At Knightsbridge there used to be a toll collector, but I do not recollect any toll gate. A man used to come out of a gate in the fence to collect it, about where the Bank now stands, beside it the Cannon Brewery, a large building with a cannon at the top, with the back overlooking the park. That and White’s menagerie, adjoining the Fox and Bull tavern, were pulled down, and one of the first National Exhibitions was built on the ground. It was for a collection formed by a doctor who had travelled in China. It was a collection of all sorts of curios, illustrative of the habits, idol worship and life and industry of the Chinese, with native workmen and women carrying on their various trades and domestic apparatus, as they did at home with their temples, and performances in idol worship. It was first exhibited at the back of the Alexandra Hotel in a large room in the old barrack yard, and it was such a success that in the following year the large brick building was built on the site of the Cannon Brewery. There were a lot of immense stuffed dragons and winged snakes and flying fish and many-headed monsters and curious reptiles that had never been seen in Europe before, and several Chinese ladies sitting on pedestals exhibiting their deformed feet, which looked like hoofs with a row of small lumps of flesh underneath with nails that represented the toes. There was a large number of visitors, and it kept open for about two years, having had some waxworks added to its attractions. A little beyond the Alexandra Hotel stood a dairy that was noted for its asses’ milk, which at that time was considered a cure for consumption. There would be as many as forty donkeys there of a morning and they would be driven in pairs by boys round to the customers and milked at their doors twice a day, which was a very large and profitable business. On the Knightsbridge Road, opposite Gore House, stood an old tavern in the middle of the road with some old stables and sheds, a great place for the market carts and country wagons to stop at of a morning. Gore House became the residence of the Countess of Blessington, her daughter and Count D’Orsay, a very handsome and fashionable Frenchman. There were large grounds attached to the house and they used to give very grand garden parties both public and private, many of them for charities. I recollect going to one given for the benefit of the Caledonian School. It was a very grand and fashionable Fancy Fair with the guards and the Caledonian School band, and Athletic Sports, trials of strength, sword dances and the Highland fling, putting the stone and flinging the hammer, the bag-pipes, and many other Scotch pastimes. The grounds were very beautiful. The property was bought by the commissioners of the ’51 Exhibition from their surplus funds, and the Albert Hall now stands on the site.