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Ten years previously the hollow trunk of a very aged tree (fenced round) was still standing, and was locally said to be the remains of the original Gospel Oak, one of the many so called, in various counties of England, from the use made of them by the Preaching Friars, who under their shade were wont to read and explain the Scriptures to the people. It was at that time, and for years afterwards, used as a boundary tree, when once in three years the clergyman, parochial authorities, and charity children perambulated the boundaries of the parish of St. Pancras, of which it was the terminus in this direction.

Where Fleet Road is now, the shallow remnant of the once ‘silvery Fleet,’ as Crosby calls it in his ‘Additional Notes,’ written only a very few years before the period I am writing of, ‘meandered, irrigating those charming meadows which reach on either side of Kentish Town.’

South End Road, 1840.

In my time it crept, a sluggish stream, a mere ditch in dry weather, but after copious rain it rose suddenly, brimming to its margin, to disappear at the end of Angler’s Lane by a subterranean channel under part of Kentish Town, where it once more came to light as a narrow runlet in the main road that was easily stepped over. There were persons then living who remembered this portion of the river, a limpid stream flowing by the west side of Kentish Town towards King’s Cross, for it is not much more than half a century since it was arched over and built upon.