2-979-080 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Citizens of London walking in the Pleasant Pastures of Smethefelde, 1857. Scene from "Master Walter, the Physician. A Tale of Old London": 'The Smethefelde was thronged, that afternoon, with groups of citizens, who had brought out their wives and children, to enjoy a walk through the pleasant pastures that skirted Turnmill Brook...Wherever the eye roved over those grassy meadows...it fell upon gay and varied dresses. The more old-fashioned of the citizenesses adhered to the green kirtle, which had been common since the Conquest; but there were many who aped the increasing extravagance of the nobility, and figured in tunics of blue or crimson. Dotted about amongst the gayer dresses of the wealthier citizens, might be seen the russet coats and peaked cowls of the mechanics, and the bliaus (the progenitors of the modern smock frocks) of the agricultural labourers.'. From "Illustrated London News", 1857.