REGENT'S PARK 97 



Spital Fields. About the time of the Spanish Armada 

 the Honourable Artillery Company was formed, which 

 possessed a company of archers, and for over two hundred 

 years archery was kept alive by this corps, and, follow- 

 ing them, by the Finsbury Archers. Just at the time 

 when the corps was abolished Sir Ashton Lever formed 

 the Toxophilite Society in 178 1, and the archers of the 

 Honourable Artillery Company became merged in the 

 new Society, which then shot on Blackheath. George IV. 

 belonged to it, and it henceforth became the Royal Toxo- 

 philite Society, and settled on ground given to it in 

 Regent's Park in 1834, where it remains, as the lineal 

 descendant of the old historic Guild of Archers. It 

 possesses several interesting relics ; a shield given by 

 Queen Mary, and silver cups of the Georgian period, 

 besides a valuable collection of bows and arrows. The 

 hall where the members meet, built when the Society 

 moved to Regent's Park, and added to since, has 

 beneath it some curious cellars with underground 

 passages branching off from them, which it has been 

 suggested may have been part of the outhouses belonging 

 to the Royal Manor House, which stood not far off, on 

 ground now outside the Park. The large iron hooks 

 that were until recently in the cellar walls, seemed sugges- 

 tive of venison from the Park for the royal table. The 

 ground of the Society is suitably laid out, with a fine sunk 

 lawn for the archery practice. By an arrangement with 

 the Toxophilite Society, " the Skating Club " have their 

 own pavihon, and the lawn is flooded during the winter 

 for their use. There is so much talk about the change 

 of the climate of England, and of the so-called old- 

 fashioned winters, that the record kept by this Skating 

 Club since its foundation in 1830 of the number of 



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