292 LONDON PARKS & GARDENS 
moment’s consideration. Push open a door in the 
modern-looking castellated building in the City Road 
near Bunhill Fields, and a large, quiet, open space is 
discovered. Old guns look inoffensively down on a 
wide square of green turf. This is the home of the 
Honourable Artillery Company, the descendants of the 
“Trained Bands” of citizens, first enrolled in 1585 in 
the fear of a Spanish invasion. They have been here 
since 1622, when they moved from near Bishopsgate 
Without. “ Artillery Garden,” or Teazel Close or 
Garden, was the name of the older place, from the teazel 
grown there for the cloth workers. 
“ Teazel of ground we enlarge St. Mary’s Spittle, 
Trees cut down, and gardens added to it, 
Thanks to the lords that gave us leave to do it,” 
says an old poem. The existing Artillery Ground was 
a great place for cricket matches, where county met 
county in the eighteenth century. It was here that a 
vast crowd witnessed the first balloon ever launched into 
the air in England, sent up by Count Zambeccari in 
1783. The next year, from the same place, Lunardi was 
more ambitious, and actually went up in his balloon. 
It proved too small for the friend who was ready to 
risk his life in his company, so he took a dog, a cat, and 
a pigeon with him instead. 
Passing on into the City, the remains of the once 
extensive Drapers’ Garden is met with. 1 Only a small 
piece, seen from the street through iron railings, and 
approached through the hall, has been retained ; a few 
trees and bright flowers survive of what was once a 
fashionable and much sought after resort. 
1 See page 12. 
