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If we are not tired of parks for today, five minutes by rail will
carry us west to Oatlands Park, with its appended, and more or less
dependent, village of Walton-upon-Thames. But a surfeit even of
English country-houses and their pleasances is a possible thing;
and nowhere are they more abundant than within an hour's walk of our
present locality. So, taking Ashley Park, Burwood Park, Pains Hill
and many others, as well as the Coway Stakes--said by one school of
antiquarians to have been planted in the Thames by Caesar, and by
another to be the relics of a fish-weir--Walton Church and Bradshaw's
house, for granted, we shall turn to the east and finish the purlieus
of Hampton with a glance at the old Saxon town of Kingston-on-Thames.
Probably an ardent Kingstonian would indignantly disown the impression
our three words are apt to give of the place. It is a rapidly--growing
town, and "Egbert, the first king of all England," who held a council
at "Kyningestun, famosa ilia locus," in 838, would be at a loss to
find his way through its streets could he revisit it.


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