190 LONDON PARKS & GARDENS 
1814, represents a “ Harvest Scene, Hackney Downs, 
with a View of the Old Tower, and Part of the Town 
of Hackney,” and gives a delightful picture of har¬ 
vesters reaping with sickles, and binding up sheaves of 
the tall, thick-growing corn. That some of the Downs 
were arable land was a grievance to those who had 
grazing rights, and there was a considerable agita¬ 
tion to get the freeholders to lay it all down in 
grass, after the incident of looting the corn in 1837, 
already referred to. The Downs continued rural within 
the memory of many still living. The Lord of the 
Manor remembers that an inhabitant stated that she had, 
whilst walking across the Downs, startled a wild hare 
from her form. This would be about the year 1845, 
and for ten or twelve years later there were partridges 
in the larger fields of turnip and mangold-wurzel which 
adjoined the Downs. The rural character has quite 
changed, and now the Downs are a large open space, with 
young trees growing up to supply shade along the roads 
which encircle the wide grassy area. 
Highbury Fields, although much smaller than 
Hackney Downs, being only 27 instead of 41 acres, play 
as important a part in the north of London, as the 
Downs do in the north-east. They are not, however, 
Common Lands, but until recently were actually fields 
with sheep grazing in them. Tradition points to High¬ 
bury Fields as the site of the Roman encampment during 
the final struggle with Boadicea. In the Middle Ages 
they belonged to the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, 
and there the rebels of the Wat Tyler rising, headed by 
Jack Straw, camped after leaving Hampstead. There 
are a few old trees still standing in the Fields, which 
were formerly within the grounds of two detached resi- 
