Mr. Edward Walford in his work entitled "Old and New London," published by Cassell, Petter and Galpin, London; in Part 66 at Page 479, writes, "Battersea has other claims to immortality: in spite of the claims of Burton and Edinburgh, there can be little doubt, if Fuller is a trustworthy historian, that one of the ozier beds of the river side here was the cradle of bottled ale. The story is thus circumstantially told in 'The Book of Anecdote':--Alexander Nowell, Dean of St Paul's and Master of Westminster School in the reign of Queen Mary, was a supporter of 'the new opinions' and also an excellent angler. But, writes Fuller, while Nowell was catching of fishes Bishop Bonner was after catching of Nowell, and would certainly have sent him to the Tower if he could have caught him, as doubtless he would have done had not a good merchant of London conveyed him away safely upon the seas. It so happened that Nowell had been fishing upon the banks of the Thames when he received the first intimation of his danger, which was so pressing that he dared not even go back to his house to make any preparation for his flight. Like an honest angler, he had taken with him on this expedition provisions for the day, in the shape of some bread and cheese and some beer in a bottle; and on his return from London and to his own haunts he remembered that he had left these stores in a safe place upon the bank, and there he resolved to look for them. The bread and cheese of course were gone; but the bottle was still there--'yet no bottle, but rather a gun: such was the sound at the opening thereof.' And this trifling circumstance, quaintly observes Fuller, 'is believed to have been the origin of bottled ale in England, for casualty (_i.e._ accident) is mother of more inventions than is industry.'" On the road to Wandsworth and facing Plough Lane was "Ye Plough Inn," erected A.D. 1701. In front of this Inn grew an oak to which an iron ring was fastened, and it is supposed that here Dick Turpin the notorious highwayman occasionally reined up his bonny black mare. When the Inn was re-built in 1875-6 the trunk was removed to the front of the "Old House" in Plough Lane, which formerly belonged to Mr. Carter, who owned extensive market gardens about here. The following lines were written in commemoration of the famous Old Plough Tree, and the present landlord has had the lines enframed for his customers to read:--