Wimbledon, Putney, and Barnes. a Handy Guide to Rambles in the District (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1882 edition. Excerpt: ...drawn out. In the dam at the upper end of this pond the common star-fruit is found, and a little further along the drain the large water plantain. Between this drain and Hartley's is a plantation of birches, the path through which will be found very pleasant. We cross the drain, and after walking for a few hundred yards through tall flowering grasses, in rich variety, and over purple heather, we come out on the Kingston Road, where it descends between pleasant, high, wooded banks to Putney Bottom. This is the road to Kingston Vale, Richmond Park, Coombe Wood, &c. We strike across to the flagstaff, where several riflemen are lying about, and look along the sloping avenue to the targets at which they are firing. Here commences the area of ground annually occupied by the National Rifle Association for a fortnight in each July. Then the whole of the ugly mounds which disfigure the further parts of the common are put under requisition, the sunken targets are elevated, and the air is filled with a succession of detonations. To the rambler with a taste for things martial the common during that fortnight in July will present a pleasant appearance. The long lines of tent and pavilion, the thousands of men in varied uniforms, the flying of much bunting, give the common a picturesque and warlike appearance from a little distance. The warlike illusion is dispelled somewhat on closer inspection, some of the regimental head-quarters being tastefully embellished with expensive flower-beds fitted up temporarily. Some of the head-quarters are furnished in a style that lays the occupants open to the suspicion of being luxurious in their tastes, and not the best qualified for those serious eventualities to meet which the volunteer service was formed....