great height.’ The Fleet,[91] or, as it was sometimes there called, the Bagnigge River, now a sewer, but at that time still comparatively undefiled, flowed through part of the garden; it was crossed by a bridge, and the banks were rich with vegetation, insomuch that, as Archer tells us, Luke Clennell, the artist, often came here and made foreground studies for his pictures. But tastes change: the mineral waters ceased to attract; people of fashion came no more. As early as 1779 Bagnigge Wells is described as a place ‘Where ‘prenticed youth enjoy the Sunday feast, And City matrons boast their Sabbath rest, Where unfledged Templars first as fops parade, And new-made ensigns sport their first cockade.’ Later it became a mere cockney tea-garden, and gradually declined, till in Lewis’s ‘History of Islington,’ 1842, it is described as almost a ruin. Shortly afterwards it was closed and dismantled, and now all trace of it has disappeared, save the name, which has been appropriated by a modern tavern at the corner of King’s Cross Road (formerly Bagnigge Wells Road) and Pakenham Street, and a curious stone tablet surmounted by a grotesque head, of which I here give an illustration. [Illustration] This is now to be seen built into the wall between two modern houses--Nos. 61 and 63, King’s Cross Road--probably near the north-western limit of the garden. It is mentioned by Dr. Bevis in 1760 as having been ‘over an old Gothic portal taken down about three years ago, and now replaced over the door from the high-road to the house.’ At that time, I believe, the grotesque head was added. About thirty years ago, as may be learned from a letter in the _Builder_, January, 1863, the doorway was pulled down and the stone fixed where one may still see it, in front of the houses built on the site. I was glad to find this stone still in existence; it is worth rescuing from oblivion. The inscription runs as follows: ‘This is Bagnigge House neare the Pinder a Wakefielde 1680.’