was given to Sir Nicholas Carew, who already owned so much real {165} estate in Surrey, and on his execution for treason in 1539 it reverted to the Crown. In 1589 it was bestowed by Queen Elizabeth on Edward D'Arcy, one of the Grooms of the Chamber, passing after his death through many different hands, at one time being owned by Mrs. Richard Evelyn, sister-in-law of the famous diarist. For many centuries Epsom remained a secluded hamlet scarcely known to any one but the owners of the great houses in the neighbourhood, who delighted in its charming situation at the edge of the breezy Banstead Downs. The discovery early in the seventeenth century, however, of medicinal springs on the adjacent common inaugurated a complete change, and Epsom Spa soon became a formidable rival to Tunbridge Wells and Hampstead as a favourite resort of the _beau monde_ of the capital, who flocked to it in crowds to drink its waters and amuse themselves. In that entertaining storehouse of local information _The Worthies of England_, published in 1662, the Rev. Thomas Fuller gives a very graphic description of the finding of the springs at Epsom in 1618: 'One Henry Wicker,' he says, 'in a dry summer and great want of water for cattle, discovered in the concave of a horse or neat's footing some water standing ... with his pad staff he did dig a square hole about it and so departed. Returning the next day, with some difficulty he discovered the same place, and found the hole running over with most clear water. Yet,' he adds, 'the cattle, though tempted with thirst, would not drink {166} thereof, it having a mineral taste therin.' He then relates the gradual growth in popularity of the spring thus accidentally discovered, but he himself evidently had his doubts as to the real efficacy of the waters, for he remarks that he does not wonder the citizens coming to Epsom from the 'worst of smokes into the best of airs find in themselves a perfective alteration.'