Staple Inn, looking toward Holborn Gateway
Inigo Jones the celebrated English architect has left the mark of his genius on many London structures. He was born in London in 1576 and during the reign of James I., when the main amusement of the Court was the putting on of the masques of Ben Jonson he designed the scenery for them. During this reign, too, he held the post of surveyor-general of royal buildings. Long before his death in 1653 he was known to be the first architect of England.
Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre stood where is now the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons on the south side of the gardens. In this playhouse Congreve's "Love for Love," withMrs. Bracegirdle asAngelica, was first produced in 1695. "The Beggar's Opera" was also first seen here, when Lavinia Fenton afterwards Duchess of Bolton was thePolly Peacham. This is the theatre which Pepys visited so often that, as he himself said, he made his wife "as mad as the devil."
Facing Lincoln's Inn Fields on the west side is still to be seen a stone built house numbered 58, with Doric columns, quite grimy in appearance, where once lived John Forster the biographer of Dickens. In this house, Forster began the library which had grown to 18,000 volumes when he bequeathed it to the nation. Here, too, he often entertained Dickens and here heard him read in manuscript "The Chimes." Dickens made this the home of Tulkinghorn the lawyer of "Bleak House," and killed him here. There is no sign of the fore-shortened allegory on the first floor ceiling now though from appearance it might well have been there once. "Boz," writing of this first floor room declared that you might once have heard "a sound at night, as of men laughing, together with a clinkingof knives and forks and wineglasses." The house was built by Robert Bertie, Earl of Lindsey, a general of King Charles I.
In Great Queen Street at No. 56 not far from Lincoln's Inn Fields, Boswell lived and wrote the greater part of the "Life of Johnson."
Where Gray's Inn Road touches Holborn is the old quaint gabled Staple Inn, one of the original ten Inns of Chancery harking back to the days of James I. An arched gateway gives entrance to the interior court where flourish plane trees that look to be as old as the inn itself. It was here that Mr. Grewgious of Dickens' "Bleak House," had his chambers, and over a doorway of the court is a stone with the lettering:
PJ T1747
This seemingly cabalistic reference stands for Principal John Thompson who presided overthe inn for two terms in 1747. Dickens made fun of it in "Bleak House." Dr. Samuel Johnson moved into Staple Inn March 22, 1757, from Gough Square, Fleet Street, and during his residence here the great lexicographer wrote "Rasselas" in the evenings of a week, to pay the funeral expenses of his mother!
The large red brick insurance building opposite Staple Inn on the north side of Holborn is on the site of Furnival's, one of the original ten Inns of Chancery, where Dickens lived when he was first married and where he began the writing of "Pickwick Papers."
A narrow alley between the Holborn houses east of Fetter Lane and having over its entrance a jarring gilt sign leads to the smallest of the ten original Inns of Chancery—Barnard's Inn. Its ancientness is evidenced by its dwarfed courts and tiny Hall. Since 1874 it has been used by the Mercers' Company for their schools. Herbert Pocket in Dickens' "Great Expectations" had rooms here in which Pip slept on his arrival in London.
Gray's Inn one of the four Inns of Court with its spacious gardens and its sober courts is a reminder of the reign of King Edward III. The Hall was built in 1560 and the gardens were laid out three centuries ago, the walks being planned by Francis Bacon.
In Fox Court, which is off Gray's Inn Road close by Holborn, the Countess of Macclesfield lived, and here, on the south side, her famous son Richard Savage the poet was born in 1697. His father was Lord Rivers, but Savage was never cared for by him and was treated with gross neglect by his mother. His life was a dissipated one and he once killed a man in a drunken brawl for which he was sentenced to death but afterwards pardoned. His best poem is "The Bastard," in which he execrated his own mother the Countess for the illegitimacy of his birth. He died in 1743 in a Bristol jail to which he had been sent for debt.
Close by, at the Gray's Inn Road corner of Holborn, is the crossing that was swept by the poor Jo of Dickens' "Bleak House."
In Brooke Street, near at hand, the house No. 39, is famous as standing on the site of the lodging house where Thomas Chatterton ended his brief and remarkable career. Chatterton was born in Bristol, the son of a poor widow. He received some education at a charity school but otherwise was self-taught. In the few years of his life he developed a poetic quality wonderful even in an age noted for literary excellence. He was seventeen years old when in 1769 he came to London where he met great discouragement. He lived in the garret of the obscure Brooke Street lodging and here on August 24th, 1770, in dire want, among strangers, literally starving, he died of poison self-administered. He was buried in the pauper burial ground adjoining a workhouse in Shoe Lane.
Since 1688 the present church of St. Andrew's has stood at the western end of Holborn Viaduct. It is a Wren building set up where an older church was once. The poet Richard Savage was baptised here, and Hazlitt the essayist was here married having for best man Charles Lamb.
