At Frognal Rise the ground is level with Mount Vernon, but it gradually descends, till at the ruined house (no longer standing) known in my time as Frognal Priory it is nearly flat. Like every other part of Hampstead, Frognal has its reminiscences. At the beginning of this century there was still standing on the rise of the hill, where a high wall (said to have been part of it) skirted a narrow lane leading up to Mount Vernon, a remarkable old brick mansion, of the origin or owners of which neither Lysons nor Park gives any account. It is picturesque, with two high pointed gables, mullioned windows, connected by a balustraded gallery, deep bays and dormers on the roof. Park, in his ‘History of Hampstead,’ gives an engraving of it, taken in 1814, from a picture by William Alexander, painted in 1801. For some cause or other, the fine old fabric had suffered neglect, and some time prior to 1725 was let in apartments. It occupied a beautiful situation, and here, amongst other lodgers, Colley Cibber and his theatrical friends, Booth and Wilks, were frequent visitors in summer. Subsequently the lease was purchased by the parochial authorities of Hampstead, and the fine old house was converted to the uses of the village poor-house. It seems to have served this purpose till 1800, when it had become so decayed and ruinous, and so prejudicial to the health and comfort of the inmates, that the minister[76] and parishioners, with Josiah Boydell at their head,[77] petitioned Parliament for leave to bring in a Bill to build, or provide, a new workhouse. The Bill was granted the following May, and the mansion belonging to Mrs. Leggett at New End being to be sold, it was purchased, and there is lying before me the printed specification of the alterations required to fit it for its present occupation. From this period the old house at Frognal fell into desuetude and decay—an interesting object to the antiquary and the delight of artists, but daily becoming more dangerous to the public, on which account it was taken down a few years before Park published the first edition of his history (1813). White, of Fleet Street, published an engraving of it in 1814.