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An ascending row of houses to the right, on what is now South Hill Park, occupied the levelled slopes the summits of which when I first knew the lovely neighbourhood afforded charming views, and not the least charming that of the eastern outskirts of Hampstead, sweeping up amidst a profusion of foliage towards the high ground about Squire’s Mount, with a foreground of water and groups of trees studding the undulating surface, the fields on the east bounded by the remarkable mound which now bears the name of Parliament Hill, but was then known by the more striking one of Traitors’ Hill.
Ainsworth has made it memorable as the scene whence some of the conspirators of the Gunpowder Plot watched for the explosion of the Houses of Parliament at the hands of Guy Faux. Park, who refers to Stukeley’s ‘Itinerary’ on various occasions, takes no notice of this eminence.
Mr. Lloyd, in his published ‘Lecture on Caen Wood,’ tells us that when Mr. Bills purchased the estate of Sir James Harrington, amongst the properties belonging to it was a windmill, ‘which occupied the fine site of the summit of Parliament Hill, where the trench formed by the removal of its foundations is still to be traced. It was, doubtless, the Manor mill.’