leasure Fair is held to the present day, I
believe the only one remaining near the metropolis, and at a stall
outside the Ram I made my first halt for breakfast. I indulged in
coffee, plum cake, fried sausages, and bread and butter, at the cost of
eight-pence, and started on my way at seven by the clock at the Lavender
Distillery, passed through the toll-gate down the road to Mitcham Green,
a large open piece of green sward considered at that time one of the best
cricket fields in Surrey, and producing some of the best cricketers, and
still maintaining that character. I proceeded down the road with several
good residences on each side and almost an avenue of trees and may hedges
in full bloom, the road alive with every kind of vehicle and a large
number of tramps. At the corner of Mitcham Green had collected a large
number of itinerant musicians, and all sorts of diverting vagabonds,
looking very shabby, dusty and down at heel, and as if it was anything
but a prosperous occupation. There were no negro melodies in those days,
but there was the troubadour with his guitar, wearing a broad-brimmed hat
with a large feather and loose coloured slashed coat and short cape or
cloak loose on his shoulders, and singing love songs, and a man with
trestles and a sort of tray strung with wires, played with two short
pieces of cane or whale bone with a knob of leather on the end, with
which he struck the wires and knocked out a tune, and, by the same
process, with bells arranged on a straight bar fixed on high trestles,
tunes were played.

The long, straggling village of Mitcham was the end of the crowded
inhabited part of the road to Epsom; past the old Brewery and one or two
old houses you came to the old mill and bridge crossing the river Wandle,
with a ford by the side where nearly every vehicle drove through water,
and as soon as you crossed, the avenue of fine old elms commenced, and
meeting overhead formed quite a delightful shade. Meadows and park-like
grounds on each side, were well wooded, with only two residences and one
farmhouse, an old house apparently half farmhouse and half residence,
with very pretty gardens in front with a number of shrubs cut and trained
into all manner of grotesque and fantastic shapes. The land on each side
all the way to Sutton was purely agricultural and grazing land.

The first buildings you came to on entering the village were some old
wooden cottages and the smithy, adjoining which was