62 THE BATH ROAD 



lanes widened and paved by the newly constituted 

 vestry, he groans in spirit. I am, for instance, 

 especially aggrieved at the workings of modernity 

 with Turnham Green. 



I went to school there in the days when London 

 was remote. We used to talk of "going up to Loudon " 

 then. Do any of the present-day inhabitants of 

 Turnham Green, I wonder, speak thus? I imagine 

 not. Turnham Green was then as rural as its name 

 sounds now. The name, alas ! is all that remains 

 of its rurality, save, indeed, the two commons, the 

 "Front" and "Back," as they are called. No one 

 now remembers, I suppose, that the so-called " Back 

 Common " is really Turnham Bee, even as the open 

 space at Tooting remains Tooting Bee to this day. 

 It is so, however, and it is only through this corruption 

 that what is really and truly tlie original green of 

 Turnham Green is dubbed the " Front Common." 

 You see the humour of it ? 



Turnham Green remained countrified until the rail- 

 way came and took a slice off the so-called " Back 

 Common," and built a station, and thus established 

 the first outpost of Suburbia. Then another railway 

 came, and took another slice, and a School Board 

 filched another piece ; and then great black boards, 

 with white letters, began to be planted in the sur- 

 roundino; orchards, setting forth how " this elimble 

 land" was to be let on building lease. Presently 

 men who wore corduroys and waistcoats with sleeves 

 to them, and leather straps round their trousers below 

 the knees came along, and, with much elaborate pro- 

 fanity, built what were, with much humour, termed 



