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It may be news to many—it was to me till the other day, when quite accidentally I came across the fact in an ancient road-book—that in the days of Charles II. Barnet was a watering-place of considerable repute, even disputing supremacy with its rising rival of Tunbridge Wells. In a field near the town on the Elstree Road is the formerly famous but now almost forgotten chalybeate spring known two centuries ago as the "Physic Well," and much resorted to by the fashionable folk of the Restoration days. On glancing over the ever fresh and entertaining Diary of Samuel Pepys, that chatty old-time road-traveller, who was always getting up "betimes" and starting off somewhere or another, I noted the following entry:—"11 August 1667 (Lord's Day).—Up by four o'clock, and ready with Mrs. Turner" (why so often without your wife, good Mr. Pepys?) "to take coach before five; and set out on our journey, and got to the Wells at Barnett by seven o'clock" (not a great rate of speed), "and there found many people a-drinking; but the morning is a very cold morning, so as we were very cold all the way in the coach So after drinking three glasses, and the women nothing" (wise women), "we back by coach to Barnett, where to the Red Lyon, where we 'light, and went up into the great room, and drank and eat and so to Hatfield," where he "took coach again, and got home with great content."

Amongst my prized possessions is a quaint and ancient map of London and the country for about twenty miles round. This interesting map I find,