Quaint and quiet and fascinating in its strong old age the cloister of St. Etheldreda's just beyond the busy roar of Holborn Circus is a survival of the famous palace of the bishops of Ely. This cloister is in part the same as that in which Henry VIII. first met Cranmer, and here John of Gaunt father of Henry IV. died in 1399. Ely Place of to-day is named for the old palace.
In narrow Mitre Court, connecting Ely Place with Hatton Gardens, set in the wall of a public house is the "Sign of the Mitre," bearing date of 1546. The present house stands on the site of the main entrance to the palace.
Bleeding Heart Yard of picturesque name and fame, at the head of Ely Place, is written of by Dickens in "Little Dorrit", as the home of Plornish the plasterer, and it was here that the honest Daniel Doyce had his factory.
Where Temple Bar Memorial, surmounted by a Griffin, is now in the Strand Temple Bar itself stood until 1878. In one form or another, at times merely a wooden structure, Temple Bar defined the limits of the City from the 14th century. To the very last of its days was preserved an ancient custom of closing the gate when a sovereign approached the City on any public occasion, and opening it with much ceremony to give entrance way. The last Temple Bar was built in 1670, but was demolished to facilitate traffic. On the top of the old gateway the heads of criminals who had been executed were exposed.
The Strand probably the best known street in the world to-day was once a royal road outliningthe waterside. On one side were the castles of noblemen fronting on the river, with gardens between, and state barges carried the courtiers to the Tower, to Richmond or to Westminster wherever the king was to be found. The chief castle belonged to Peter of Savoy uncle of Henry III., and was set in the midst of an estate granted by the king in 1245. In those days the bishops were the principal owners of palaces on the Strand—the courtiers preferring the City as being safer from the attacks of their enemies. But the bishops were regarded as sacred and could live anywhere they pleased unmolested. The Strand became a regular thoroughfare about 1560.
At the time of the Reformation the palace of Walter Stapleton Bishop of Exeter was on the south, or river, side of the Strand and was called Exeter House. Afterward when the Earl of Essex, Elizabeth's favourite lived there it was called Essex House for him and the present Essex Street so gets its name. The only tangible survival of Essex House is at the end of the street—the aged and picturesque WaterGate, with the worn stone stairs that once led directly to the water where the barges received visitors from the palace. It was down these stairs that the Earl of Essex was taken on his way to the Tower to be beheaded at the command of the fickle queen.
In Essex Street just where is now an entrance into New Court stood the tavern of the Essex Head. Here, in 1783, Samuel Johnson then suffering from the diseases which caused his death in the next year established a conversation club that was to meet three times a week. Johnson attended regularly as long as he was able to walk from his home not far away in Bolt Court.
Opposite Essex Street in the middle of the Strand is the church of St. Clement Danes, designed by Sir Christopher Wren in 1681. At this church Dr. Johnson was a regular attendant for years and the pew he sat in, No. 18 in the north gallery, is marked with a tablet telling of "the philosopher, the poet, the great lexicographer,the profound moralist and chief writer of his times." Joe Miller, the man of jokes, was buried here, and his epitaph records among other things that he was a facetious companion, a sincere friend and a tender husband, which is about all a man need be.
In the 16th century the Bishop of Bath's palace was on the river side of the Strand. It was called Arundel House and gave its name to Arundel Street.
Norfolk Street, now a quiet thoroughfare of private hotels, is where at No. 21 Dickens located "Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings." In the first house from the river on the west side Peter the Great of Russia lived when he came to London in 1698 on the invitation of William III., to make a personal study of British industrial pursuits, military art, science and trade, a study which he did make, carrying back to Russia with him more than five hundred artisans, surgeons, artificers and engineers.
In Surrey Street the dramatist William Congreve who has been called the greatest English master of pure comedy lived at the height of his success, long after "The Old Bachelor," "Love for Love" and "The Mourning Bride" had made him famous, and here he died.
Placed squarely in the centre of the Strand opposite Somerset House, forming a cross current in the rush of traffic, stands the church of St. Mary-le-Strand, since 1717. It is on the spot of an old Maypole and bears the name of an older church demolished to make room for Somerset House. The Maypole was set up originally in 1601 to honour the wife of General Monk.
In the open space to the west of the church of St. Mary-le-Strand, in 1634, the first cab stand in London was established.
Entrance to old Roman Bath—Strand Lane
In the narrow Strand Lane opposite the church of St. Mary-le-Strand is the framework of an ancient Roman bath. It is one of the few survivals of Roman London and has been here for fifteen hundred years. Water still flows into it from a hidden spring and it is well worth passing through the door of No. 5 Strand Lane to look upon this relic and to be assured that the days of Boadicea were real.
