CZAR PETER'S HOUSE, DEPTFORD.
It is difficult, now that the whole country south of London has been covered with villas, roads, streets, and shops, to understand how wonderful for loveliness it was until the builder seized upon it. When the ground rose out of the great Lambeth and Bermondsey Marsh—the cliff or incline is marked still by the names of Battersea Rise, Clapham Rise, and Brixton Rise—it opened out into one wild heath after another—Clapham, Wandsworth, Putney, Wimbledon, Barnes, Tooting, Streatham, Richmond, Thornton, and so south as far as Banstead Downs. The country was not flat: it rose at Wimbledon to a high plateau; it rose at Norwood to a chain of hills; between the Heaths stretched gardens and orchards; between the orchards were pasture lands; on the hill sides were hanging woods; villages were scattered about, each with its venerable church and its peaceful churchyard; along the high roads to Dover, Southampton, and Portsmouth bumped and rolled, all day and all night, the stage coaches and the waggons; the wayside inns were crowded with those who halted to drink, those who halted to dine, and those who halted to sleep: if the village lay off the main road it was as quiet and as secure as the town of Laish. All this beauty is gone; we have destroyed it: all this beauty has gone for ever; it cannot be replaced. And on the south there was so much more beauty than on the north. On the latter side of London there are the heights with Hampstead, Highgate, and Hornsey—one row of villages; but there is little more. The country between Hatfield or St. Albans and Hampstead is singularly dull and uninteresting: it is not until one reaches Hertford or Rickmansworth that the explorer comes once more into lovely country. But the loveliness of South London lay almost at the very doors of London: one could walk into it; the heaths were within an easy walk, and the loveliness of Surrey lay upon all.
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.
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.
Here are three hills close together: Herne Hill, Denmark Hill, and Champion Hill. On Denmark Hill Ruskin once lived; but in the 'fifties I was not conscious of that fact or of his greatness. It must be saddening to a great man to reflect that the schoolboys have no respect for him. The road up the hill was somewhat gloomy on account of the trees: the houses, with their gardens and lawns, and carriage drives, and smoothness and snugness, betokened in those years the institution of evening prayers. I fear I may be misunderstood. At that time great was the power and the authority of seriousness. To be serious was fashionable, if one may say so, in City circles. Respectability was nearly always serious: it was divided into two classes: that which had morning prayers only, and that which had evening prayers as well. With the young, the latter institution was unpopular—no one of the present younger generation can understand how unpopular it was: a house which had evening prayers made a deliberate profession of a seriousness which was something out of the common, which the young people disliked, as a rule; and it insisted on the sons getting home in time for prayers. This profession of seriousness generally belonged to a large house, beautiful gardens, rich conservatories, a large income, and a carriage and pair. Denmark Hill used to appear to outward view as more especially a suburb belonging to the serious rich, who could afford a profession of more than common earnestness.