Page:Old and New London, vol. 6.djvu/305

Camberwell.] GROVE HILL. 279 edifice is of brick, with stucco mouldings and ornaments, having an embattled centre, flanked by two towers. A low pointed gateway leads through this part of the structure to a quadrangle with a lawn in the centre, and surrounded by buildings in the same style.

The rural character of Camberwell at the latter part of the eighteenth century may be gathered from the fact that the trees and hedges of the village are alluded to in the vestry minutes; and in 1782 caterpillars so abounded in the parish, that the overseers spent £10 in "apprehending them," at the rate of sixpence per bushel. The caterpillars were described as being dangerous to the public in general. "The Camberwell Beauty," the delight of entomologists, is still one of the finest butterflies of the summer; but it is now rarely seen. It was most abundant when Camberwell was a straggling suburban parish of about 4,000 inhabitants. But Camberwell is now a congeries of streets, and forms part of the great metropolis itself.

Close by the Camberwell Station of the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway, stood Myatt's Farm, a picturesque building in the midst of gardens, celebrated for their strawberries as lately as the present reign. Camberwell, in fact, was, down to a comparatively recent date, famous for its flowers and fruit. In Cold Harbour Lane, which leads from the southern end of the High Street towards Brixton, are still located one or two well-known florists. In this lane was Strawberry Hall, now pulled down to form a site for Loughborough Park Chapel; beyond this was the "river" Effra, which, having been diverted from its original channel, or otherwise effaced, is now kept in remembrance by a modern thoroughfare called Effra Road. Cold Harbour—a name by no means rare in the rural districts—is supposed to have originally signified a place of entertainment for travellers and drovers, but the derivation is uncertain.

At the foot of Denmark Hill, or rather at the fork made by the junction of that road with Cold Harbour Lane, stood Denmark Hill Grammar School, "a handsome and imposing structure," with its extensive grounds skirting the parish boundary, and which "was reckoned among the maisons grandes of Camberwell." The grounds were enclosed by a high brick wall; and the house itself, which faced Denmark Hill, stood only a few yards from the road. It was a lofty structure, built of red and white bricks, with dressings of Portland stone, and the interior contained some curious and quaint carvings and frescoes.

At the beginning of the present century there lived at Grove Hill Dr. John Lettsom, one of the most extraordinary men of his day. As a Quaker physician he was most successful, realising sometimes as much as £12,000 a year. He was as liberal and philanthropic as he was wealthy. At Grove Hill he entertained some of the most eminent literati of his time. He used to sign his prescriptions "I. Lettsom." This signature occasioned the following epigram

Dr. John Coakley Lettsom was the son of a West Indian planter, and was born in the year 1744. Having completed his education in England, he was apprenticed to a Yorkshire apothecary. He afterwards returned to the West Indies, and settled as a medical practitioner at Tortola. After about five or six months, he again found his way into Europe. In 1769, he was admitted a licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians of London, and in the following year elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. Dr. Lettsom's rise in his profession was rapid; but whilst realising a handsome fortune, he was not forgetful of the wants of his needy brethren, and the poorer order of clergy and struggling literary men received from him not only gratuitous advice, but substantial aid; whilst his contributions to charitable institutions placed him in the front rank of earnest and practical philanthropists. Dr. Lettsom deserves also to be remembered as the original proprietor of the sea-bathing Infirmary at Margate, which dates from 1792 or thereabouts. Numerous anecdotes have been published about the celebrated physician, but the following will sufficiently illustrate his proverbial generosity, which we tell on the authority' of Mr. Blanch:—"As he was travelling on one occasion in the neighbourhood of London, a highwayman stopped his carriage; but from the awkward and constrained manner of the intruder, the doctor correctly imagined the young man was somewhat of a novice in his new vocation, and that he was an outlaw more from necessity than from choice; and so it turned out. The doctor interested himself in his behalf, and eventually obtained him a commission in the army. On one of his benevolent excursions, the doctor found his way into the squalid garret of a poor woman who had seen better days. With the language and deportment of a lady, she begged the physician to give her a prescription. After inquiring carefully into her case, he wrote on a slip of paper to the overseers of the parish: 'A shilling per diem for