The great inner square of the present Somerset House covers vaults built into the cellars forming tombs in which lie many a favourite of King James I. and King Charles I. But though the building has the same name all else is changed and it is not the same Somerset House which represented the height of political and kingly grandeur. At the time of the Reformation on the Strand by the river were palaces of the Bishops of Landaff, Chester and Worcester, and these palaces were torn down by "The Protector" the Earl of Somerset uncle of Edward VI. On their site in 1549 he had Somerset House built. But the lives of nobles were brief in those days and Somerset was beheaded in 1552 before the completion of his palace which became Crown property. James I.gave the mansion to his queen Anne of Denmark and she called it Denmark House. When Charles I. came to the throne Queen Henrietta Maria lived in Somerset's palace and liked it so well it was her home for many years. In the reign of Charles II., Somerset House passed to Queen Catherine of Braganza. It was here that Inigo Jones died, and here that at different times lay in state the bodies of Anne of Denmark, James I. and Oliver Cromwell. In 1775 when Buckingham House in St. James' Park was purchased for Queen Charlotte, wife of George III., to replace Somerset, the home of many famous folk was destroyed. Then the present structure was erected and since that time has been used for various offices of State, requiring an army of Government clerks and officials.
Midway between the Strand and the river, closed in by buildings and reached by winding ways of which Savoy Street is one, is the Savoy Church, the only reminder of the great palace which stood in this domain of the House of Savoy. In 1246 Henry III. granted to his wife'suncle Peter of Savoy certain land along the Thames. On this land Peter of Savoy built a palace outside the City walls between the road called the Strand and the River Thames. When he died in 1268, bequeathing his Palace of Savoy in London to the reverent friars of Montjoy, they in turn sold the palace to Queen Eleanor. She left it to her son Edmund of Lancaster. After that it became the headquarters of the Duchy of Lancaster and is much to be read of until 1381 when it was destroyed by the followers of Wat Tyler. Henry IV. came into possession of the Duchy of Lancaster on the death of John of Gaunt and in this roundabout way the present Savoy Church became a "Chapel Royal." From 1381 the year of its demolishment until 1509 it was little more than a ruin. In 1509 Henry VII. founded a hospital for the poor on the site—a group of buildings directly on the river. This was finally dissolved in 1702, and the buildings, used for various purposes, gradually vanished until now only the chapel remains. This has been restored many times but much of it is the same—part of the Lancastrian palace of Savoy.
A great modern hostelry, the Savoy Hotel, stands on part of the site of the old Palace of Savoy and the statue over the entrance is that of Count Peter of Savoy former owner of the palace.
On the north side of the Strand between Burleigh and Exeter streets and on ground now occupied by a popular restaurant was Exeter House, the home of the great statesman William Cecil, Lord Burleigh. Queen Elizabeth visited here and on his explaining that he was unable to stand in her presence, "because of the badness of my legs," the queen graciously replied: "We do not make use of you, My Lord, for the badness of your legs, but for the goodness of your head." The famous Exeter Hall occupied this site later, but was demolished in 1908.
In York Street, laid out in the 17th century, on the south side at No. 4 Thomas De Quincey lived and wrote "The Confessions of an English Opium-Eater;" a gruesome chronicle much read and said to be partly autobiographical. A sadness seems to hang about the place, especiallywhen it is "To be Let," with gaping windows and desolate brick front.
For a century Bow Street has been closely associated with the chief police court of London where many famous criminals have ended their days of liberty. Wycherley the dramatist lived here, when he lay ill, and Charles II. came to him and gave him the five hundred pounds that took him to the south of France in search of health.
Grinling Gibbons, also had his home in Bow Street. A remarkable carver in wood, whose work adorns many of the London church interiors, he was an unknown worker in a small English town when John Evelyn the 17th century writer and diarist discovered him and placed his work before King Charles II. But in London Gibbons' art was not at first recognized and he had a struggle for existence. In time however he became master carver to the Court, an appointment which lasted until the reign of George I. The subjects of his carvingswere usually flowers, foliage, birds and lace and they are remarkable for their delicacy of finish and naturalness. He also finished many works in bronze and marble.
In a house standing where the Bow Street police station is now Henry Fielding wrote "Tom Jones" in 1749,—a story famous as a picture of the times and undoubtedly containing much autobiography.
At the northwest corner of Russell Street where it touches Bow, stood Will's Coffee House, where from 1660 on for fifty years the literary life of London centred. The coffee house was named for William Urwin, the original owner. Dryden spent his dinner hours here for 35 years and was the acknowledged leader of literary fashion until his death in 1700. This, too, was the favourite house of Wycherley and Congreve the dramatists.
To-day on the site of Will's Coffee House stands the old home of Charles and Mary Lamb,where was written the first series of the "Essays of Elia." Russell Street is a place of wholesale fruit and vegetable dealers now, but there are signs of old-time pleasantness to be found, especially in the delightful cornices over many of the windows.
