In the High Street, stands the parish church of

ST. ALPHAGE.

THE antient church having become very ruinous, the roof fell in, on the twenty-eighth of November, 1710. In consequence of this accident the inhabitants petitioned the House of Commons for assistance towards rebuilding it; and it was expressly provided, by the act soon afterwards passed, for erecting fifty new churches in and near London, that one of them should be the parish of Greenwich.

The new church is a handsome stone fabric, completed and eonsecrated in 1718: the architect was John James. The west end is a square tower, in which are ten good bells, with a cupola above, supported on Corinthian pillars, terminated by a small spire: the interior is constructed in the Grecian order, and pewed with oak. A painting on board, representing a monumental effigies of queen Elizabeth, is hanged against the north wall. On the south wall, is a picture of Charles I. at his devotions; and on the east wall, are portraits of queen Anne, and George I. The interior of the church is without monuments; but on the outside, and in the churchyard, among other monuments, are those of Sir WILLIAM HENRY SANDERSON, bart. cf East Combe, the last heir male of his family, who died at the age of fifteen, in 1760; Sir ROBERT ROBINSON, knt, who died in April, 1714, aged eighty-four; Sir JAMES CREED, knt. who died in February, 1762, aged sixtyseven; Sir JOHN LETHIEULLIER, knt. who died in 1708; of whom we have spoken under Lewisham; and lieutenantgeneral WILLIAM SKINNER, who was twenty-one years chief engineer of Great Britain, and died in 1780. In a large cemetery adjoining the church-yard, among many others, is the tomb of Dr. FREDERICK SLANE, fellow of the College of Physicians, and F. R. S. He died in 1727*.

Within

In the old church was a portrait, on glass, of Humphrey, duke of Glocester, engraved as a head-piece in the Catalogue of English MSS. and various monuments and memorials. Among them were several

Brasses

Within this church was a chantry, dedicated to the Holy Cross, belonging to a fraternity under that name in Greenwich.

Two burgesses were returned to parliament for this town in the year 1557, by the inhabitants; but it does not appear, that they afterwards exercised that privilege, though the assizes for Kent were held here in the first, fourth, and fifth year of the reign of queen Elizabeth. There is at present a market for provisions granted to the governors of Brasses in memory of Richard Bower, gentleman of the chapel, and master of the children to Henry the Eighth; Edward the Sixth; queen Mary; and queen Elizabeth, ob. 1561. Another for John Whythe, gent. one of queen Elizabeth's footmen, who died in 1579, and was represented in the dress of the times, a gold chain over his right shoulder, and a mace and crown, with the queen's supporters, on his breast: a third was for Henry Traifford, Esq. clerk of the green cloth under the same sovereign, ob. 1585; and a fourth for Thomas Tallys, who was esteemed the father of the collegiate style of music, and was musician in the chapel, in the reigns of Henry the Eighth, and his three immediate successors. He died in 1581. His Epitaph is inserted in Strype's edition of Stow's Survey, and is as follows:

Enterred here doth ly a worthy wyght

Who for long tyme in musick bore the bell,
His name to shew was Thomas Tallys hyght,
In honest vertuous life he did excell.

He served long tyme in Chappall with grete prayse,
Fower Sovereynes reygnes, a thing not often seen,
I mean Kyng Henry and Prynce Edward's dayes,
Quene Mary, and Elizabeth our Quene.
He maryed was, though children he had none,
And lyved in love full thre and thirty yeres
With loyal spouse, whose name yciypt was Jone,
Who here entombd him company now bears.

As he did lyve, so also did he dy,

In myld and quyet sort, O! happy man!

To God full oft for mercy did he cry,

Wherefore he lyves, let Death do what he can.

Here was also a monument to commemorate the learned Lambard, who was buried in the old church, August 1001; as was his son, Sir Multon Lambard, in 1634: the monument has since been removed to Sevenoaks.

the hospital, for the benefit of the charity, in 1737; it is held on Wednesday and Saturday.

We cannot account for Chaucer's characteristic of this town in the following line:

"Lo Greenwiche, that many a shrew is in."

But we can say to its honour, that it has been the usual place for landing of royal personages on various occasions: her royal highness Augusta, princess of Saxe Gotha, had here her first interview with Frederick, prince of Wales, the father of his majesty George III. Here also her august grand-daughter, her royal highness princess CarolineAmelia-Elizabeth, princess of Wales, landed previously to her nuptials with her consort, the prince, on the 8th of April, 1795.

