There are no traces of these “Neat Houses” now; they disappeared entirely before the destructive builder, but they were in existence during this century, and stood where now is St. George’s Row, Warwick Street, Pimlico. Yet it is evident that before it sunk wholly into market gardens, the “Neat Houses” was a place of amusement where people of good standing in society might attend without prejudice. In those days people’s tastes were much simpler than in our time, and drinking syllabubs, and playing at an imaginary Arcadian life with imaginary Chloes and Strephons was fashionable. It would be hard, indeed, if Pepys had nothing to say about this suburban place of entertainment, where he takes his wife and Mistress Knipp, an actress, of whom his wife was jealous. “Aug. 1, 1667. After the Play, we went into the House, and spoke with _Knipp_, who went abroad with us, by coach, to the _Neat Houses_, in the way to _Chelsy_; and there, in a Box in a Tree, we sat and sang, and talked and eat; my wife out of humour, as she always is, when this women is by.” And again, “May 28, 1668. Met _Mercer_[12] and _Gayet_, and took them by water, first to one of the _Neat Houses_, where walked in the Gardens, but nothing but a Bottle of Wine to be had, though pleased with seeing the garden; and so to Fox Hall, where with great pleasure we walked, and then to the upper end of the retired walk, and there sat and sang, and brought a great many gallants and fine people about us; and, upon the bench, we did by and by eat and drink what we had, and very merry.” It seems a pity after such a merry scene to chronicle a death, but it was not a common one. _Domestic Intelligencer, August 5th, 1679._ “We hear that Madam Ellen Gwyn’s mother, sitting lately by the water-side at her house by the _Neate Houses_, near _Chelsea_, fell accidentally into the water, and was drowned.” There seems no reason to doubt but that Henry VIII. wanted these manors for the purpose of hunting, as they lay so contiguous to the 100 acres which, in 1532, he had added to St. James’s Park; and that this was his intention is shown by a proclamation made in 1536, wherein the King, who was passionately fond of all field sports, and excelled in them, as in every other manly exercise, says, that being desirous of having hares, patridges, pheasants and herons preserved round about his Palace of Westminster, for his own disport and pastime, forbids anyone, under pain of imprisonment, and further punishment according to his will and pleasure, either to hunt or hawk “from the Palace of Westminster to St. Giles’ in the Fields, and from thence to Islington, to Our Lady of the Oak, to Highgate, to Hornsey Park, and to Hampstead Heath.”