At Belair, one of the show-houses of Dulwich, a branch of the Effra ran through the grounds; the Effra itself also traversed the Springfield Estate near Herne Hill, now given up to the builders. The river there appears to have been much wider than elsewhere, and in depth about nine feet, with banks shaded by old trees. The present writer remembers the Effra as a river, and was told by a gardener, now deceased, who had worked on the Caroon Estate, which extended from the present Dorset Road to the Oval, for more than fifty years, that he had often seen the Effra along Lawn Lane assume the proportions of a river, wide and deep enough to bear large barges, which statement gives countenance to the tradition that Queen Elizabeth frequently in her barge visited Sir Noel Caroon, the Dutch Ambassador, who lived at Caroon House, on the site of which stand the mansion and factory of Mark Beaufoy, Esq., who is also the owner of the Belair House above-mentioned. Dr. Montgomery, sometime Vicar of St. Mark’s, and now Bishop of Tasmania, in his ’History of Kennington,’ says that, in 1753, the whole space occupied by the Oval and a number of streets was open meadow through which the Effra meandered at will. It was a sparkling river running over a bright gravelly bottom, and supplied fresh water to the neighbourhood. A bridge crossed the Effra at St. Mark’s, and was called Merton Bridge, from its formerly having been repaired by the Canons of Merton Abbey, who had lands for that purpose. Curiously enough, the author from whom we take this, Thomas Allen, in his ’History of Lambeth,’ published in 1827, when the Effra was yet a running stream, refers to it only on the above occasion, when he calls it a ’small stream.’ ’Et c’est ainsi qu’on écrit l’histoire.’