NATURE NOTES. 
1 86 
nature, but the fact that it seems purposely designed to be a 
means of health and enjoyment to the crowded suburbs that are 
advancing towards its eastern side, ought to silence for ever any 
objections against its rescue from the danger that threatens 
every beautiful but unprotected open space round London — 
its absorption by land speculators, and their dupes, the builders. 
It is almost needless to say that the whole of the park is for 
sale for building purposes alone, and has been for many years 
past. It is true that hitherto the residences erected upon it 
have been nothing worse than mansions surrounded by gardens, 
in which the beautiful trees have been left standing ; but that 
was long before it was invaded by the District Railway, and 
those who took up their abode in it doubtless regarded it as 
none other but a quiet retreat in which to spend the remainder 
of their lives after the years of buSiness were over. All that is 
at an end now ; there are two railway stations in the park, each 
of them ready to form a focus for crowds of small v illas, which, 
when once started, spring up with a rapidity that is almost in- 
conceivable. Unquestionably the present inhabitants of the 
park would be the last to desire the destruction (for such indeed 
it would be) of their beautiful surroundings ; and to them, as 
well as to all local members of the Selborne Society, is this 
appeal especially directed, to urge them to take steps for the 
preservation of what is happily the greater remainder of one of 
the noblest gifts of nature in the southern suburbs of London. 
Only to show that in by-gone days its beauty was not unap- 
preciated by those who knew it, one testimony shall be given from 
a letter written by Hannah More, upwards of a hundred years 
ago ; and her utterances, couched in the quaint, old-fashioned 
style of the age, breathe a spirit that rejoiced in ever}' sound 
and*sight ol this quiet green hollow, with its lawns and trees : — 
“ The Bishop of St. Asaph and his lady invited me to come to 
Wimbledon Park, Lord Spencer’s charming villa. I did not 
think there could have been such a beautiful place within seven 
miles of London. The park has so much variety of ground, 
and is as un-London-like as if it were a hundred miles out, and 
I enjoyed the violets and the birds more than all the mareschal 
powder and music of this foolish town.”* Those words of 
praise, closing with an expression of weariness, almost of disgust, 
at the thought of the hollow pleasures of town life when con- 
trasted with the calm beauties of nature, so far from losing 
their force, have acquired it tenfold since they were written. 
None who set eyes on the park for the first time, can fail to 
wonder, with surprise and delight, that such scenes of loveliness 
are still to be found so near London, and not a few will recoil 
from the thought that the verdant greensward, over which the 
fine old trees cast their shadows, must give way to the flaring 
Bartlett’s History of Wimbledon, pp. 69-70. 
