Fortunately, the general aspect of Richmond Green, that when the palace was occupied by royalty was the scene of many a brilliant pageant, and later of many a hotly contested game of cricket, in which the chief experts of the day took part, is but little changed from what it was two centuries ago. Its wooden palings have been replaced by iron ones bearing the monogram of William IV., and the old sundial that long occupied its centre has been removed, but its limits have not been curtailed. It has a delightful old-world look about it, and there is nothing incongruous with it in the new buildings of the Free Library, or in the modern theatre associated with the name of Edmund Kean, who was at one time its lessee, that replaces, though on another site, the eighteenth-century building in which David Garrick and Mrs. Siddons are said to have acted, and that was the successor of a yet earlier one founded by the poet-laureate Colley Cibber. The narrow alleys leading from the town to the time-honoured Green are also thoroughly in keeping with it, and here and there a venerable red-brick mansion amongst the more modern buildings surrounding it redeems the ancient borough from the commonplace. The parish school and dust-bin, {253} with the open refuse-heap that long occupied the site of the present crescent; the old watch-house that looked down upon them, with the adjacent pound and stocks, have all been improved away; but the houses of Heron, originally Herring Court, named probably after a former owner, in one of which Lord Lytton was often the guest of his brother, those in Ormond Road where dwelt the poetess Mrs. Hofland, Lichfield House, now the residence of the novelist Mrs. Maxwell (Miss Braddon), and Egerton House opposite to it, still strike the note of the past, that echoes also in the poetic name of the district known as the Vineyard, recalling the days when vines flourished on the slopes of Richmond Hill, and the almshouses of Sir Richard Wright and Bishop Duppa--both founded in the seventeenth century, though the latter was only transferred to its present site in 1852--received their first inmates. No longer do the shouts of the bargemen, who used to be harnessed to their crafts in groups of eight, tout for hire in Water Lane, and the quaint cry 'Man to horse!' by which their customers hailed them, clash with the shrill horn of the stagecoach that started for London twice a day, but at the junction of the Lane with King Street still stands part of the ancient Feather's Inn, once a noted place of resort of the _beau monde_, and not far from it is the little old-fashioned shop known as the Maid of Honour, because in it were sold the celebrated cakes bearing that name. Passed away, leaving no trace, however, are the Blue Anchor, Black Boy, and Queen Anne's inns, but near the {254} summit of the famous hill, looking down upon the river, is the fine residence called Cardigan House, once the property of the earl whose