36 THE DOVER ROAD 



obscures many vulgar details ; but if you cannot see 

 Jerusalem or Madagascar from here, nor even Saint 

 Paul's, you can at least view that most commanding 

 object in the landscape near by, Beckton Gasworks, and 

 on another quarter of the horizon shines the Crystal 

 Palace, glittering afar off like a City of the Blest, 

 which indeed it is not, nor anything like it. Directly 

 in front, the sky-line is formed by the elevated table- 

 land of Blackheath, while in mid-distance the few 

 remaining fields of Charlton are seen to be making 

 a gallant stand before the advances of villadom. 



Shooter's Hill was not always a place whereon one 

 could rest in safety. Indeed, it bore for long years 

 a particularly bad name as being the lurking-place of 

 ferocious footpads, cutpurses, highwaymen, cut-throats, 

 and gentry of allied professions who rushed out from 

 these leafy coverts and took liberal toll from wayfarers. 

 Six men were hanged hereabouts, in times not so very 

 remote, for robbery with murder upon the highway ; 

 the remains of four of them decorated the summit of 

 the hill, while two others swung gracefully from 

 gibbets beside the Eltham Road. The " Bull " inn, 

 standing at the top of the hill, was in coaching days 

 the first post-house at which travellers stopped and 

 changed horses on their way from London to Dover. 

 The " Bull " has been rebuilt in recent years, but 

 tradition says (and tradition is not always such a liar 

 as some folks would have us believe) that Dick Turpin 

 frequented the road, and that it was at this old house 

 he held the landlady over the fire in order to make her 

 confess where she had hoarded her money. The 

 incident borrows a certain picturesqueness from lapse 

 of time, but, on the wiiole, it is not to be regretted that 

 the days of barbecued landladies are past. 



Our old friend Pepys has something to say of what 

 he did or what was done to him on Shooter's Hill, 

 under date of April 11, 1661 ; but it was, at any rate, 

 not a happening of any great note, and moreover, 

 Mr. Pepys' prattle sometimes becomes tiresome, and 



