D. MOTOR ROUTE FROM LONDON TO ST. ALBANS.
20 miles from the Marble Arch via Edgware Road, part of the ancient Roman Watling Street. An alternative route (also 20 miles), via Finchley Road, joins the Great North Road at (7+ miles) Tally-Ho Corner in Finchley, but diverges (left) from it again at (11 miles) Barnet and enters (20 miles) St. Albans by London Road.
From the Marble Arch to (4 miles) Cricklewood, see Walk 16. Beyond Cricklewood, Edgware Road (tramway as far as Canon's Park) is skirted on the right by the London Midland & Scottish Railway. To the left Dollis Hill Lane leads to Gladstone Park, formerly the grounds of Dollis Hill House, where Gladstone often visited the Earl of Aberdeen. Crossing the broad new North Circular Road, we pass the Brent Reservoir, formed in 1838 to feed the Regent's Canal and known as the Welsh Harp from the tavern close by. Beyond West Hendon (with Hendon station) is The Hyde, a roadside hamlet, where Goldsmith took lodgings in a 'farmer's house near the 6 milestone' and wrote 'She Stoops to Conquer' and 'Animated Nature' (1771-74). Colin Dale Avenue, + mile farther, diverges on the right for the London Aerodrome. 8+ miles. Edgware (Chandos Arms), a little town stretching for over a mile along the highroad, is the terminus of a railway from King's Cross (11+ miles) and also of the Hampstead Tube.
Canons Park, to the north-west, was the scene of the elaborate magnificence (as elaborately satirized by Pope in his fourth 'Moral Essay') of Canons, a sumptuous mansion built circa 1712 by the first Duke of Chandos (died 1744), the patron of Handel, at a cost of circa �250,000 and sold by his heir at a breaking-up price of �11,000 in 1747. The present house, built with part of the old materials, at one time belonged to Mr. D. O'Kelly, owner of the famous racehorse 'Eclipse' (circa 1770: 'Eclipse first, the rest nowhere'), which was never defeated and is buried in the park. The name of the estate recalls the fact that before the Dissolution it was the property of the priory of St. Bartholomew. The church of St. Lawrence at Little Stanmore or Whitchurch, + mile west of Edgware, was rebuilt (except the tower) by the Duke of Chandos in 1715-20, and is elaborately adorned with paintings by Laguerre and Bellucci and with carvings ascribed to Gibbons. The copy of Raphael's 'Ascension' over the Chandos pew, at the west end, is by Bellucci. On the north side of the chancel is the mausoleum of the duke, with figures of his first two wives, the third being ignored. Behind the altar with its four carved oaken pillars, is the little organ, played on by Handel, who was the duke's private choir-master in 1718-21 and here composed the oratorio of 'Esther.' In the churchyard is the grave of William Powell (died 1780), the original 'Harmonious Blacksmith.' Stanmore, or Great Stanmore, with its fine common, lies circa 1+ miles north west.
11+ miles. Elstree. 14+ miles. Radlett. We enter (20 miles) St. Albans by Holywell Hill.
