Tea Gardens and open spaces made the necessity of a Park very obvious, and it was to meet this want that Southwark Park was made. MARYON PARK There is one more small Park to complete the line of South London Parks, for which the public is indebted to Sir Spencer Maryon-Wilson, the lord of the manor of Charlton, in which parish it is situated. It lies between Greenwich and Woolwich, and the South-Eastern Railway skirts the northern side. The ground was chiefly large gravel pits, and has a hill in the middle partly caused by the excavations. This hill has some pretty brushwood still growing on its slope, showing it was once joined to Hanging Wood, a well-known hiding-place of highwaymen. It was conveniently thick, and there are many tales of pursuit from Blackheath which ended by losing the thieves in Hanging Wood. The hill in the Park is locally known as Cox’s Mount, having been rented by an inhabitant of that name in 1838, who built a summer-house there and planted poplars. The area of the Park is about 12 acres, and except for one or two trees on the Mount and patches of brushwood, it is open grass. The boys on the _Warspite_ training ship anchored near are allowed to play cricket there, provision for this having been made by the generous donor of the Park in the deed of gift to the London County Council in 1891. Quite outside these crowded districts, yet within the County of London, lie three more Parks maintained by the County Council. The one nearest the heart of London is Manor Park, or Manor House Gardens, between the High Road, Lee, and Hither Green Station, opened in 1902. There are 8¾ acres here attached to the Lee Manor House, a substantial building in the Adams style, now used as the Public Library. The Gardens slope gently away from the house to a large pond--or lake as the Council would prefer to call it--and beyond to a rapid little stream, the Quaggy, a tributary of the Ravensbourne. Beyond the Quaggy’s steep banks, well protected by spiked railings, is a flat green devoted to games. The chief beauty of this little Park is four magnificent old elms and a few other good trees--beech, chestnut, _Robinia speudo acacia_, &c. In the spring of 1907 the pond was in process of cleaning, so no rooks had ventured to build within the Park, but just at the gates a large elm in a small garden had been favoured by these capricious birds, and their hoarse voices were making a deliciously countrified sound. The other London County Council Parks are in what is still nearly open country, although rows of villas are being rather rapidly reared in the district. Eltham is one of these. It is at present not enclosed with massive iron railings, but the wide, flat stretch of smooth turf, studded with patriarchal trees, is left untouched, except that a few spaces have been levelled for games. This Park of 41 acres was bought in 1902, the Borough of Woolwich paying half the cost of purchase--£9600--with the Council.