240 LONDON PARKS & GARDENS 



valley, but this was never done, and the gardens now 

 only show the variation of level in one part. There is 

 a good assortment of trees, and a group of mulberries 

 which bear fruit every year. 



Further west again, the old hamlet of Brompton has 

 small, quiet squares of its own. The trees of Brompton 

 Square, that quiet cul-de-sac, and the way through with a 

 nice row of trees to Holy Trinity Church (built in i 829), 

 with Cottage Place running parallel with it, is rather 

 unlike any other corner of London. Before it was 

 built over Brompton was famous for its gardens — first 

 that of London and Wise, in the reign of William III. 

 and Anne, and then that of William Curtis, the editor 

 of the Botanical Magazine. A guide-book of 1792, de- 

 scribes Brompton as " a populous hamlet of Kensington, 

 adjoining Knightsbridge, remarkable for the salubrity 

 of its air. This place was the residence of Oliver 

 Cromwell." Kensington Square is older than any of the 

 Brompton Squares, having been begun in James II. 's 

 reign, and completed after William III. was living in 

 Kensington Palace. From the first it was very fashion- 

 able, and has many celebrated names connected with 

 it — Addison, Talleyrand, Archbishop Herring, John 

 Stuart Mill, and many others. The weeping ash trees 

 and circular beds give the gardens a character of their 

 own. Edwardes differs from all other London Squares. 

 The small houses and large square garden are said by 

 Leigh Hunt, who lived there at one time, to have been 

 laid out to suit the taste of French refugees, who it was 

 thought might take up their quarters there. The small 

 houses were to suit their empty pockets, and the large 

 garden their taste for a sociable out-of-door life. 

 Loudon was an admirer of the design of the garden. 



