During the reigns of Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth, Hampstead Woods continued to flourish, coming down on the east to the village of Cantleowes, or Kentish Town, while on the west they spread by Belsize, and what is now the Adelaide Road, to St. John’s Wood, where at the Domesday the Abbess of Barking held wood and pasture of the King for fifty swine. More recently St. John’s Wood belonged to the Knights Templars. It was in this wood the unfortunate Babington took refuge from the fury of Elizabeth till driven forth by hunger. With this Queen’s successor, and his favourite, Buckingham, Hampstead was a frequent hunting-ground, and to this day the plateau on the west Heath, locally known as the King’s Hill, commemorates the spot from which His Majesty was wont to see the hounds throw off. In James’s reign and that of his son, Charles I., certain ‘fair edifices’ had arisen on the Heath and its vicinity for the accommodation and convenience of the Court when hunting and hawking in the neighbourhood. Of these old houses none exist to add to the archæological interest of the neighbourhood. It is impossible to imagine a finer foreground for a hunting or hawking party than the Heath, the natural beauty of the landscape lending itself most effectively to such scenes. Who questions the locality of the wicked _bon-mot_ of our Merry Monarch, who could never resist the temptation of saying a smart thing? When in the midst of a group of beauties, courtiers, and Churchmen (who particularly delighted in hawking), he observed of the church of Harrow-on-the-Hill that it was ‘the only visible Church he knew of.’ Towards the closing years of Charles I.’s reign (1647), the Great Hollow Elm at Hampstead (figured by Hollar in an engraving preserved amongst the pamphlets in the King’s Library in the British Museum) became an object of attraction to visitors. Remarkable for its size and supposed age, measuring 28 feet immediately above the ground in girth, with widely-spreading branches, and of great height, a sagacious speculator about the year 1647 (as appears from some verses addressed to it by Robert Codrington, of Magdalen College, Oxford, 1653) constructed a staircase of forty-two steps within the hollow trunk, with sixteen openings lighting it, which led up to an octagon turret fixed amongst the branches of the tree 33 feet from the ground. ‘The seat above the steps six might sit upon, and round about room for fourteen more.’ At this altitude spectators enjoyed a most glorious view, or, rather, a succession of them, and found themselves above every object in Middlesex with the exception of the church spire of Harrow.