In this period, the place called Fish-ponds was opened for the amusement of the public; and as it was laid out in a pretty rural taste, and every way calculated for the entertainment of genteel company, while its managers continued carefully to maintain decency and strict decorun in its precincts, it was justly esteemed one of the principal scenes of diversion at Tunbridge; but when the vigilance of the managers dropped, low company admitted, and indecencies encouraged, it soon became disreputable for any of the fair sex to be seen there; which, as a natural consequence, very quickly reduced it to the ruinous condition in which it now [1766] remains.

Chancellor House, the residence of W .W. Pattesson, Esq, stands in some extensive grounds near the Tunbridge-Ware Manufactory. It was formerly the residence of Judge Jeffries, whose name is "damned to everlasting fame" for the barbarities practised by him in the West of England and elsewhere, when trying the prisoners taken during the rebellion of the Duke of Monmouth, in 1635. It afterwards became the property of Sir Richard Heron, Bart. who considerably enlarged and improved it. There is a marble chimney piece in the dining room, and one in the drawing room, which were purchased with the mahogany doors and window shutters from the mansion of Sir Gregory Page Turner, at Blackheath. The chimney pieces are beautifully carved - one with fruits, flowers, &c. - the other has a square tablet of white marble in the centre, on which appears a group of boys, one of whom is frightening his companions by concealing himself behind a sheet, - their appearance and attitudes are extremely natural.