COMMONS iff OPEN SPACES 197 
tumulus, which was opened a few years ago ; the 
investigations leading scientists to believe that it was 
a British burial-place of the bronze age. This used to 
be very picturesque with a group of Scotch firs—now, 
alas! all dead. The next hill is Parliament or Traitor’s 
Hill, and there is no very definite solution of the 
name. It may have been a meeting-place of the 
British “ Moot ” or Parliament, or the origin may 
only be traced to Cromwell’s time. As if to encourage 
the tradition being kept up, a stone suggests that 
meetings may take place within 50 yards of the spot 
by daylight. Below the hill are flat meadows by Gospel 
Oak, said to be so named from its being a parish 
boundary, and the Gospel was read under the tree 
to impress the parishioners, with the same object as 
the other and more familiar form of beating the 
bounds. These Gospel Oak fields are the typical 
London County Council greens for games, so gradually, 
after leaving the summit of the Heath, the descent is 
made, from the artistic and picturesque, to the practical 
and prosaic. 
Hampstead was always famous for its wild flowers. 
The older botanists roamed there in search of rare 
plants, and the frequent references in their works, 
especially in Gerard’s “ Herbal,” show how often 
they were successful. Osmundas, or royal ferns, 
sundew or drosera, and the bog bean grew in the 
damp places, and lilies of the valley were among the 
familiar flowers. As late as 1838 a work on London 
Flora enumerates 290 genera, and no less than 650 
species, as found round about the Heath. The soil, the 
aspect, the situation, are all propitious. Even now it is 
so far above the densest smoke-fogs that much might 
