The extensive parish of Enfield, through which flows the New River, and of which the Lea forms the eastern boundary, is divided into four parts, known as the Town, the Chase, the Bull's Cross, and Green Street. It is finely situated on the borders of what was once a famous royal hunting-ground, that although now almost entirely enclosed, is not yet built over. The actual town is one of the most prosperous of the suburbs of London, for it is the seat of a thriving Government small-arms factory, employing several hundred hands. The whole district is full of interesting historic memories, for even in the eleventh century, as proved by the descriptions in Doomsday Book, Enfield was a populous village, and the parish included no less than eight manors--Enfield proper and Worcesters, that long belonged to the Crown; Durants, Elsynge or Norris, Suffolks, Honeylands, Pentviches, and Goldbeaters, each with a palace and park of its own. The children of Henry VIII. were educated at Enfield, and it was there that Prince Edward heard of his father's death. In 1552 the young king settled the chief manor of Enfield on his sister Elizabeth, and also built for her the palace, of which a small, but very picturesque, portion still {55} remains in the High Street, but the future queen appears to have spent the short time of liberty enjoyed by her before she was imprisoned by the jealous Mary at Elsynge Hall, of which no trace is left. It was there, too, that she and her escort probably put up, when in 1557 her indulgent gaoler, Sir Thomas Pope, allowed her to take part in a hunt in Enfield Chase, and she certainly often held her court in it during her long and prosperous reign. Of the chief manor-house of Enfield all that has been preserved is a fireplace incorporated in the library of a private house in the so-called Old Park, whilst the mansion of Worcesters, the other royal demesne, is represented by a seventeenth-century house known as Forty Hall--in which, by the way, there is a fine collection of pictures--designed by Inigo Jones for Sir Nicolas Raynton, to whom the estate was given in 1616 by the then owner, the Earl of Salisbury. Of the other manor-houses of Enfield the memory alone survives, but the neighbourhood is still rich in fine old private mansions, of which the most note-worthy are Enfield Court and Foxhall, and on Chase side is an ancient cottage in which Sir Walter Raleigh is said to have lived for some time not far from which was the 'odd-looking gambogish house' in which Charles Lamb, writing in 1825, declared he would like to spend the rest of his life.