h his top:
_All these and thousand more within this grove_,
_By all the industry of nature strove_
_To frame an arbour that might keepe within it_
_The best of beauties that the world hath in it_."

Since the royal visit, Lord Ravensworth's residence has been called
_Percy Cross_, but no reason has been assigned for the alteration of name
from Purser's Cross, which is mentioned as a point "on the Fulham road
between Parson's Green and Walham Green," so far back as 1602, and at
which we shall presently arrive. [Picture: View of Percy Cross] No
connection whatever that I am aware of exists between the locality and
the Percy family, and it only affords another, very recent local example
of what has been as happily as quaintly termed "the curiosity of change."
The most favourable aspect of the house is, perhaps, the view gained of
it from a neighbouring garden across a piece of water called Eel Brook,
which ornaments an adjacent meadow.

John Ord, Esq., the creator of Lord Ravensworth's London residence, is
better known as "Master Ord." He was the only son of Robert Ord, Chief
Baron of the Court of Exchequer in Scotland. In 1746 Mr. Ord entered
Trinity College, Cambridge, and in 1762, vacated a lay fellowship by
marriage with Eleanor, the second daughter of John Simpson, Esq., of
Bradley, in the county of Durham. After being called to the bar, Mr. Ord
practised in the Court of Chancery; and, in 1774, was returned to
parliament as member for Midhurst. In 1778 he was appointed Master of
Chancery; and the next session, when returned member for Hastings, was
chosen chairman of "Ways and Means," in which situation his conduct gave
much satisfaction. Mr. Ord retired from parliament in 1790, and in 1809
resigned his office of Master in Chancery, and that of Attorney-General
for Lancaster the following year, when "he retired to a small place at
Purser's Cross, in the parish of Fulham, where he had early in life
amused himself in horticultural pursuits, and where there are several
foreign trees of his own raising remarkable both for their beauty and
size."

Lysons, in 1795, says--

"While I am speaking upon this subject" (the trees planted by Bishop
Compton in the gardens of Fulham Palace), "it would he unpardonable
to omit the mention of a very curious garden near Walham Green in
this parish, planted, since the year 1756, by its present proprietor,
John Ord, Esq., Master in Chancery. It i