COMMONS & OPEN SPACES 193 
appear to have first attracted notice in the time of 
Charles II. In 1698, Susanna Noel and her son, third 
Earl of Gainsborough (then the owner of the soil), gave 
the Well, with six acres of ground, to the poor of 
Hampstead. For more than thirty years the Wells, 
with all the attendant attractions of the pump-room, 
with balls and music, drew the fashionable world up to 
Hampstead. It was said to be 44 much more frequented 
by goodfcompany than can well be expected, considering 
its vicinity to London ; but such care has been taken to 
discourage the meaner sort from making it a place of 
residence, that it is now become . . . one of the Politest 
Public Places in England.” Here Fanny Burney made 
her heroine, Evelina, attend dances, and it plays a part 
in the fortunes of Richardson’s Clarissa Harlowe; and 
here all the wits and poets of the time mingled in the 
gay throng. Many have been the celebrated residents 
in Hampstead—Lord Chatham, Dr. Johnson, Crabbe, 
Steele, Gay, Keats, William Blake, Leigh Hunt, Romney 
and Constable, John Linnell, and David Wilkie among 
the number. The site of the pump-room is all built 
over, but some fine old elm trees in Well Walk, still have 
an air of romance and faded glory about them. The 
houses near the Heath—such as Shelford, afterwards 
Rosslyn House, with a celebrated avenue of Spanish 
chestnuts, The Grove, Belsize Park, the residence of Lord 
Wotton, and then of Philip, Earl of Chesterfield—have 
all been consumed by the inroads of bricks and mortar. 
It is more than likely that the Heath would have shared 
the samejfate, had not the inhabitants taken active steps 
to arouse public attention to preserve this wild heath, 
unequalled near any great city. Already aggressive red 
villas were making their appearance in far too great 
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