NATURE NOTES. 
10S 
of axe, saw and spade, lies the belt of woodland dedicated to 
public use and enjoyment ; on the right we view a steep ravine, 
known as Churchyard Bottom, clad with oak and hazel, and 
bespangled in spring with the fragile wood anemone. The 
wooded slopes bend round in an amphitheatre from Crouch End 
to Muswell Hill; at their base lies the thickly-peopled vale of 
Hornsey, and far away, across the river Lea, rise the green 
hills of Epping Forest. 
The fate of this fair wooded scenery — a spot beloved of 
Leigh Hunt and William Howitt in days gone by — now 
trembles in the balance, and a few years more must decide its 
safety or destruction. The builder is now busy all round its 
very borders, and the greater part of the neighbouring land is in 
the hands of a public company, whose avowed intention it is to 
cover the green fields of Muswell Hill with blocks and rows of 
red-brick mansions and villas, and utterly efface hedgerow, 
turf and flower.* 
More than this, it is well known to most of our readers that 
within the last six months a most determined attempt has been 
made by the London Financial Association to legalise the con- 
version of Alexandra Park, which adjoins Muswell Hill, into a 
building site, by presenting a Bill to Parliament for that pur- 
pose. To Mr. H. R. Williams, Chairman of the Hornsey Local 
Board, belongs the credit of having first drawn attention to this 
in the local press. Mainly through his unwearying efforts, as I 
firmly believe, a powerful opposition has been created against 
the Bill, emanating from the London and Middlesex County 
Councils, the Corporation of London, the Commons Preserva- 
tion Society, and the Public Gardens Association. As a con- 
sequence of this opposition the Bill has now been withdrawn, 
and, to quote Mr. Williams’ words in a recent letter to the 
Hampstead and Highgate Express, “attention has again been 
called to the necessity of acquiring this magnificent open 
space for the benefit of the public in perpetuity ; ” and he 
“ has every confidence that negotiations will be shortly com- 
menced with that view.” 
Notice has been directed to the above, more especially, to 
show that the danger of losing Alexandra Park cannot but 
strengthen the case for preserving intact the eastern portion 
of Highgate Wood, which, though still private property, is, 
according to local opinion, nearly as much in danger of becom- 
ing covered with bricks and mortar as Alexandra Park and 
Muswell Hill, since it is closer to London, and its area corres- 
pondingly worth a greater sum of money. 
That one section of Highgate Wood has been rescued is no 
argument against securing the other and more beautiful part, 
which has been less encroached upon hitherto.f Now is the 
* A large number of interesting plants, rare for the county, are recorded in the 
Flora of Middlesex, for the neighbourhood of Muswell Hill and Highgate Wood, 
f See Walford’s Old and Aezv London, vol. v., p. 42S. 
