ABSTRACT
Perhaps Collins, after his marriage in 1892, never strayed so very far from his central London roots after all. But if officialdom thought that he had, well, so much the better. William Blake’s golden vision of the local district was written before the creation of Regent’s Park, its central pleasure garden, but remains no less valid for that:
The fields from Islington to Marybone, Pancrass & Kentish-town repose To Primrose Hill and Saint Johns Wood: Among her golden pillars high: Were builded over with pillars of gold, Among her golden arches which And there Jerusalems pillars stood. Shine upon the starry sky.
