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HORNSEY OLD PARISH TODAY
Here is a statue (there have been several) of the famous cat whose rat-catching ability enriched the Dick Whittington of folklore in the C14th. The Whittington of myth heard that the streets of London were paved with gold only to discover, as I did much later, that they weren't. The story turns up repeatedly in various guises of which the pantomime is the best known. The nearby Whittington Hospital is named after him. The real Richard Whittington was the son of Sir William and was a merchant and three times Mayor of London.