Opposite Will's, Button's Coffee House was established in 1712, presided over by Addison's old servant Daniel Button. As Will's was a place for literary controversy, Button's was first of all ground for the discussion of matters political. Joseph Addison was the recognized head of the coterie who met there, among whom were Alexander Pope, Ambrose Philips, Thomas Tickell, Henry Carey, Richard Steele and Richard Savage. One faithful habitué was a playwright named Charles Johnson, whose fame rested chiefly on the fact that for many years he wrote a play every season and went to Button's every day. Steele, then editing the "Guardian," was so constant in his attendance that he used the rooms as his editorial office, setting up a lion's head, into the mouth of which correspondents deposited communications to which Steelereplied in the pages of the "Guardian." Button the proprietor died in 1730 in great poverty and was buried in the churchyard of St. Paul's, Covent Garden, at the expense of the parish.
Another celebrated coffee house was Tom's, on the north side of Russell Street, at No. 17, taking its name from Thomas West its first proprietor. West killed himself by jumping from the second story window of the house in 1722 but the business was continued with considerable success until 1814.
Far back in the 13th century all the land about what is now the Covent Garden district was a real garden, a great fertile tract attached to the convent of the monks of Westminster. Since those early days it has always been associated with flowers and growing things and the Covent Garden Market is now the chief flower, fruit and vegetable market of London. A map of the middle of the 16th century shows it a tract stretching approximately from the Strand to the Long Acre of to-day and surrounded bya wall. The Crown granted the land to the Bedfords in 1552, and in 1621 Inigo Jones planned the Covent Market Square. In 1831 the market buildings of this day were erected, but they have since been added to and improved.
Under the Piazza in Covent Garden was Bedford's Coffee House, the successor in popularity to Will's and Button's. Here gathered David Garrick, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, William Hogarth, Samuel Foote and Henry Fielding. The house continued a popular rendezvous until about 1803.
On the west side of Covent Garden, plain, dingy and unkempt in appearance, blending with the unpleasantness of the streets surrounding the market, is the church of St. Paul's, Covent Garden. Francis, fifth Earl of Bedford, in the 17th century owned all the land hereabouts and directed Inigo Jones to build a chapel for Covent Garden. But, he explained, it must not cost much money—build simply a barn. And Inigo Jones responded: "It shall bethe handsomest barn in England." And he built St. Paul's. One of the memories associated with it is the record that here, in 1773, William Turner, the hair-dresser of Maiden Lane, was married to Mary Marshall. Their son was baptised here in 1775 and afterwards became the artist Joseph Mallord William Turner. In the forlorn burial ground back of this church were buried Samuel Butler, author of "Hudibras," in 1680; Grinling Gibbons, the wood carver, in 1721, and Edward Kynaston, an actor of female rôles, in 1712. This actor gained fame not only as a rare interpreter of character, but on one memorable occasion by keeping King Charles II. waiting, "because the queen was not yet shaved." William Wycherley, dramatist and author of "The Country Girl," was laid here in 1715, and T. A. Arne, composer of "Rule Britannia," in 1778. It is here, too, that Daniel Button, proprietor of the famous Button's Coffee House in Russell Street, lies, and others whose names are known all over the world.
Close by busy Covent Garden Market, in the house numbered 27 Southampton Street, DavidGarrick the actor lived for more than twenty years. A fanciful tablet over the doorway reads:
David GarrickLived Here1750-1772
Southampton Street takes its name from the Earl of Southampton, and was the main approach to Covent Garden in the reign of Charles II.
Unattractive Maiden Lane leading from Southampton Street back of the Adelphi Theatre is narrow and usually overcrowded with many people and business vehicles. It was in this street, where the house No. 20 stands, that the great Turner was born in 1775, his father here having carried on his profession of hair-dresser. Voltaire, the Frenchman, lived in this thoroughfare for a time. In our own times, close by the stage door of the Adelphi, the actor William Terriss was done to death by a madman.
Claude Duval the highwayman celebrated in song and story was captured in "The Hole in the Wall," a well-patronized tavern of the 17th century. It stood in Chandos Street, the second house from Bedford on the north side of the road.
Adelphi Terrace
High above Victoria Embankment, Adelphi Terrace, with Cleopatra's Needle just below by the riverside, shows a line of fine old derelict houses whose windows command a view of the Thames, Waterloo and Charing Cross bridges, and the picturesque confusion of shipping on the Surrey side so often muffled in fog. In the house No. 5, Garrick the actor died, and on a tablet are the words:
DavidGarrickActorLived HereB 1716D 1779
The neighbourhood is known as The Adelphi. In 1760, four brothers, Scotch architects named Adam, began laying out the roads, and theirnames were given to William, Adam, John and Robert streets. At No. 2 Robert Street lived Thomas Hood, and here he wrote the "Song of the Shirt."
