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h his top: _All these and thousand more within this grove_, _By all the industry of nature strove_ _To frame an arbour that might keepe within it_ _The best of beauties that the world hath in it_." Since the royal visit, Lord Ravensworth's residence has been called _Percy Cross_, but no reason has been assigned for the alteration of name from Purser's Cross, which is mentioned as a point "on the Fulham road between Parson's Green and Walham Green," so far back as 1602, and at which we shall presently arrive. [Picture: View of Percy Cross] No connection whatever that I am aware of exists between the locality and the Percy family, and it only affords another, very recent local example of what has been as happily as quaintly termed "the curiosity of change." The most favourable aspect of the house is, perhaps, the view gained of it from a neighbouring garden across a piece of water called Eel Brook, which ornaments an adjacent meadow. John Ord, Esq., the creator of Lord Ravensworth's London residence, is better known as "Master Ord." He was the only son of Robert Ord, Chief Baron of the Court of Exchequer in Scotland. In 1746 Mr. Ord entered Trinity College, Cambridge, and in 1762, vacated a lay fellowship by marriage with Eleanor, the second daughter of John Simpson, Esq., of Bradley, in the county of Durham. After being called to the bar, Mr. Ord practised in the Court of Chancery; and, in 1774, was returned to parliament as member for Midhurst. In 1778 he was appointed Master of Chancery; and the next session, when returned member for Hastings, was chosen chairman of "Ways and Means," in which situation his conduct gave much satisfaction. Mr. Ord retired from parliament in 1790, and in 1809 resigned his office of Master in Chancery, and that of Attorney-General for Lancaster the following year, when "he retired to a small place at Purser's Cross, in the parish of Fulham, where he had early in life amused himself in horticultural pursuits, and where there are several foreign trees of his own raising remarkable both for their beauty and size." Lysons, in 1795, says-- "While I am speaking upon this subject" (the trees planted by Bishop Compton in the gardens of Fulham Palace), "it would he unpardonable to omit the mention of a very curious garden near Walham Green in this parish, planted, since the year 1756, by its present proprietor, John Ord, Esq., Master in Chancery. It i
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