REGENT’S PARK 
97 
Spital Fields. About the time of the Spanish Armada 
the Honourable Artillery Company was formed, which 
possessed a company of archers, and for over two hundred 
years archery was kept alive by this corps, and, follow¬ 
ing them, by the Finsbury Archers. Just at the time 
when the corps was abolished Sir Ashton Lever formed 
the Toxophilite Society in 1781, and the archers of the 
Honourable Artillery Company became merged in the 
new Society, which then shot on Blackheath. George IV. 
belonged to it, and it henceforth became the Royal Toxo¬ 
philite Society, and settled on ground given to it in 
Regent’s Park in 1834, where it remains, as the lineal 
descendant of the old historic Guild of Archers. It 
possesses several interesting relics; a shield given by 
Queen Mary, and silver cups of the Georgian period, 
besides a valuable collection of bows and arrows. The 
hall where the members meet, built when the Society 
moved to Regent’s Park, and added to since, has 
beneath it some curious cellars with underground 
passages branching off from them, which it has been 
suggested may have been part of the outhouses belonging 
to the Royal Manor House, which stood not far off, on 
ground now outside the Park. The large iron hooks 
that were until recently in the cellar walls, seemed sugges¬ 
tive of venison from the Park for the royal table. The 
ground of the Society is suitably laid out, with a fine sunk 
lawn for the archery practice. By an arrangement with 
the Toxophilite Society, “the Skating Club” have their 
own pavilion, and the lawn is flooded during the winter 
for their use. There is so much talk about the change 
of the climate of England, and of the so-called old- 
fashioned winters, that the record kept by this Skating 
Club since its foundation in 1830 of the number of 
