SOUTH LONDON PARKS 181 
and there, with much pleasure, spent little and so home.” 
Pepys’ home in Seething Lane near the Tower would be 
an easy distance from the Tea Gardens of Redriff, as 
Rotherhithe was called then, and in the days when Swift 
made Gulliver live there. There were other well-known 
Tea Gardens near, the “ Cherry Garden,” “ Half-way 
House,” and at a much later date “ St. Helenas Gardens,” 
which were only closed in 18 81. The disappearance of 
all the Tea Gardens and open spaces made the necessity 
of a Park very obvious, and it was to meet this want that 
Southwark Park was made. 
Maryon Park 
There is one more small Park to complete the line of 
South London Parks, for which the public is indebted to 
Sir Spencer Maryon-Wilson, the lord of the manor of 
Charlton, in which parish it is situated. It lies between 
Greenwich and Woolwich, and the South-Eastern Railway 
skirts the northern side. The ground was chiefly large 
gravel pits, and has a hill in the middle partly caused by 
the excavations. This hill has some pretty brushwood 
still growing on its slope, showing it was once joined to 
Hanging Wood, a well-known hiding-place of highway¬ 
men. It was conveniently thick, and there are many tales 
of pursuit from Blackheath which ended by losing the 
thieves in Hanging Wood. The hill in the Park is 
locally known as Cox’s Mount, having been rented by 
an inhabitant of that name in 1838, who built a summer¬ 
house there and planted poplars. The area of the Park 
is about 12 acres, and except for one or two trees on the 
Mount and patches of brushwood, it is open grass. The 
boys on the Warspite training ship anchored near are 
allowed to play cricket there, provision for this having 
