|Express from London Bridge, reaches Brighton (51 miles) at | | |6.0 p.m. | 1 0 0| +-------------------------------------------------------------+--------+ X We may now, somewhat belatedly, after recounting these varied annals of the way to Brighton, start along the road itself, coming from the south side of Westminster Bridge to Kennington. No one scanning the grey vista of the Kennington Road would, on sight, accuse Kennington of owning a past; but, as a sheer matter of fact, it is an historic place. It is the "Chenintun" of Domesday Book, and the Cyningtun or Köningtun--the King's town--of an even earlier time. It was indeed a royal manor belonging to Canute, and the site of the palace where his son, Hardicanute, died, mad drunk, in 1042. Edward the Third annexed it to his Duchy of Cornwall, and even yet, after the vicissitudes of nine hundred years, the Prince of Wales, as Duke of Cornwall, owns house property here. Kennington Park, too, has its own sombre romance, for it was an open common until 1851, and a favourite place of execution for Surrey malefactors. Here the minor prisoners among the Scottish rebels captured by the Duke of Cumberland in the '45 were executed, those of greater consideration being beheaded on Tower Hill. It is an odd coincidence that, among the lesser titles of "Butcher Cumberland" himself was that of Earl of Kennington. At this junction of roads, where the Kennington Road, the Kennington Park Road, the Camberwell New Road, and the Brixton Road, all pool their traffic, there stood, in times not so far removed but that some yet living can remember it, Kennington Gate, an important turnpike at any time, and one of very great traffic on Derby Day, when, I fear, the pikeman was freely bilked of his due at the hands of sportsmen, noble and ignoble. There is a view of this gate on such a day drawn by James Pollard, and published in 1839, which gives a very good idea of the amount of traffic and, incidentally, of the curious costumes of the period. You shall also find in the "Comic Almanack" for 1837 an illustration by George Cruikshank of this same place, one would say, although it is not mentioned by name, in which is an immense jostling crowd anxious to pass through, while the pikeman, having apparently been "cheeked" by the occupants of a passing vehicle, is vulgarly engaged, I grieve to state, in "taking a sight" at them. That is to say, he has, according to the poet, "Put his thumb unto his nose and spread his fingers out." [Sidenote: KENNINGTON GATE]