Near Buckingham Street once stood the palace of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, given him by King James I. Before that, in the time of the Reformation, it had belonged to the Archbishop of York and was on the south, or river, side of the Strand. The street is dreary and desolate appearing now. In a house at one end near the old Water Gate Dickens had Betsy Trotwood engage a room for David Copperfield in the book of that name. Across the way at the southwest corner overlooking the river Samuel Pepys lived for many years, and Jean Jacques Rosseau and David Hume lived together in this street in 1765.
In the public gardens beyond Buckingham Street is the Water Gate of York House, a substantial relic in the middle of green lawns.It was built by the Duke of Buckingham as the first stage in the rebuilding of York Palace but the task was never completed.
Villiers Street is a clean and quiet thoroughfare, where people seem to walk sedately as though strolling through a graveyard. It is named for George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, who was a fashionable courtier much beloved by King James I., and who paid gallant court to Anne of Austria, wife of the French King Louis XIII. The establishment of Charing Cross Station robbed the street of its western side. Pepys' companion diarist, John Evelyn, lived hereabouts, and Richard Steele, too, after the death of his wife.
A newspaper office now occupies Number 149 Strand where Mrs. Siddons the actress passed the night after her first appearance in London when she captured the town by her art.
Charing Cross railway station stands where was once Hungerford Market, which in 1669took the place of the recently burned mansion of Sir Edward Hungerford. On the Villiers Street side were a line of factories, among them Warren's blacking factory where Charles Dickens worked as a boy, the scenes and workers of which he reproduced in "David Copperfield," changing only the character of the business from blacking to wine. The river then crept up to what is now the northerly side of the Embankment. At the foot of Villiers Street was the Hungerford Stairs where passengers landed from the river. There were many of these "Stairs" along the waterside and two reminders of them may be seen in Essex and York gates.
When King Edward I., in 1290 journeyed from Lincoln to Westminster Abbey with the body of his beloved Queen, Eleanor of Castile, he rested the coffin on the spot now called Charing Cross. Some say the name Charing was an alteration of Chère Reine (dear queen), but the locality was so called before Edward's day so this cannot be verified. Charing was a little settlement that lay in the fields between London and Westminster and was at first called Cherringe.At all events, in the year after Eleanor's body had rested here Edward erected a memorial cross of Gothic design—which has since then been called Eleanor's Cross—to mark where the coffin had rested, one of nine similar monuments commemorating the various stages of the journey. In successive reigns, for almost four hundred years, Eleanor's Cross was alternately defaced, reinstated or repaired, on the occasion of coronations or visits of royalty. Finally Parliament had it removed in 1647, but a modern copy of it stands to-day in the courtyard of the Charing Cross railway station.
Across the road from Charing Cross railway station Golden Cross Hotel preserves the name of a famous place in old stage-coach days. The original house of this name stood on the site now held by the Nelson Column. In front of the original tavern, Mr. Pickwick of "Pickwick Papers" and his friends met Alfred Jingle for the first time and from here the entire party took the coach for Rochester. At this tavern, David Copperfield met Steerforth, some years after their school days together, when Copperfieldhad been put "into a small bedchamber, which smelt like a hackney-coach, and was shut up like a family vault."
Where Drummond's Bank is, at Charing Cross, once stood the celebrated tavern "Locket's Ordinary," where Thackeray in the novel "Henry Esmond," placed the dispute between Lord Mohun and Lord Castlewood ending at Leicester Fields and in the killing of the patron of Esmond.
Just beyond Northumberland is Craven Street one of the lonely ways leading from the busy Strand to the river. On the house No. 7 is a tablet reading:
Lived Here
Benjamin Franklin
Printer
Philosopher and Statesman
Born 1706
Died 1790
In this street too, in Craven Buildings, in thetime of William and Mary, dwelt charming Mrs. Bracegirdle who was called the Diana of the stage, and in the same house lived another actress, Madame Vestris. No. 8 is supposed to be the house in which lived Scrooge, of Scrooge and Marley, in Dickens' "Christmas Carol." On the door is the knocker pointed out as the one Scrooge looked at on Christmas Eve, imagining it looked like the face of Marley.
Where the Grand Hotel stands in Northumberland Avenue by Trafalgar Square was once Northumberland House. This was one of the Strand palaces begun by Henry Howard, Earl of Northumberland in 1602. For more than two hundred years it was the home of the Northumberland family and at the time of its demolishment it was looked upon as the finest historical house in London.
Leading from the Strand, close by, is Northumberland Street, called Hortshorne Lane when Ben Jonson lived here with his mother and hisstep-father the bricklayer who wanted Jonson to follow the bricklaying trade. Here he still lived when he came to be known as the great wit, poet and scholar and the friend of Shakespeare, Bacon and Raleigh.
