I90 LONDON PARKS & GARDENS 



1 8 14, represents a "Harvest Scene, Hackney Downs, 

 with a View of the Old Tower, and Part of the Town 

 of Hackney," and gives a delightful picture of har- 

 vesters reaping with sickles, and binding up sheaves of 

 the tall, thick-growing corn. That some of the Downs 

 were arable land was a grievance to those who had 

 grazing rights, and there was a considerable agita- 

 tion to get the freeholders to lay it all down in 

 grass, after the incident of looting the corn in 1837, 

 already referred to. The Downs continued rural within 

 the memory of many still living. The Lord of the 

 Manor remembers that an inhabitant stated that she had, 

 whilst walking across the Downs, startled a wild hare 

 from her form. This would be about the year 1845, 

 and for ten or twelve years later there were partridges 

 in the larger fields of turnip and mangold-wurzel which 

 adjoined the Downs. The rural character has quite 

 changed, and now the Downs are a large open space, with 

 young trees growing up to supply shade along the roads 

 which encircle the wide grassy area, 



Highbury Fields, although much smaller than 

 Hackney Downs, being only 27 instead of 41 acres, play 

 as important a part in the north of London, as the 

 Downs do in the north-east. They are not, however. 

 Common Lands, but until recently were actually fields 

 with sheep grazing in them. Tradition points to High- 

 bury Fields as the site of the Roman encampment during 

 the final struggle with Boadicea. In the Middle Ages 

 they belonged to the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, 

 and there the rebels of the Wat Tyler rising, headed by 

 Jack Straw, camped after leaving Hampstead. There 

 are a few old trees still standing in the Fields, which 

 were formerly within the grounds of two detached resi- 



