THE ROYAL ARTILLERY INSTITUTION. 
281 
In onr map of 1778, Charlton village and park appear on the west. In 
front of the hall will be observed a wide open space, ranging westward 
with the church tower, and on the other side with the stables (and, we may 
add, with the old gateway now found in the middle of the front garden 
of the hall). This was the original site of the celebrated Horn Pair. It 
will be remembered that in old days, people had not the opportunity of 
choosing from 40 or 50 columns of the Times where they would supply 
themselves with any possible commodity, from a steam ship to a phial of 
Dew of Sahara, conveyed by fleet dromedaries via Morocco and Wapping to 
Maddox-street, W.C. It was at the annual fairs that they found the means 
of replacing the breakages that might have been occasioned by the medieval 
cat. Thus there were fairs for pottery-ware, fairs for wood-ware, fairs for 
horn-ware &c. In the Villare Cantianum , 1659, Philipott tells us :—“ The 
fair is kept yearly upon Saint Luke's day and called Horn Fair, by reason 
of the plenty of Winding-Horns, and cups, and other vessels of horn, there 
brought to be sold." The inn at the corner of the old fair-ground still 
exhibits the sign of a Winding-Horn, though we now call it a Bugle-horn ; 
the article itself being at this day pretty well limited to the hunters of Der 
Preischiitz and Pontainebleau. Prom Lysons we further learn that the fair 
was formerly opened by a burlesque procession, which passed from Deptford 
through Greenwich, each person wearing some ornament of horn on his 
head. This procession, he adds, has been discontinued since 1786. The 
old fair ground has been squeezed into the limits of a common turnpike 
road, by what process I know not ; and at present the fair is held in a field 
at the east end of the village, each Big man and Little woman paying a 
goodly sum of rental for the privilege of being viewed by an enlightened 
and philosophical public. Horn is now probably the only material of which 
it would be difficult to find a supply. The mumming has gradually merged 
from its pristine funniness (if it ever had any) to screaming vulgarity, and the 
fair is now* at least in the evenings, a perfect orgie. 
The Hall at Charlton was built about 1612 by Sir Adam Newton, who 
was preceptor of Prince Henry, son of James the Pirst. The ceiling of one 
of the rooms still exhibits among its decorations the Boyal arms and the 
Ostrich plume of the Prince of Wales. The tomb of Sir Adam may be 
seen in the north wall of the Church, recording in a long Latin epitaph the 
particulars of his family status and the honours to which he attained. The 
Princedom of Wales again at a later period became connected with 
Charlton. In “ the Ambulator " of 1807 we read : “ Her Boyal Highness 
Princess of Wales makes Charlton her constant country residence, and 
is much respected and beloved by the neighbourhood." She lived in the old 
white house facing the west front of St Paul's Church. On the west side 
of Charlton Park is a fine old avenue of trees, the east end facing the hall 
stables, the west approaching Marlborough Lane. This was the entrance 
to the old Bectory house of the parish, which stood at the west end of the 
avenue. Near the south angle of the Park will be found a large hollow 
thicket, forming, before the trees were grown, a sort of amphitheatre. 
Here bull-baiting was practised, and the spot still bears the name of “ the 
Bull Pits," My “old villager" tells me that, when the sport was stopped 
here, the bull was baited at the corner of the Eltliam road* where the 
Herbert Hospital now is. 