Trafalgar Square
The statue of Lord Nelson and the four British lions guard Trafalgar Square, where are also statues of Napier, Havelock and Gordon. There is, too, an equestrian figure of George IV. It is told of this king that when he was Prince of Wales he would insist that he had taken part in the Battle of Waterloo, whither he pretended he had gone secretly. He used often to say to the Duke of Wellington, "I was there, wasn't I, Arthur?" To which the duke would invariably reply discreetly: "I have frequently heard Your Royal Highness say so." This statue was to have been placed on the marble arch at Buckingham Palace but was found to be too large so was set up in the square instead. The statue of Charles I. in this square was originally placed close by the church in Covent Garden in 1633 until the Civil War when Parliament sold it to a brasier who was told to break it up. The brasier,however, buried it, and when Charles II. succeeded to the throne at the Restoration it was dug up and placed on a pedestal designed by Grinling Gibbons and set up where it is now. Trafalgar Square was, in 1829, an open space at Charing Cross where St. Martin's Lane, the Strand, Cockspur Street, Pall Mall, Whitehall and Northumberland Avenue came to a point. The 145 foot pillar crowned with the statue of Lord Nelson commemorates his death at the Battle of Trafalgar Bay in 1805.
The columns of the façade of the National Gallery were taken from the Carlton House when that historic palace was demolished in 1827.
Short and narrow Downing Street is the real centre of the British Empire, for the building numbered 20, looking very much like a cheap lodging house, has been the home of the Premier of England these two hundred years, since Robert Walpole was Prime Minister.
Burial in Westminster Abbey is the highest mark of recognition and honour that can be bestowed by the English nation. In this grand old church have been crowned all the sovereigns of England from the time of Saxon Harold. Where the Abbey stands to-day there was once a church commenced by Sebert, King of Essex, in the year 610. It was on Thorney Island, the boundaries of which are not now traceable, for closely cemented partly by nature partly byartifice, it has become a solid part of the British Isles. The original church was later destroyed by the Danes. Another quite as large as the present one was begun in 1050 in the reign of Edward the Confessor and parts of this old edifice can be traced to-day. In 1220, Henry III. began the rebuilding of the Confessor's church but it was almost destroyed by fire before its completion. The damage was repaired by Edward I., and the church was added to by Edward II., Edward III., Henry VII., and indeed by all other sovereigns down to the year 1714, when Sir Christopher Wren undertook its complete restoration, adding the western towers as they are now. Perhaps no other spot in all the world is so truly holy ground and the number of the great ones of the earth sleeping here is very large.
Interior of St. Margaret's, Westminster
Under the north walls of Westminster Abbey is the church of St. Margaret built during the reign of Edward I. on the site of an earlier church. William Caxton was buried in St. Margaret's in 1491. The fact that there was a chapel in the old Almonry where his printing press hadstood led to the union branches of the printing trades being called "Chapels" even to this day. Sir Walter Raleigh is also buried here. The interest of St. Margaret's centres in a stained glass window made in Holland for Henry VII., setting forth the Crucifixion, which many times narrowly escaped destruction and was finally in 1758 purchased by the churchwardens and given its present resting place.
The open space between Westminster Abbey and Westminster Hospital is the Broad Sanctuary so called because here in the 15th and 16th centuries was a sacred place of refuge for criminals who took advantage of the ancient protection of the Church. The Sanctuary was a square Norman tower containing two chapels. Elizabeth Woodville, widow of Edward IV., was seeking refuge here when her two children were taken from her and afterwards killed in the Tower by order of the Duke of Gloucester.
Westminster Hall, now connected with the Houses of Parliament, was begun in 1097 byWilliam Rufus, the Conquerer's son, and it was the scene of the first English parliaments. Richard II. enlarged the building and was here himself deposed. English kings up to the time of George IV. held their coronation festivals here. Charles I. was condemned to death in this Hall, and a tablet set in the floor marks the spot where he listened to his sentence of death. Cromwell was here hailed as Lord Protector, and here a few years later his head was exposed for the satisfaction of his enemies. Guy Fawkes of Gunpowder Plot fame, William Wallace, Sir Thomas More, Somerset, Essex, Strafford and a host of other folk, were tried and sentenced to death in Westminster Hall. It was in this old Hall, in our own days, that the body of King Edward VII. lay in state.
Between the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey is an open space called Old Palace Yard, where in 1618 Sir Walter Raleigh was executed, and where the conspirators of the Gunpowder Plot met death opposite the very house through which they carried the powder into cellars under the House of Lords.
In Smith Square just beyond Westminster Abbey is the church of St. John the Evangelist with its four queer looking towers, one at each corner. It has been here since 1721. The story is told that it was ordered built by a lady of wealth who objected to the plans originally drawn, and, angry with the architect when he explained them to her, she kicked over a footstool. As it lay upside down she pointed to it and cried out—"Build it like that." The architect followed her instructions to the letter, hence the odd appearing towers.
