An Autobiography of an Ancient Athlete & Antiquarian

12 AUTOBIOGRAPHY of £30, his daughter Mary Ann Cubitt Rye, being the first of the family who was born there, and in 1844 bought the next house, No. 15, and by making an opening on the ground floor obtained a house with 20 rooms, nearly every one of which was packed with books as was 16, Golden Square, and a little overflow house near it, which he rented nominally to take his solitary evening meal. Chelsea was then a thoroughly rnral place, the only drawback was the near neighbourhood of Cremorne, the return of the orgies keeping us awake at night. To the North we were close to the lanes and open fields, which divided us from Kensington. Love Lane and Walnut Tree Walk were beautiful country lanes as if they were miles in the country,and were our favourite entomologizing grounds. Battersea Park was only just beginning, being made of the waste ground excavated from the London Docks, and the open ditches and willows were great places for larvre of the larger lepidoptera,1 as were the " Ifammersmith Marshes," some acres of land and water as wet and primeval as any Norfolk Broad, and wbere we used to take hawkmoth caterpillars. I can just remem I er a toll bar across the King's Road(" The King's Private Road'') close to Sloane Square, and to the West, as it was then called, the market gardens between us and Fulham were dreams of joy to boys collecting flowers, freshwater shells, etc. The Thames mud possessed extraordinary fertilising powers, and the seclusion of the marsh used to make it a favourite spot for prizefighters, who used to come over by boats on Sunday mornings from Harry Salter's, '' The Feathers," at Wands– worth. I have seen my brother shoot snipe in Broom House Lane, rabbits on Wandsworth Common, and a hawk at Parson's Green, where the Board Schools now are. Every night at 11 we could hear acros::; the fields the dis– charge of the blunderbuss, regularly let off at Holland House to apprize burglars there was such a thing in the house. Before my father died he parted with his large and valuable library, which was sold by Messrs. Hodgson on the 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th May, 1873, 2 and he moved to a smaller house, 6, Drayton Terrace, West Brompton T The great tortoiseshell bred freely iu an elm tree in our front garden. 11 I had already completed a catalogue, which is now before me.