Towards the end of the eighteenth century the Spaniards was much resorted to, especially on Sundays.[198] During the Gordon Riots of 1780, its landlord, Giles Thomas, is said to have arrested the progress of the mob bent on the destruction of Caen Wood House, Lord Mansfield’s residence, hard by, through rolling out his beer barrels into the road, and setting them abroach, thus gaining time to summon the military for the defence of the house. [Illustration: SOUTH VIEW OF THE SPANIARDS, 1750.] In the present century, though the mount and the pebbled plots had disappeared, the Spaniards gardens were rendered attractive by a bowling-green, and by pleasant arbours and parterres: it was resorted to by many a party of tea-drinkers like that of Mr. Raddle, Mrs. Bardell and her friends.[199] [Park’s _Hampstead_; Baines’s _Hampstead_; Walford, v. 445, ff.; Thorne’s _Environs of London_, 1876.] VIEWS. 1. The south view of the Spaniards (showing the garden as laid out by Staples) near Hampstead (Chatelain del., J. Roberts sculp. 1750, W. Coll., reproduced in Chambers’s _Book of Days_, ii. 71). 2. The Spaniards Tavern, Hampstead, Middlesex, drawn and engraved for Dugdale’s _England and Wales_. 3. View of the inn as at present, Walford, v. 445. 4. “View of a skittle ground at Hampstead” (either the Spaniards or Jack Straw’s Castle), Woodward’s _Eccentric Excursions_, coloured print, pl. iv. p. 14 (1796). NEW GEORGIA New Georgia was situated in Turner’s Wood to the north-east of the Spaniards tavern, Hampstead, and at the northern extremity of the road opposite the western lodge of Caen Wood. It was a wooden cottage, two storeys high, irregularly constructed, and standing in a wilderness and garden laid out “in a delightful romantic taste.” The proprietor, Robert Caston, built the cottage in 1737, and opened New Georgia to the public. He was his own architect, builder, and gardener, and probably compared his labours to those of the founders of the American colony of Georgia established in 1733. An inscription on the cottage explained the origin of New Georgia as follows:--“I Robert Caston, begun this place in a wild wood, stubbed up the wood, digged all the ponds, cut all the walks, made all the gardens, built all the rooms, with my own hands; nobody drove a nail here, laid a brick or a tile, but myself, and thank God for giving me such strength, being sixty-four years of age when I begun it.”