240 LONDON PARKS © GARDENS 
valley, but this was never done, and the gardens now 
only show the variation of level in one part. There is 
a good assortment of trees, and a group of mulberries 
which bear fruit every year. 
Further west again, the old hamlet of Brompton has 
small, quiet squares of its own. The trees of Brompton 
Square, that quiet cul-de-sac, and the way through with a 
nice row of trees to Holy Trinity Church (built in 1829), 
with Cottage Place running parallel with it, is rather 
unlike any other corner of London. Before it was 
built over Brompton was famous for its gardens—first 
that of London and Wise, in the reign of William III. 
and Anne, and then that of William Curtis, the editor 
of the Botanical Magazine . A guide-book of 1792, de¬ 
scribes Brompton as “ a populous hamlet of Kensington, 
adjoining Knightsbridge, remarkable for the salubrity 
of its air. This place was the residence of Oliver 
Cromwell.” Kensington Square is older than any of the 
Brompton Squares, having been begun in James II.’s 
reign, and completed after William III. was living in 
Kensington Palace. From the first it was very fashion¬ 
able, and has many celebrated names connected with 
it—Addison, Talleyrand, Archbishop Herring, John 
Stuart Mill, and many others. The weeping ash trees 
and circular beds give the gardens a character of their 
own. Edwardes differs from all other London Squares. 
The small houses and large square garden are said by 
Leigh Hunt, who lived there at one time, to have been 
laid out to suit the taste of French refugees, who it was 
thought might take up their quarters there. The small 
houses were to suit their empty pockets, and the large 
garden their taste for a sociable out-of-door life. 
Loudon was an admirer of the design of the garden, 
