3-034-636 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Sketches on Hampstead Heath [in nothwest London]: firs near North End, 1871. 'Visitors who have not been there of late years will be grieved and rather astonished when they see the cruel havoc which has been wrought in that which was formerly a picturesque bit of wild rustic scenery, where the eye could repose with pleasure. The whole space on the summit of the hill, both to the right and to the left of the high road which passes over it from Hampstead to Highgate, has been ruthlessly dug up for gravel or sand...Another question of importance is that of the preservation of the trees in the upper part of the Heath, to the left of the Highgate road from Jack Straw's Castle to the Spaniards Tavern. There are some firs, near the house where Lord Erskine lived, which have not yet suffered much ill-treatment; but other trees of that species, as well as two or three horse-chestnuts and a small oak, have been robbed of the very soil in which they grew, and their roots are now exposed - a woeful and wonderful sight - in such a manner that they must soon perish or fall by the force of a storm'. From "Illustrated London News", 1871.