Church Street extending eastward from Smith Square towards the river is identified with two of the books of Dickens. On the south side midway of the block lived Jenny Wren, the dolls' dressmaker of "Our Mutual Friend," whose back was bad and whose legs were queer; and down this street, Martha, in "David Copperfield," fled to the river bent on suicide, with Peggoty and Copperfield close at her heels.
What is now St. James's Park was once a marshy tract connected with the leper hospitalafterwards St. James's Palace. It remained uncultivated until enclosed by Henry VIII., but was not actually laid out as a park until the time of Charles II. It was this king who had the Mall for thepalle mallegame removed from beside St. James's Palace to the long straight walk that marks the northern boundary of the park. Here the fashionable game continued to be played by the cavaliers of the court. For many a year, the Mall was the most fashionable and exclusive of London's promenades, and it was along it that Charles I. walked to his execution in 1648. Beau Brummell spent much time on the Mall, whether he went to show to admiring friends the latest fashions in clothes at the court of his friend and patron the Prince of Wales afterward George IV.
Birdcage Walk by St. James's Park takes its name from an aviary which has been here from the time of James I. A continuous line of cages lined the walk when Charles II. was king, and the "Keeper of the King's Birds" was an important official.
In York Street to the south of Birdcage Walk, where the Queen Anne Mansions are to-day was the house to which Milton removed in 1651. The street was called Petty France then, from the number of French Protestants residing there. In this house Milton became blind. Here his wife died leaving three daughters, and later while still living here Milton married Catherine Woodcock in 1656. A century and a half later Hazlitt came here to live and set up a stone on the house-side:
Sacred to Milton
Prince of Poets
In the wainscoted room where Milton had often pursued his meditations Hazlitt visited with Charles and Mary Lamb, Hayden and a host of others. York Street was finally named in honour of the son of George III., Frederick, Duke of York.
In St. James's Park, where Buckingham Palace stands to-day, Buckingham House was built in 1703 by order of John Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham. Later it was given to QueenCharlotte by George III. to replace Somerset House as a royal residence. Remodelled in 1825 it became the present Buckingham Palace, the town residence of the King. The eastern façade facing St. James's Park was added in 1846.
Separating the private grounds of Buckingham Palace from Green Park is Constitution Hill, and in this road leading from the Palace to Hyde Park Corner attempts were made to assassinate Queen Victoria in the years 1840, 1842 and 1849 by lunatics of various degrees.
The first building to the east of Hyde Park Corner is Apsley House, built in 1785, presented to the Duke of Wellington by the Government; where he dined the survivors of the Battle of Waterloo every year until his death.
The much famed Elgin Marbles now in the British Museum when first brought to Londonin 1803 from the Acropolis at Athens were placed in Gloucester House in Piccadilly opposite Green Park. Lord Byron spoke irreverently of these relics and their home, calling it the:
General martFor all the mutilated blocks of art.
Aristocratic Park Lane in early days was a narrow path called Tyburn Lane leading to Tyburn, the place of execution. It is still a narrow way, but to-day lined with splendid houses and crowded with the carriages of rich and fashionable Londoners.
Out of Park Lane leads Hertford Street, full of memories of persons of note who have lived there. A tablet on the house at No. 14 indicates that it has been the home of Dr. Jenner, the discoverer of vaccination. Other dwellers in the street were Richard Brinsley Sheridan, dramatist and politician, who lived several years at No. 10, and Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, novelist, whose house was No. 36.
Where Edgware Road now ends at Marble Arch was once an open space taking its name from the Tyburn brook which flowed from the north to the Thames River. This was a place of execution and malefactors of all kinds and conditions were here executed until 1783. Among the many thousands who met death at Tyburn were Jack Sheppard; Fenton, who killed the Duke of Buckingham, and the thief Jonathan Wild who even on his way to the gallows picked the parson's pocket. Oxford Street was then called Tyburn Street and was the road that led straight from Newgate to the gallows of Tyburn. The prisoners were carried in a cart, usually sitting on their coffins, holding in their hands the nosegay presented to them in accordance with old custom in the church of St. Sepulchre before starting for their last ride. In each cart was a minister. Arrived at Tyburn, the cart was stopped beneath the scaffold until the noose was adjusted, then driven on, leaving the prisoner hanging. Hogarth's picture of the execution of the "Idle Apprentice" gives a detailed sketch of the scene and shows the galleries from which the spectators watched the gruesome sight.
The ancient cemetery of St. George lay near to Hyde Park close by the Marble Arch. There may still be seen here the Tomb of Laurence Sterne, author of "Tristram Shandy" and the "Sentimental Journey." Mrs. Radcliffe, writer of the "Mysteries of Udolpho," is buried in this graveyard, part of which is now a spot for recreation.
Edgware Road starts northward from the Marble Arch and is the present-day tracing of an old Roman Road.
