CHAPTER VI 



MUNICIPAL PARKS 



l^et cities, kirks, and everie noble toivtie 

 Be purified, and decked up and doivne. 



— Alexander Hume (1557-1609). 



ONDON is almost completely sur- 

 rounded by a chain of parks. 

 Luckily, as the town grew, the 

 necessity for fresh air began to be 

 realised, and before it was too late, 

 in the thickly-populated districts 

 north, south, east, and west, any 

 available open space has been con- 

 verted into a public garden, or into a more ambitious 

 park. Would that this laudable spirit had moved people 

 sooner, and then there might have been a Finsbury Park 

 nearer Finsbury, and the circle of green patches on the 

 map might have been more evenly dotted about some of 

 the intervening parishes. Many of the open spaces are 

 heaths, or commons, or Lammas Lands, which have 

 various rights attached to them, and, in consequence, 

 have been saved from the encroachments which have 

 threatened them from time to time, and have thus been 

 preserved, in spite of the growth of the surrounding 

 districts. Of late years the rights have in many instances 

 been acquired by public bodies, so as to keep for ever 



these priceless boons. It was not until the middle of 



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