And even in the first decade of the nineteenth century Macready, the great actor, writes thus of the place in his diary. Referring to Birmingham he says: “The summer months were passed there, diversified by a short stay at Leamington, then a small village consisting only of a few thatched houses—not one of them tiled or slated; the Bowling Green being the only one where very moderate accommodation could be secured. There was in process of erection a hotel of more pretention, which I fancy was to be the ‘Dog’ or ‘Greyhound,’ but which had some months of work to fit it for the reception of guests.” It was in the year 1819 that the Prince Regent, afterwards George IV., visited Leamington from Warwick, where he was staying with the Earl of Warwick; and three years later the Princess Augusta came to the town to take a course of the waters, and from that time the place may be considered to have been firmly established in public favour. Quoting from a contemporary writer, “where but a few years earlier cattle grazed undisturbedly, yellow corn waved, and the plough–boy whistled over the Leam, we now behold with surprise and pleasure extensive mansions arising as if by magic, and tastefully decorated shops presenting every Metropolitan article of fashion and convenience.” Some other famous visitors who came to Leamington in the early years of the last century were the Princess Victoria, in company with her mother the Duchess of Kent; and later John Ruskin, who testified to the benefit derived from a six weeks’ course of the Chalybeate Spring as follows: “My health is in my own hands, I have gone back to brown potatoes and cherry pie!” But Leamington of to–day owes a good deal less of its popularity to its springs than it does to its beautiful situation, and the fact of it being such an excellent centre for interesting excursions; whilst hunting people regard the place as an almost unequalled sporting district, from the circumstance that a fashionable life can be enjoyed there in conjunction with hunting six days a week, and the choice of as many packs. Warwickshire, indeed, has been called the third best hunting county in England, and Leamington must take even a higher place as a centre for hunting folk. One of the prettiest features of this town, distinguished nowadays for its handsome shops and villas, are the Jephson Gardens, covering an area of some twenty acres, and situated almost in the centre of the town, the picturesqueness of which is greatly added to by the presence of the River Leam skirting them along the southern boundary. This site was rented to trustees for a period of two thousand years at a pepper–corn rent (if demanded) by the late Mr. Edward Willes, of Newbold Comyn, with the stipulation that the ground should never be built upon. The property, which was then a strip of meadow land, was taken over by the trustees in May 1846, and was immediately laid out by them in much its present form.