SOUTH LONDON PARKS 179 



the building that the stations were hardly at work 

 before they were superseded by electricity. The signals 

 were made by opening and shutting six shutters, arranged 

 on two frames on the roofs of a small house, and by 

 various combinations sixty-three signals could be formed. 

 The Admiralty established the English line, of this form 

 of telegraphy between Dover and London in 1795, and 

 the first public news of the battle of Waterloo actually 

 reached London by means of the one on "Telegraph 

 Hill." The place was well chosen, for even now, all 

 surrounded by houses, the hill is so steep and conical, that 

 a very extensive view is still obtained. The site of the 

 semaphore station is now a level green for lawn tennis. 

 On the other side of the roadway, the descent is steep into 

 the valley, and there are two small ponds at the bottom. 

 The cliffs are covered with turf, interspersed by the usual 

 meaningless clumps of bushes, and a few nice trees. 



SouTHWARK Park 



Southwark Park lies far away from Southwark, beyond 

 Bermondsey, in Rotherhithe. It was in the parliamentary 

 borough of Southwark, hence the misleading name. The 

 Park is a gloomy enough place when compared with the 

 more distant or West End Parks, but a perfect paradise in 

 this crowded district. Between its creation in 1864 and 

 its completion in 1869, a great reformation was worked 

 in the district. Close to the docks, and intersected by 

 streams and canals, with the poorest kind of rickety 

 houses so vividly described by Dickens in *' Oliver Twist," 

 the surroundings were among the most dismal imagin- 

 able. The actual site of the Park was partly market- 

 gardens, which had for long been established in this 

 locality owing to the fertility of the alluvial soil. 



