COMMONS & OPEN SPACES 205 
and Goose Green. The Common was secured by purchase 
from further encroachments in 1882. 
The Park has much that savours of the country. An 
enclosure within it, is not open to the public, and for that 
very reason is one of the most rural spots. There is a 
delightful public road across it, known as “ the Avenue.” 
The old trees form an archway overhead, and on either 
side of the fence the wood is like a covert somewhere 
miles from London; brambles and fern and brushwood 
make shelter for pheasants, and squirrels run up the 
trees. The farm-house, and its out-buildings with 
their moss-grown tiled roofs, have nothing suburban 
about them. The front facing the Rye Common has a 
notice to say it is the Friern Manor Dairy, but even that 
is not aggressive, as the name carries back the history 
to the time of Henry I., when the manor was granted to 
the Earl of Gloucester, and on till it was given by his 
descendants to the Priory of Halliwell, which held it 
until 'the church property was taken by Henry VIII. and 
granted to Robert Draper, and so on till modern days. 
There is, besides this attractive farm, a regular piece of 
laid-out garden, and a pond and well-planted flower-beds ; 
but the little walk among trees, beside a streamlet which 
has been formed into small cascades, and crossed by rustic 
bridges, is a more original conception, and is decidedly a 
success, and a good imitation of a woodland scene. The 
contrast is all the greater as Peckham is so eminently 
prosaic, busy, and unpicturesque; the old houses having 
for the most part given place to modern suburban 
edifices. 
Due west of Peckham lies Clapham, the largest of 
the South London Commons, 220 acres in extent; 
although, being flat and compact in shape, it does not 
