COMMONS & OPEN SPACES 197 



tumulus, which was opened a few years ago ; the 

 investigations leading scientists to believe that it was 

 a British burial-place of the bronze age. This used to 

 be very picturesque with a group of Scotch firs — now, 

 alas ! all dead. The next hill is Parliament or Traitor's 

 Hill, and there is no very definite solution of the 

 name. It may have been a meeting-place of the 

 British " Moot " or Parliament, or the origin may 

 only be traced to Cromwell's time. As if to encourage 

 the tradition being kept up, a stone suggests that 

 meetings may take place within 50 yards of the spot 

 by daylight. Below the hill are flat meadows by Gospel 

 Oak, said to be so named from its being a parish 

 boundary, and the Gospel was read under the tree 

 to impress the parishioners, with the same object as 

 the other and more familiar form of beating the 

 bounds. These Gospel Oak fields are the typical 

 London County Council greens for games, so gradually, 

 after leaving the summit of the Heath, the descent is 

 made, from the artistic and picturesque, to the practical 

 and prosaic. 



Hampstead was always famous for its wild flowers. 

 The older botanists roamed there in search of rare 

 plants, and the frequent references in their works, 

 especially in Gerard's " Herbal," show how often 

 they were successful. Osmundas, or royal ferns, 

 sundew or drosera, and the bog bean grew in the 

 damp places, and lilies of the valley were among the 

 familiar flowers. As late as 1838 a work on London 

 Flora enumerates 290 genera, and no less than 650 

 species, as found round about the Heath. The soil, the 

 aspect, the situation, are all propitious. Even now it is 

 so far above the densest smoke-fogs that much might 