Near the town of Greenwich stood for many years a magazine for gunpowder, in which frequently were deposited from six to eight thousand barrels. The apparent danger it was exposed to of being blown up by treachery, lightning, or other accidents, arising from its defenceless situation and ruinous condition, and the extensive and scarcely repairable damage which the explosion of such a quantity of gun. powder might have been attended with, not only to that part of the town nearest to it, but to the royal palace and the magnificent hospital there, and which might even by the shock affect the dock-yards and store-houses both at Deptford and Woolwich, and even the cities of London and Westminster, as well as the bauks of the river on both shores, and the navigation upon it, occasioned, so long ago as in the year 1718, an application to parliament for the removal of the magazine to some safer and more convenient place; and his majesty king George I. was pleased then to give orders to the officers of ordnance to remove it. But, no provision being made for purchasing land to build another, and to defray necessary expences, nothing was done in it; and the old magazine grew more and more dangerous and out of repair. In the year 1750, the applica tion to parliament was renewed, when his late majesty gare.

orders

orders for an estimate of the expences to be laid before the house; which was done in 1754, together with a survey, recommending a proper place, &c. The removal, in the year 1760, was solicited with such proper effect, that an act passed for that purpose in the beginning of the same

year.

BLACKHEATH. About midway up the hill, leading from Deptford to Blackheath, and between two and three hundred yards from the main road, on the north side, a singular Excavation, or Cavern, was discovered in the year 1780. The entrance is on the side of the hill, by steps descending about fifty feet; which leads into a range of seven irregular chambers, or apartments, cut out of a stratum of solid chalk, and communicating with each other by arched avenues. The roof in two of those chambers has fallen in, probably from the chalk having been left too weak to support the sand forming the immediate superstratum, and which having partly fallen with each roof, has left a kind of dome of considerable height over both chambers, in extent: but the general measurement may, perhaps, be stated at from twelve, or fifteen, to thirty-six or forty feet, both in length and width. In the furthest chamber is a well, twenty-seven feet deep, which formerly supplied very fine water, but has been greatly altered in taste, through the putting down of a new pump. The extreme depth of the lower part of the cavern from the surface of the ground, and its length from the entrance, are supposed to be about one hundred and seventy feet. From the well at the extremity of this singular excavation, it is probable, that the whole has at some distant period been used for the purpose of concealment *.

The heath is called black either from the colour of its soil, or bleak, from its situation. The air is keen, but this very circumstance certainly contributes to its healthiness, as well as does its eminence to its beauty.

We have before stated that the Watling Street led across

* Beauties of England and Wales, Vol. VII. P. 516.

this

this heath, in its course from London to Dover; we add that various Roman antiquities have been found here, particularly on the side nearest Greenwich. "At a small distance from the corner of the hedge upon the right," says Mr. Hasted, "where the road to Dover, and that to Lee, parts, are remains of three Barrows, in one of which, some bones have been found." In 1710, there were dug up here a great many urns, and among them, two of an unusual form, the one globular, the other cylindrical; both of a fine red clay. The cylindrical one. was about eighteen inches in length, and contained a great quantity of ashes, and also six or seven coins, much obliterated; but on two of them, the names of the emperors Claudius, and Gallienus, could be distinguished. The globular urn was about six feet, three inches, in circumference, in its widest part; and contained ashes: below the rim, at the mouth, were the words MARCUS AURELIUS 1. rudely scratched. A glass urn is also mentioned, by Dr. Plot, to have been found on this heath, in a bed of hard gravel.

Blackheath, as above-mentioned, was the head quarters of the Danes; it was the scene of one battle against the rebels in the reign of Henry VII. and was occupied by the camps of the prior insurgents Wat Tyler, and Jack Cade: it has also been the usual place of ceremonial meetings and triumphal processions; and it was in the present reign a scene of the grateful offering of loyalty by the citizens of London, to the monarch of a beloved nation, against the invasive threats of a vindictive enemy.

On the 18th of May, 1804, took place the grand cere mony of presenting the colours by the corporation of London to the loyal London volunteers, in the person of JOHN PERRING, Esq. lord mayor.

At five o'clock in the morning, a flag was hoisted from the upper gallery of St. Paul's, as a signal for the regiments that were to have their colours presented, as well as those to keep the ground, to hold themselves in readiness to embark.

At