292 LONDON PARKS & GARDENS 



moment's consideration. Push open a door in the 

 modern-looking castellated building in the City Road 

 near Bunhill Fields, and a large, quiet, open space is 

 discovered. Old guns look inoffensively down on a 

 wide square of green turf. This is the home of the 

 Honourable Artillery Company, the descendants of the 

 "Trained Bands" of citizens, first enrolled in 1585 in 

 the fear of a Spanish invasion. They have been here 

 since 1622, when they moved from near Bishopsgate 

 Without. " Artillery Garden," or Teazel Close or 

 Garden, was the name of the older place, from the teazel 

 grown there for the cloth workers. 



" Teazel of ground we enlarge St. Mary's Spittle, 

 Trees cut down, and gardens added to it, 

 Thanks to the lords that gave us leave to do it," 



says an old poem. The existing Artillery Ground was 

 a great place for cricket matches, where county met 

 county in the eighteenth century. It was here that a 

 vast crowd witnessed the first balloon ever launched into 

 the air in England, sent up by Count Zambeccari in 

 1783. The next year, from the same place, Lunardi was 

 more ambitious, and actually went up in his balloon. 

 It proved too small for the friend who was ready to 

 risk his life in his company, so he took a dog, a cat, and 

 a pigeon with him instead. 



Passing on into the City, the remains of the once 

 extensive Drapers' Garden is met with.^ Only a small 

 piece, seen from the street through iron railings, and 

 approached through the hall, has been retained ; a few 

 trees and bright flowers survive of what was once a 

 fashionable and much sought after resort. 



^ See page 12. 



