In these bygone years, on leaving Frognal Priory, if you took the first turning to the right, you found yourself at the entrance to West End Lane, then a really rustic lane, with high hedgerows and sheltering trees.[102] CHAPTER VI. _WEST END TO CHILD’S HILL AND THE WEST HEATH._ Although lying wide of Hampstead proper, West End is an integral part of the parish of St. John, and the western boundary of the original demesne lands of the manor. It is accessible from the Heath by two or three charming field-paths, and when in the neighbourhood of Frognal Priory, at the period these lines were written, the first turning to the left led straight to it. In those days not even the blank walls and close-clipped garden hedges at the entrance could deprive West End Lane of the character of rusticity. The ground along which it undulated, the fine old trees that overhung it in places, and the grassy slopes to the left, with their old-fashioned hedgerows broken by elm and oak trees, and brightened in spring and summer with whitethorn and elder bloom, left us a glimpse, as it were, of the lovely aspect of the fields, once stretching away to what were then Kilburn meadows, but which now underlie a town. The first house to the right at the beginning of the lane was the Ferns, noticeable as having been the residence of the late Henry Bradshaw Fearon, a wealthy wine-merchant of London, a man of ‘large mind, and liberal principles, and a leader of them in others.’ ‘In common with, if not in so prominent a degree as, Lord Brougham, Thomas Campbell, and other men of high standing and influence, he took an active part in the originating and founding of the London University, and, if only on this account, deserves the gratitude of his fellow-citizens.’[103] Next to the Ferns was the so-called Manor House, the residence for some years of the head of the well-known publishing firm of Longman and Co.[104] A few yards further, the road dipped down into a green hollow, with meeting elm-boughs overhead, and there was a seat pleasantly placed for the comfort and rest of wayfarers. Beside it a gate and footpath led aslant over two grass fields hemmed round by hedgerows and trees, the second of them having two very aged oak-trees in it; one of them, hollow and gnarled, but still sprouting forth a green head, stood one half within and one half without the gate, which separated the fields directly in the middle of the pathway which led round it. Of these fields we find a pleasant memory in a letter of Miss Meteyard’s, published by Mr. Stephens in his ‘Life of Sir Edwin Landseer,’ whose father, in 1849-50, resided (as his family have since continued to do) at St. John’s Wood. At this period the Howitts were living in the avenue close by, and being well acquainted, William Howitt and the elder Landseer often met in their walks, or would go or return together.