_Spring Gardens_, also in St. James's Park, reminds us of the lively spirits of Restoration times. It was so called because of a fountain which stood there, and which was so arranged that when a passer-by trod by accident on a certain valve the waters spurted forth and drenched him. We should not think this so funny now as people did then.
At the same time that the West End was growing, poorer districts were spreading to the north and east of the City. _Moorfields_ (which tells us by its name what it was like in the early London days) was built over. _Spitalfields_ (which took its name from one of the many hospitals which religious people built in and near mediæval London) and _Whitechapel_ also filled up, and became centres of trade and manufacture. The games and sports which amused the people in these poorer quarters were not so refined as the ball-throwing of the princes and courtiers. In the name _Balls Pond Road_, Islington, we are reminded of the duck-hunting which was one of the sports of the common people.
As time went on and London became larger and more crowded, the fashionable people began to go away each summer to drink the waters at Bath and Tunbridge Wells. But in London itself there were several springs and wells whose waters were supposed to be good for people's health, and these have given us some of the best-known London names. Near _Holywell Street_ there were several of these wells; and along _Well Walk_, in the north-west suburb of Hampstead, a procession of gaily-dressed people might regularly be seen in Charles II.'s time going to drink the waters. _Clerkenwell_ also took its name from a well which was believed to be mediæval and even miraculous. _Bridewell_, the name of the famous prison, also came from the name of a well dedicated to St. Bride.
Many of the great streets and squares of the West End of London have taken their names from the houses of noblemen who have lived there, or from the names of the rich owners of property in these parts. _Northumberland Avenue_, opening off Trafalgar Square, takes its name from Northumberland House, built there in the time of James I. _Arundel Street_, running down to the Embankment from the Strand, is so called in memory of Arundel House, the home of the Earl of Arundel, which used to stand here. It was there that the famous collection of statues known as the "Arundel Marbles" was first collected. They were presented to Oxford University in 1667.