■||•1ature ■|l•1otes : 
Zbc Selbovnc Society’s flDaoasine. 
No. 76. APRIL, 1896. VoL. VII. 
THE SPOILING OF HAMPSTEAD HEATH. 
I AST month we printed the memorial address to the 
London County Council by a representative body of 
artists, authors, architects, and philanthropists, on behalf 
of the preservation of Hampstead Heath. The subject 
is one so intimately connected with the objects of the Selborne 
Society that we propose to deal with it at somewhat greater 
length. 
The London County Council, whose action is impugned, does 
not appear to think the matter one of importance ; it has not 
been fully discussed at the meetings of that body, and the Easter 
holidays will probably intervene before any further attention can 
be given to it. Meanwhile, the Daily Chronicle — the champion 
of theL.C.C. in the London daily press — and Mr. J. S. Fletcher, 
the Chairman of the Parks Committee, have come forward in 
defence of the Council. The Chronicle, however, soon withdrew 
its protection. Its plea that “even the London County Council 
ought not to be hanged before it has been heard in its defence ” 
is met by a correspondent who says : — 
How can it defend the gratuitous planting that has been going on to the east of 
the Broad Walk at Hampstead ? The trees are not wanted there. They will 
shut out the view and the air and the sun, if they grow, besides spoiling a 
pleasant bit of rough open ground. And if they die, which is much more likely, for 
the situation is too exposed for trees to thrive, and the holes in which they have 
been stuck have been filled with something more like rubble than good earth, the 
wire-netting and the prop and the dead tree will not be exactly beautiful objects, 
in spite of the symmetrical planting. It is a thousand pities that the Council 
should go in for landsca]je gardening on the heath. 
This letter appeared on March 7, and three days later we 
find in the Chronicle the following paragraph : — 
