THE PARK ON THE NORTHERN HEIGHTS. 31 
THE PARK ON THE NORTHERN HEIGHTS. 
DULL mist — not a yellow fog, for we have been spared 
such hitherto this winter — overhangs the side of the 
hills along which, north and south, stretches Alexandra 
Park. Save the oaks, whose brown and withered 
foliage still clings tightly to the branches, all the trees are bare 
of their leaves. Gone, too, are the summer flowers, wound- 
wort and yarrow, ragwort and clover, birds-foot trefoil and the 
rank umbellifers, and in their place are left nothing but withered 
and whitened bents, which quiver lightly in the chill breeze. 
The now. dull greensward does little to lighten the prevailing 
tints of brown ; but amid the oaks and elms a few Scotch firs, 
with their dark foliage, boldly relieve the greyness of the scene. 
Standing aloft on one of the lower spurs of the hill, the 
gloomy and deserted palace, which gives its name to the park, 
shares in the generally sombre aspect of its surroundings. But 
there is this difference between comely nature and ill-directed 
art, that, while in a few short months we may hope to see the 
lawns and groves of the park clothed again in their spring 
verdure, the palace must remain gloomy and deserted still. 
Dreary in appearance, the palace has a drearier history. 
Opened with a flourish of trumpets and drums some twenty 
years since, it commenced its inauspicious history by being 
burnt down three Aveeks after the opening. Rebuilt though it 
was, fortune still frowned upon it ; its numerous shows and 
exhibitions were scantily patronised by the holiday-making 
public. Its fair surroundings alone brought it the little popu- 
larity it at any time had, and it is now what it ever was — a 
false jewel in a golden setting ; the only remaining source of 
profit being the trotting matches that are annually run over the 
race-course in the park. The Alexandra Palace Company for 
a long time since have yearly attempted, though not yet with 
success, to obtain parliamentary powers to dispose of the greater 
part of the park for building purposes. It will be in the recollec- 
tion of the minds of most of our readers that from two to three 
years ago energetic attempts were made to set on foot a scheme 
for effectually saving this open space, one of the noblest on the 
Northern Heights, from such a disaster. Had it by now been 
successful, the necessitj'^ for Avriting these lines AAmuld not be 
forthcoming ; but the scheme for saAung the park has never 
adA'anced beyond a certain point, and for some months past 
little or nothing has been heard of it. The deadlock, A\-e belieA'e, 
has been principally due to the refusal of the London and 
Middlesex County Councils to act together in the matter of 
purchase, the former declining to sanction the sum of ^175,000 
proposed by the latter as a reasonable one to be paid. It need 
hardly be said that the enemy — for Ave can consider the Palace 
Company in no other light — Avill not be slow to take advantage 
