C. BY RAILWAY VIA HATFIELD.
23+ miles. London & North Eastern Railway from King's Cross in 1 hour (4/2, 2/6; no Sunday trains). Change carriages at Hatfield.
We pass extensive railway sidings as we quit London. 2+ miles. Finsbury Park; 3+ miles. Harringay; 4+ miles. Hornsey. At (5 miles) Wood Green, a station for the Alexandra Palace, a branch diverges for Hertford (22 miles) via Winchmore Hill, Enfield Chase, and Cuffley, where Captain W. Leefe Robinson, V.C., brought down a zeppelin on September 3rd, 1916 (obelisk). The New River runs close beside our line. On the left, at (6+ miles) New Southgate, is the large Colney Hatch Asylum, the Middlesex County Lunatic Asylum. 9+ miles. New Barnet lies 1+ miles. South-east of Barnet. 10+ miles. Hadley Wood. 12+ miles. Potter's Bar. 17+ miles. Hatfield (Red Lion) is an ancient little market town on the Lea. In the church of St. Etheldreda is the elaborate tomb of Robert Cecil (died 1612), first Earl of Salisbury and son of the great Lord Salisbury.
In a large and fine park just to the east of the town is Hatfield House (Marquis of Salisbury), a majestic Jacobean mansion erected in 1610-11, after James I. had constrained Robert Cecil to exchange the manor of Theobalds for that of Hatfield. When the family is not in residence visitors are admitted between Easter and August 1st on Wednesday & Thursday, 2-5, on application to the housekeeper. The chief objects of interest are the portraits by Zucchero (Queen Elizabeth), Oudry (Mary, Queen of Scots), Van Dyck, Kneller, Mytens, Reynolds, and others, and the valuable collection of manuscripts and state-papers. To the west of the mansion is old Hatfield Palace (of which one side remains), built in 1496 by the Bishop of Ely and afterwards a royal residence. Princess Elizabeth was living here in confinement when Queen Mary died, and tradition points out the oak in the park beneath which she received the first news of her accession.
Brocket Hall, 3 miles north-west, has been occupied in turn by Lord Melbourne (died 1848), Lord Palmerston (died here in 1865), and Lord Mount Stephen (died 1921).
From Hatfield the St. Albans branch runs west via (20+ miles) Smallford and (22 miles) Hill End. 23+ miles. St. Albans (Great Northern Station).
