 The park, or open common, was once of 14 hectares but was mostly built over in the 19th century, beginning in the 1830s, and is now a small park, popular with office workers at lunchtime, and as a children's playground.A large surrounding area was once called by the name, but this is now less common.In the 18th century it was a disreputable area, known for "the rude sports that were in vogue, such as duck-hunting, prize-fighting, bull-baiting, and others of an equally demoralising character", and "seems to have been much infected by sneaking footpads, who knocked down pedestrians passing to and from London, and despoiled them of hats, wigs, silver buckles, and money", The moral tone gradually improved after the Spa Fields Chapel was erected in 1777 by the Countess of Huntingdon, a famous Evangelical.