A "PHYSIC WELL"
It may be news to many—it was to me till the
other day, when quite accidentally I came across the
fact in an ancient road-book—that in the days of
Charles II. Barnet was a watering-place of considerable
repute, even disputing supremacy with its rising
rival of Tunbridge Wells. In a field near the town
on the Elstree Road is the formerly famous but
now almost forgotten chalybeate spring known two
centuries ago as the "Physic Well," and much resorted
to by the fashionable folk of the Restoration
days. On glancing over the ever fresh and entertaining
Diary of Samuel Pepys, that chatty old-time
road-traveller, who was always getting up "betimes"
and starting off somewhere or another, I noted the
following entry:—"11 August 1667 (Lord's Day).—Up
by four o'clock, and ready with Mrs. Turner"
(why so often without your wife, good Mr. Pepys?)
"to take coach before five; and set out on our
journey, and got to the Wells at Barnett by seven
o'clock" (not a great rate of speed), "and there
found many people a-drinking; but the morning is
a very cold morning, so as we were very cold all
the way in the coach. . . . So after drinking three
glasses, and the women nothing" (wise women), "we
back by coach to Barnett, where to the Red Lyon,
where we 'light, and went up into the great room,
and drank and eat . . . and so to Hatfield," where
he "took coach again, and got home with great
content."
Amongst my prized possessions is a quaint and ancient map of London and the country for about twenty miles round. This interesting map I find,
