THE

HISTORY AND ANTIQUITIES

OF

HIGHGATE.

THIS justly celebrated and truly healthful hamlet is situate on a lofty and commanding eminence; its beautiful and extensive views, over a large tract of the adjacent counties of Essex, Kent, Hertfordshire, Surrey, and the contiguous country, and of the great metropolis, together with the salubrity of its air, have gained it a reputation which time will not readily efface. Our earliest topographers, in their records, have given sufficient evidences to hand it down to posterity. Its beautiful and diversified walks in and about the neighbouring villages have caused it to be termed, and deservedly so, one of the most delightful suburban hamlets in Middlesex.

Defoe's voluminous history of that dreadful distemper, the plague, in 1665, is sufficient to prove the salubrity of the air of Highgate. Having carefully

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perused that admirable work, I do not find one death recorded, although returns were made from most of the surrounding villages, and even from Watford and St. Alban's. In testimony of this assertion, on reference to the register, it states there were only sixteen burials in Highgate at that period; a very small proportion, when we consider the immense number of contagious corpses brought from the metropolis and buried on Highgate Common. This depository is a hollow near the Muswell Hill road, adjoining the Wood, which with the spot itself still retains the name of Church-yard Bottom, and where at a few feet from the surface have been found vast quantities of human bones, intermixed with darkened strata of earth.

The undiminished purity of the “air we breathe” has long been extolled by physicians of eminence; and many are those who, under Providence, have experienced its salutary influence.

In 1450, an hospital for lepers was established near Highgate, and in 1665 another for children on the Hill, both avowedly to partake of the blessings of this clear and exhilarating atmosphere. The vicinity is scarcely known to be even tinged by the exhalations from the metropolis, whilst for many miles southward of the City, the country suffers manifestly, in both animal and vegetable productions.

Who indeed is there that has not partaken the reviving and cheering influence of this open, pure, and congenial element, on reaching the summit of the hill?

The Hamlet itself is situated partly in the parishes of Hornsey, otherwise Harringy, otherwise Harringay, otherwise Harringee, otherwise Harringhee, otherwise Harnesey, otherwise Harnsey*-Iseldon, otherwise Isendone, otherwise Islington, otherwise Izendune, Isenden, Isleton, Yseldon, and Eyseldon, from Ishel, signifying lower-and St. Pancras; it is bounded on the north by Finchley, on the southeast by Holloway, on the west by Hampstead, and on the south by St. Pancras, and is about 400 feet above the level of the sea.

In Highgate, as well as the neighbouring villages, Chalk Farm, Hampstead, Muswell Hill, Hornsey, Finchley, Camden Town, and particularly at the Highgate archway, various fossil remains have been found, consisting of shells, crabs, lobsters, the teeth and vertebræ of sharks and other fish,

* Dr. Lysons, in his second edition of The Environs of London, states Har-inge, the Meadow of Hares, is not very wide of its original orthography.

Again, Norden, in his Speculi Britannia, says :-"Harnsey, of some Hornsey, a parish standing neere the Bishop of London's woodes or parkes, which of that place heeretofore had and yet retaine the names of Harnessey Parkes."

of which a list, figured and classed, is given hereafter.

Geologists appear to be undecided as to how these fossils became buried at so great a distance from the surface of the earth. In an article published in Chambers' London Journal, it is there supposed

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they are accumulated or mixed together from the action of strong currents of water, at some very remote period;" some are of opinion that they were conveyed there, many centuries back, by the overflowing of the sea; and others, that they were buried there in the time of the deluge. It appears then very probable, from the many fossils that have been found, that this place was originally covered with water, and at a very considerable time after the deluge. A late writer states that, "At whatever time the waters may have retired, there seems every reason to suppose that, previous to the arrival of the Romans in England, the adjoining country to the north of Trinovantium (or London) presented one vast forest, uncultivated, and thickly covered with natural wood. In such situations the ancient Britons formed their towns and fastnesses; indeed, Camden has sagaciously suggested that the etymology of London itself might be traced to the British Lhwn (groves), as designating Lhwn Town, or the City in the Grove."

Mathew Paris, in his Life of the Twelfth Abbot of St. Alban's, has given a curious account of the means which were taken to restore the road between the abbey church of that place and the city of London; "for Albanus had become a very popular saint, and travellers and merchants who were going beyond seas resorted to his shrine; but in process of time the way thither became so infested with outlaws, fugitives, and other abandoned beings, in consequence of the impenetrable woods which adjoined it, and which were also full of beasts of prey, that the good pilgrims were in imminent danger of their lives and property."

The forest of Middlesex, says the same author, was the harbour not only of thieves and robbers, outlaws and fugitives, but of several sorts of wild beasts, as wolves, wild boars, stags, and wild bulls.

On the same subject, Fitzstephen, in his Survey of London, about 1180, describing the suburbs, says:— "There are corn-fields, pastures, and delightful meadows, intermixed with pleasant streams, on which stand many a mill, whose clack is so grateful to the ear; beyond them a forest extends itself, beautified with woods and groves, and full of the layers and coverts of beasts and game, stags, bucks, boars, and wild bulls." “These wild bulls," adds Fitzstephen's translator, "were probably either buffaloes, or like the