed near Parliament, or Traitors', Hill—a name which is much in dispute; some maintaining that it was fortified by the Parliamentary Army, under Cromwell, for the protection of London, others that the 5th of November conspirators met here to view the expected explosion of the Houses of Parliament. This, which forms the most southern part of Hampstead Heath, and therefore the nearest, and most accessible to the great bulk of Londoners, has a beautiful view of Highgate and London, and has, I am happy to say, been preserved as an open space for the public.
THE FLEET AT KENTISH TOWN.
We have now followed the Fleet in its course to Kentish Town, the etymon of which is, to say the least, somewhat hazy. Being so, of course, an immense amount of theory has been expended upon it. Some contend that it springs from the Prebendary attached to St. Paul's Cathedral, of Cantelupe, or Cantelows, now (in Crockford, called Cantlers): one antiquary suggesting that it owes its name to the delta formed by the junction of the two branches of the Fleet—from Cant or Cantle, a corner;—whilst yet another authority thinks that, as the Fleet had its source from Ken Wood—it was called Ken-ditch—hence Kenditch or Kentish Town. Be it as it may, it was a very pleasant and rural suburb, and one of some note, for herein William Bruges, Garter King-at-Arms, had a country house, at which he entertained, in the year 1416, the Emperor Sigismund, who came over here, in that year, to try and mediate between our Henry V. and the King of France.
In still older times it formed part of the great Middlesex forest, which was full of wolves, wild boars, deer, and wild oxen; but we find that, in 1252, Henry III. granted to Thomas Ive, permission to inclose a portion of the highway adjoining his mansion at Kentessetone. And in 1357, John of Oxford, who was Mayor of London in 1341, gave, amongst other things, to the Priory of the Holy Trinity, in London, a mill at Kentish Town—which, of course, must have been turned by the Fleet. The kind donor was one of the very few Mayors who died during his mayoralty.
It is said, too, that Nell Gwynne had a house in Kentish Town, but I can find not the slightest confirmation of the rumour; still, as there is a very good pen-and-ink sketch of the old house said to be hers, I give it, as it helps to prove the antiquity of Kentish Town, now, alas! only too modern.
OLD HOUSE, KENTISH TOWN, SUPPOSED TO HAVE BEEN NELL GWYNNE'S.
And there was another old house close by the Fleet there, an old farmhouse known as Brown's dairy.