Battersea, then, is as "nook-shotten" a place as is the "isle of Albion" itself, according to Shakespeare. Gardens as old as the time of Queen Anne hide coyly behind walls that permit only the tops of the trees to be discerned. Houses, of the sedate red-and-brown brick that our ancestors loved, stand at oblique angles to the roadways, each with the silent history of vanished generations entombed beneath its ponderous, red-tiled roof. Ancient taverns or inns (call them not public-houses, still less hotels or gin-palaces)--goodly hostelries of the past, broad-frontaged, deep-windowed, large-chimneyed, many-gabled--invite the most temperate passer-by to refresh himself in the cavernous gloom of the bar. The old parish church--not so old as one could wish, but having a Georgian character that is beginning to acquire the interest of all departed modes--occupies a sort of peninsula on the river, the ripple of which speaks closely in the ears of dead parishioners. On the whole, Battersea has known better days. It is now chiefly given up to factories, to the humble dwellings of factory people, and to the houses and shops of the lower middle class. But, in the National Society's Training College, it has a noble old mansion, standing in well-timbered grounds; and the free school of Sir Walter St. John (grandfather of Queen Anne's famous minister) is also interesting. The school was founded in 1700, but the building is of the modern Tudor style. To a casual visitor, however, the most noticeable thing about the suburb is the river itself, with its belongings;--the straggling banks; the rickety water-side structures; the boat-builders' yards; the heavy, black barges hauled on to the foreshore, undergoing repair, or being lazily broken up; the larger vessels, with sails of that rusty orange hue which tells of sun and breeze; and the prevalent smell of pitch, mingled with watery ooze.