LONDON TO LOSE A VILLAGE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22712, 26 October 1935, Page 8

LONDON TO LOSE A VILLAGE

Legends of Nelson and Diclc Turpin are associated with London’s 200-j - ear-old village White Square, Clapham, rwhich is to be demolished under one of ,the largest clearance schemes ever undertaken by a borough council. The estimated cost is about £150,000. White Square, whose red brick cottages still, face what was once a village green, is hiddem between two bustling thoroughfares. ] less than a century ago it was really ,a village. About its cottages were green fields in which cattle glazed. Famous hare-fisted fighters once battled for purscis on the village green. Nelson stayed a|t the village inn and noticed the number of fine young men who loitered in its taproom. A few days later those same young men staggered dazedly to the decks : <)'f a tall flagship. From the quarter-deck; a small one-armed figure smiled down uppn them. They had been ” press-ganged.” - ’ Under the floor of one of the cotlagqs is an old well. Near it once stood a. house in which Dick Turpin, hotly pressed by "runners,” took refuge. Wiien he escaped he placed his loot in ’u tightscaled box at the bottom of tJlc well. The jewels and the gold remain i there until this day—so the legend rui^n