d much attention. It was the landlord of the
Spaniards Inn who in the time of the Gordon Riots dexterously detained
the rioters from proceeding to Caenwood House until the troops arrived
to protect it. The tea-gardens at the back still survive; in these was
the old bowling-green. Close by was another pleasure-garden, New
Georgia, but this is quite beyond the parish limits.

Returning across the Heath, we come to Jack Straw's Castle, though there
is no evidence to show that the riotous ringleader of 1381 had ever any
connection with the hostelry named after him, but it is quite possible
that the Heath formed a rendezvous for the malcontents of his time. In
early times an earthwork stood on the site, which gave rise to the name
"castle." The real Jack Straw's Castle was at Highgate. It is almost
certain that the Hampstead hostelry was originally a private house; the
wood of the gallows on which one Jackson had been hanged behind the
house, in 1673, for highway murder, was built into the wall. When the
place became an inn it was called Castle Inn, and the first mention of
Jack Straw's Castle is in a book published in 1822 called "The Cabinet
of Curiosities." The present inn was built in the early part of the
eighteenth century, and is a nice-looking stuccoed old house; through
the entry to the yard we get a glimpse of red-tiled, rusticated wooden
outbuildings. On one side are the tea-gardens. Dickens often resorted
here, as is mentioned in Forster's "Life of Dickens," and the inn is
referred to also by Washington Irving in "The Sketch-Book."

There was a race-course behind the hotel on the Heath, but the races
have been suppressed. In a paper contributed to Baines' book on
Hampstead a correspondent says: "The Castle Hotel is associated with the
meetings of the Courts Leet, and in the old days during the Middlesex
Parliamentary elections the house was a famous rendezvous for candidates
and voters." A brick house two centuries old at the corner of Spaniards
Road is Heath House. It was long occupied by the Hoare family, of
banking fame, whose name has been intimately associated with Hampstead.
Visitors of distinction have often been received here, and the names of
Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Crabbe were among those of frequent guests.

The Flagstaff marks a very high point on the Heath, 439 feet, which is,
however, surpassed by Jack Straw's Castle at 443 feet.

The Whitestone Pond has been enlarged, and is supplied by New Ri