Giuseppe Maria Campanella

An Italian on Primrose Hill

A. Seale, 1875.

In ten minutes from my home I can be on the top of Primrose Hill. Many mornings at the hour of four or five I have found myself there, sitting or slowly walking round the table-land, and then I could not help thinking upon the numerous happy families in this great metropolis of the commerce of the world

Happy families enjoying an outing on the hill at Easter are also described.

a large and beautiful view presents itself

The author lived at '13 St. John's Terrace'. Regent's Park, he thought, was 'best seen when the smiling and surprising English Spring comes. It is then fragrant with the red and white May-blossom, covering the numerous and picturesque thorn-trees. Then also the horse-chestnut and laburnums are in full bloom; and the freshness of the exquisite verdure of the grass and the young leaves delights you'.

the late mournful catastrophe in the Regent's Park

All this is to set the scene for the explosion of 5am on 2nd October 1874, when 'the sleep was broken by one of the most terrible explosions of gunpowder, powerful enough to throw down masses of stone'. A barge, one of five towed by a steam tug, had blown up as it passed beneath North Bridge (now rebuilt as Macclesfield Bridge), killing the crew of three. An eyewitness account of the aftermath is followed by six pages deploring man's folly in creating the conditions for such a disaster.