The other initials have not been identified. As the "White Conduit" it was known well into this century, but it fell somewhat into decay, about 1812--was never repaired, and, finally, was pulled down in 1831--to make way for the completion of some new buildings in Barnsbury Road, as a continuation of Penton Street: and the stone was broken up, and used in making the New Road. [Illustration: STONE IN THE WHITE CONDUIT. _Gentleman's Magazine_, vol. lxxi. p. 1161, A.D. 1801.] So much for the Conduit itself; but it, although inert, exercised a large share in the amusements of Londoners down to a comparatively recent period. It was pleasantly situated in the fields, and, until this century, during the latter half of which, the modern Babylon has become one huge mass of bricks and mortar, it served as a pleasant place of recreation for the Cits. There was an uninterrupted prospect of Hampstead and Highgate--which bounded the northern view, and which was purely pastoral, with the exception of sparsely-dotted farmhouses. There is a tradition that, on the site of the comparatively modern _White Conduit House_, was (in the reign of Charles I.), a tavern in the course of erection, and that, being finished, the workmen were carousing at the very moment of the monarch's decapitation. Doubtless, in these suburban fields, there was, for very many years, a place for refreshment, which probably took the form, in the Arcadian age of the seventeenth and eighteenth century, of new milk, curds and whey, and syllabubs, for Islington was famous for its dairy produce,[24] as we know by the account of the entertainment given to Queen Elizabeth at Kenilworth Castle in 1575 by the Earl of Leicester, when the Squier Minstrel of Middlesex made a long speech in praise of Islington, whose motto was said to be, "Lactis Caseus infans." The earliest really authentic notice of the White Conduit House, I can find, is in the _Daily Advertiser_ August 10, 1754. "This is to acquaint the public, that, at the White Conduit House, the proprietor, for the better accommodation of the gentlemen and ladies, has completed a long walk, with a handsome circular Fish-pond, a number of shady, pleasant arbours inclosed with a fence 7 feet high to prevent being the least incommoded from the people in the fields. Hot loaves,[25] and butter every day, milk directly from the Cows; coffee and tea, and all manners of liquors in the greatest perfection: also a handsome Long Room, from whence is the most Copious prospects and airy situation of any now in vogue. I humbly hope the continuance of my friends' favours, as I make it my chief study to have the best accommodations, and am, Gentlemen and Ladies, your obliged humble servant, Robert Bartholomew. _Note._ My Cows eat no grains, neither any adulteration in the Milk or Cream. Bats and Balls for Cricket, and a convenient field to play in."