ct was known as
Broom-house, and was owned and occupied by the Bagleys, Steels, Matters,
and Dancers, market gardeners and fruit growers. Higher up the river at
Hammersmith, Chiswick and Isleworth were the strawberry gardens that
supplied London with that delicious fruit. They were carried to Covent
Garden Market twice a day by women in large round baskets on their heads.
You would meet them along the road of a morning about seven, and again
about three with a second picking, always on the trot, in gangs of as
many as twenty. The strawberries were packed in small tapering baskets
called pottles, holding about two-thirds of a pint, and then in large
baskets called rounds, containing seventy-two pottles; these rounds
containing seventy-two pottles would sell at from twelve to sixty
shillings, according to the season and quality of the fruit. This was
considered a very profitable industry as both pickers and the carriers
were much better paid than the ordinary employees. It was quite a
harvest, and lasted from three weeks to a month.

The lying in state of the Duke of Wellington was held in the dining hall
of Chelsea Hospital. There was a raised platform at the west end
beautifully draped in black velvet and white silk, with silver cords and
tassels. The coffin was attended by four officers, generals, as chief
mourners, and the gangway that the public passed along was lined with
guardsmen. During the ten days for which the body was on view the crowd
was immense, and on about the third day there were two women trampled to
death, and a great number injured, owing, it was supposed, to a number of
artillerymen marching up in a body and trying to force their way through
the crowd. Steps were immediately taken to erect barricades, and police
officers were stationed to regulate the crowd. As it extended three
parts of the way up Ebury Street, some had to wait from five to six
hours, only a certain number being allowed to pass round at a time, and
there were many taken out of the crowd that could not stand the crush and
had fainted.

The Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race was best seen from Cheyne Walk as the
course at that time was from Westminster to Putney, for that and all
other leading races, and the race was considered a dead certainty for
whichever boat got through Battersea Bridge first and had the Middlesex
shore.

They used to have some tolerably good sailing matches for small boats off
Chelsea Reach. The cours