Mr. Perceval, and in the course of his duty had driven his master to the House that fatal day, and was waiting outside when news of the assassination reached him. The Blenheim coach stopped at The Bell, and the old inn was full of life and bustle. Its sign projected from a stout post into the road. And in front of the house a big tree had a long wooden bench running round it, as appears in the accompanying illustration. Following The Bell, stood the house now occupied by Mr. Blake as a shop, then a small cottage, after which came the row of almshouses founded by the Princess Amelia, of which an account has been given in the preceding chapter, but these, writes Mr. Hayles, “were in a dilapidated condition." Returning to the Acton boundary, between Fordhook and Ye Feathers Inn on the north side was all open country, not a single building rose. Immediately in front of The Feathers was a group of very fine elms. A wheelwright's yard stood where the Broadway begins, and beyond was garden ground, until coming to another old house, double-fronted with bow windows, and screened off from the roadway by a row of elms, with posts and chains round, an old drawing of which has been. copied for this work. Two little timbered cottages, and again open ground, next two modest shops, and a row of four, now known as Nos. 8, 7, 6, 5, The Broadway. A clear spring, bricked, and from two to three feet deep, whose waters were famous throughout the locality, gave its name to Spring Bridge; the railway now runs where the bright little rill trickled. Shortly after the great Duke of Wellington's death, while the body lay in state, a culvert near this part of the line broke, and swept away the railway embankment, causing much damage.

Going back to the Almshouses, and continuing along that side of the road, there was the North Star beershop, and then brick-fields as far as the Middlesex County Times Office, at that time (1832) the entrance to a large market