[ 39] 



CHAPTEK III. 



LANDMARKS. 



Not indeed all, but many of the coach-roads on the 

 northern side of the Thames were measured from * the 

 place where Hicks' s Hall formerly stood.' 



It would seem that I am not the only native or 

 parishioner of Chipping Barnet who has aimed at 

 verifying the site of that and other famous places in 

 the Metropolis, from which distances along the coach- 

 roads were as a rule reckoned. 



Knight's ' London,' of 1841, devotes part of a 

 chapter on suburban milestones to the fruitless travels 

 of Jedediah Jones, a schoolmaster of Barnet, in 

 attempting to discover Hicks's Hall. Jones, after a 

 weary day which yields no result, spends his penul- 

 timate shilling on a frugal meal, and his very last on 

 the guard of the Holyhead mail, in obtaining a lift 

 outside the coach from Highgate to Barnet. 



I have been more fortunate. Park's ' History of 

 Hampstead' and some other publications clear the 

 matter up beyond a doubt. Besides, a wall tablet 

 still indicates in some detail the site of Hicks's Hall. 



