172 LONDON PARKS & GARDENS 
found with the selection of plants which, from early 
spring till late autumn, brighten this romantic little 
garden. The Solarium jasminoides is none the less 
graceful because it has only found a home in sheltered 
corners in England, for the last seventy years. Cob tea 
scandens , which festoons very charmingly some of the 
arches, is certainly an old friend, having been over a 
hundred years in this country; but it is a new-comer 
when compared with the Passion Flower growing in 
profusion near it, and even that did not appear until 
after Shakespeare’s death. It was unknown to Gerard, 
but his editor, Thomas Johnson, illustrates it in the 
appendix to the edition of 1633. It had then arrived 
from America, 44 whence it hath been brought into 
our English gardens, where it growes very well, but 
floures only in some few places, and in hot and season¬ 
able yeares: it is in good plenty growing with Mistresse 
Tuggy at Westminster, where I have some years seene 
it beare a great many floures.” Mistress Tuggy and 
her friend would have rejoiced at the sight of the 
house in the centre of Brockwell Park on a warm 
October day, thickly covered with the golden fruit as 
well as star-like flowers of their precious 44 Maracoc or 
Passion-floure.” 
This delightful walled garden was the old kitchen- 
garden. Luckily, the fashion for the gardens of a past 
generation was growing at the time the Park was pur¬ 
chased, and the London County Council must be con¬ 
gratulated on the good taste displayed in dealing with it. 
The history of the acquisition of the ground is soon told. 
The desire for a park in this neighbourhood led those 
interested to try and arrange to buy Raleigh House in 
the Brixton Road, with some 10 acres of land, for about 
