Suburban Villas between London and CJiesliunt. 509 



construct a conservatory which should regulate itself, not only 

 in regard to heat and air, but to atmospheric moisture. The 

 heat could be regulated with the greatest possible ease, by the 

 simplest form of Kewley's thermometer ; and a hygrometer 

 might operate on lead pipes, distributed immediately under the 

 roof, pierced with holes and connected with a supply of water, 

 so as to throw down a shower of rain at pleasure, as in Messrs. 

 Loddiges's palm-house. The kind of hygrometer might be a 

 surface of sponge, placed on the end of a lever, which might 

 operate on other levers, in the manner of Ruthven's press, so as 

 ultimately to gain one pound of power, which would lift a 

 spring valve in a cistern of water, and admit its descent by a 

 small pipe under a piston in a cylinder. This would give a 

 power equal to anything that could be required ; or the result 

 might even be obtained in a simpler manner. Of course the 

 operation of the hygrometer would be, to shut up the sources 

 of moisture ; not, as might be supposed at first sight, to open 

 them so as to supply rain. We do not say that plants in pots 

 could be kept in this way without the attendance of a gardener, 

 but we have no doubt whatever that a house, where all the plants 

 were planted in the ground, might be so kept for months, with- 

 out ever being entered by the gardener. It would only be 

 necessary for him to attend to the fires in the sheds. — Cond. 



Art. III. Notes on some Suburban Villas between London and 

 Cheshunt, made on July 24. and August 10. 1839. By the Con- 

 ductor. 



The usual road from London to Cheshunt is one of the most public in the 

 neighbourhood of the metropolis ; but, by taking Hornsey and Southgate 

 instead of Edmonton and Enfield, the road is as quiet as in any remote dis- 

 trict, and the scenery as rural and varied. At Hornsey there is the beautifully 

 situated villa of Harringay, noticed in an earty volume of this Magazine, 

 for the fine effect of the New River encircling the lawn, and forming its 

 boundary, and for some of the largest specimens of Magnolia in the neigh- 

 bourhood of London, especially M. macrophylla, noticed in the Arb. Brit., 

 vol. i. p. 272., as being, in 1835, the second largest in England, 22 ft. high, 

 and flowering freely every year. Here, also, some fine new camellias were 

 raised from seed by Mr. Press; and the hot-houses in the kitchen-garden, and 

 the conservatory at the house, at a considerable distance, were heated by 

 steam from one boiler, at a period when that mode of heating was compara- 

 tively new. At Crouch End, in this neighbourhood, is Crouch Hall, the 

 residence of G. Booth, Esq., F.H.S., which contains a magnificent architec- 

 tural conservatory ; and on the opposite side of the valley is Muswell Hill, 

 lately sold, and now denuded of some of its finest old trees. The scenery 

 from Muswell Hill to Hornsey is singularly quiet, rural, and secluded ; and so 

 little is it known to Londoners who have not their country houses in that 

 direction, that very few persons can find their way to it, or through it when 

 they are there, without the aid of a guide or map. 



Southgate and its neighbourhood have long been celebrated for the beauty of 

 the villas, which are generally remarkably well wooded, the trees being chiefly 



