142 LONDON PARKS & GARDENS 



It has the additional charm of the New River passing 

 through the heart of it, and, furthermore, the ground is 

 undulating. 



One of the approaches to the Park still has a semi- 

 rural aspect and associations attached to it. This is 

 Queen Elizabeth's Walk, with a row of fine elm trees, 

 under which the Queen may have passed as a girl while 

 staying in seclusion at the manor-house, then in the 

 possession of the Dudley family, relations to the Earl of 

 Leicester. Stoke Newington, until lately, was not so 

 overrun with small houses as most of the suburbs. In 

 1855 it was described as " one of the few rural villages 

 in the immediate environs [of London]. Though, as the 

 crow flies, but three miles from the General Post Office, 

 it is still rich in parks, gardens, and old trees." The last 

 fifty years have quite transformed its appearance. " Green 

 Lanes," which skirts the west of the Park, though with 

 such a rural-sounding name, is a busy thoroughfare, with 

 rushing trams ; and, but for Clissold Park and Abney 

 Park Cemetery, but little of its former attractions would 

 remain. The Cemetery is on the grounds of the old 

 Manor House, where Sir Thomas Abney lived, and '* the 

 late excellent Dr. Isaac Watts was treated for thirty-six years 

 with all the kindness that friendship could prompt, and 

 all the attention that respect could dictate." The manor 

 was sold by direction of Sir Thomas's daughter's will, and 

 the proceeds devoted to charitable purposes. The old 

 church, with its thin spire, and the new large, handsome 

 Gothic church, built to meet the needs of the growing 

 population, stand close together at one corner of the 

 Park, at the end of Queen Elizabeth's Walk, and on all 

 sides the towers among the trees form pretty and con- 

 spicuous objects. The house in the Park, for the most 



