72 BOROUGH OF LEWISHAM. 
The ‘‘ Bowling Green” was at one time a place of resort for 
persons coming to the Heath, and the Leathersellers’ Company 
used to dine there when they came to the annual Visitation at the 
Grammar School. The name became changed to the ‘‘Green Man” 
towards the end of the 18th century. The house was rebuilt in 
1869, when the old green was also built on. Lansdowne Place, at 
the back of the hotel, and facing the Heath, is built on a further 
enclosure from the Common. Two of the houses appear to be of 
a date about the middle of the 18th century, the others were built 
about 1855. 
The Market House, which stood at the corner of Dartmouth 
Place, is shown in the map of 1695, but when it was pulled down 
is not recorded. 
The best house in the Row is that known as Perceval House, 
so named after the Right Hon. Spencer Perceval, who was 
assassinated on t1th May, 1812, in the lobby of the House of 
Commons, and who at the time was living here. In 1695 it was 
occupied by Sir Martin Beckenham. It has now been divided into 
two houses called ‘‘ Perceval” and ‘‘ Spencer” respectively. 
The Church of the Ascension was founded by Mrs. Susannah 
Graham, at some date just prior to 1695, as it is shown on the plan 
of that year. The original building appears to have been the 
apsidal chancel and a portion of the present nave. The nave was 
extended to the road by the Fourth Earl of Dartmouth, about 1834. 
During the rebuilding of Lewisham Church, from 1774-7, it was 
constituted the Parish Church. A separate ecclesiastical district 
was assigned to it in 1883. 
Dartmouth House, the last building in the Row, is a plain 
brick structure of the late Adams period. It was sold a short time 
since by the Earl of Dartmouth to the College of Grey Ladies. 
Passing along Dartmouth Row southwards, and leaving Trail’s 
Lane or Morden Hill on the right, we come to the southern slopes 
of Blackheath, at the top of Lewisham Hill. Of the condition of 
the gravel pits in 1823, we have a view by T. M. Baynes, reproduced 
in Plate 19, which will be readily recognised. The building of 
Aberdeen Terrace has nowadays shut out the view of Lee Church, 
and the line of trees along Eliot Hill, down which a horseman is to 
be seen riding in the view, was subsequently Froken by the erection 
of ‘‘The Knoll.” In the gravel pits was formerly a pump, which has, 
however, long disappeared. On the brow of the hill a small space 
was for some years railed off for a flagstaff and two cannon, the 
property of the local volunteers, but these have also been removed. 
The house immediately at the top of Lewisham Hill, on the left, 
known as ‘‘The Hermitage,” was rebuilt in the ’70’s. The view from 
this spot in 1823, is shown in another drawing by T. M. Baynes 
(Plate 20). The old wooden houses on the right were pulled down 
in the ’7o’s, and the present brick villas erected in their place, 
Princes Road and Blackheath Rise dating from about the same 
time. 
