eing in Paris. A Miss Read
bequeathed to the hospital the sum of L100,000, and in memory of her a
slab beneath a central window is inscribed: "In Memoriam Cordelia Read,
1879." It was due to her beneficence that the extension building was
added.

In Cranley Gardens, which takes its name from the secondary title of the
Earl of Onslow, is St. Peter's Church, founded in 1866. Cranley Gardens
run into Gloucester Road, which formerly bore the much less aristocratic
title of Hogmore Lane.

Just above the place where the Cromwell Road cuts Gloucester Road, about
the site of the National Provincial Branch Bank, once stood a rather
important house. It had been the Florida Tea-gardens, and having gained
a bad reputation was closed, and the place sold to Sophia, Duchess of
Gloucester, who built there a house on her own account, and called it
Orford Lodge, in honour of her own family, the Walpoles. She had married
privately William Henry, Duke of Gloucester, brother of George III. The
marriage, which took place in 1766, was not revealed to King George II.
until six years had passed, and when it was the Duke and Duchess fell
under the displeasure of His Majesty. They travelled abroad for some
time, but in 1780 were reinstated in royal favour. The Duke died in
1805, and the Duchess two years later. After her death her daughter,
Princess Sophia, sold the house to the great statesman George Canning,
who renamed it Gloucester Lodge, and lived in it until his death
eighteen years later. It was to this house he was brought after his duel
with Lord Castlereagh, when he was badly wounded in the thigh. Crabbe,
the poet, visited him at Gloucester Lodge, and records the fact in his
journal, commenting on the gardens, and remarking that the place was
much secluded. Canning also received here the unhappy Queen Caroline,
whose cause he had warmly espoused. The house was pulled down about the
middle of last century, but its memory is kept alive in Gloucester Road.

Thistle Grove Lane is one of those quaint survivals which enable us to
reconstruct the past topographically, in the same way as the silent
letters in a word, apparently meaningless, enable us to reconstruct the
philological past. It is no longer a lane, but a narrow passage, and
about midway down is crossed by a little street called Priory Grove.
Faulkner makes mention of Friars' Grove in this position, and the two
names are probably identical. Brompton Heath lay east of this lane, an