The grave of the great actress Sarah Siddons is in St. Mary's Churchyard, much of which is now a public park in narrow Harrow Road leading from Edgware Road to the west. Close by is a statue in honour of the memory of this woman of genius.
Upper Baker Street stretches a short distance from Marylebone Road to the entrance of Regent's Park. It was in this street that SherlockHolmes had his rooms and the house is quite easy to find.
Marylebone got its name from a bourne or rivulet running through a little hamlet far outside the City of London. As the church of this village was dedicated to St. Mary it came quite naturally to be known as St. Mary-on-the-bourne and this in time was shortened to Marylebone.
In Marylebone Road at the end of High Street is Old Mary-le-bone Church where George Gordon, Lord Byron, was baptised in 1788. Although the older church on this site which figures often in Hogarth's series of paintings of "The Rake's Progress," is gone, in the churchyard there is still the flat tombstone on which the "Idle Apprentice" used to throw dice of a Sunday.
At No. 1 Devonshire Terrace Charles Dickens lived from 1839 to 1851. Here he finished "Barnaby Rudge" and "Dombey and Son,"and wrote "Martin Chuzzlewit," "Old Curiosity Shop," "David Copperfield," "The Haunted Man," "The Christmas Carol," "The Cricket on the Hearth," "American Notes," and "The Battle of Life." Here he spent many happy hours with Carlyle, Longfellow, Hood, Landseer, Macready and a host of other good and famous men who visited him.
A tablet on the house No. 2 Blandford Street running out of Baker Street to the east, tells that it was here that Michael Faraday the distinguished chemist served his apprenticeship.
Hertford House in Manchester Square is the Gaunt House of "Vanity Fair" and it was from the fourth Marquis of Hertford that Thackeray drew his picture of Lord Steyne. The building now contains the Wallace Collection of paintings, given to the nation by Lady Wallace some years ago.
During the last years of his life Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton lived in Grosvenor Square inthe house numbered 12. This is a three-storied structure with a high iron fence, and before its door pillars on which are flambeaux snuffers attest the age of the building. These extinguishers were used by the footmen to put out the flambeaux that were carried lighted on the backs of carriages at night. Writing of these lights the poet Gay says:
Yet who the footman's arrogance can quellWhose flambeau gilds the sashes of Pall-Mall,When in long rank a train of torches flame,To light the midnight visits of the dame.
Many men and many women prominent in the life of London have lived in houses looking upon this Square during its two hundred years of existence.
Mayfair, an aristocratic residential section of London, has Bond Street and Park Lane on the east and west; with Piccadilly and Oxford Street on the south and north. It is named for a fair held where Shepherd's Market is now in each May until about the middle of the 18th century.
Through the Mayfair district stretches Curzon Street named for the third Viscount Howe—George Augustus Curzon; noticeable for having no thoroughfare for carriages at either end. To the west it ends in the cul-de-sac Seamore Place; to the east continued as Bolton Row it is halted against Devonshire Gardens.
In Curzon Street at No. 8 lived the great friends of Horace Walpole the sisters Mary and Agnes Berry. Walpole was a constant visitor during the latter years of his life and it is thought that he strongly desired to marry Mary Berry. Just opposite where Queen Street ends was the Curzon Street Chapel which was demolished in 1900. It was in this church that, according to general report, George III. was married to Hannah Lightfoot in 1759. In the house No. 24 Chantrey the sculptor lived in an attic during the early years of his struggle for recognition. Thackeray tells us that Becky Sharp took "a small but elegant house in Curzon Street," when as Mrs. Crawley she planned to live on nothing a year. Lord Curzon, former Viceroy of India,is the most notable member of the Curzon family to-day.
Where Curzon Street ends Seamore Place juts off at right angles, only a few yards in length. Here at No. 6 Lady Blessington held her salon in 1830.
Chesterfield House, at the southern end of South Audley Street, was built for the fourth Earl of Chesterfield who lived and died here. He wrote the famous Chesterfield letters and their style and eloquence coined the adjective—Chesterfieldian.
Jostling side by side with the homes of the rich, just to the south of Curzon Street, is a cluster of ancient shattered buildings and dingy shops two hundred and odd years old. This district is known as Shepherd's Market. Here the fair was held that gave the name to Mayfair.
Many notables have lived in Clarges Street, named for Sir Walter Clarges, a relative of General Monk's wife—Anne Clarges. Early in the 19th century No. 11 in this street was for two years the home of Lady Emma Hamilton, the friend of the greatest of British Admirals, Lord Nelson. At No. 21 lived the celebrated lady scholar, Elizabeth Carter, a comrade of Dr. Johnson, Sir Joshua Reynolds and Edmund Burke. In this street, too, lived Edmund Kean the actor, and Thomas Babington Macaulay, equally famous in their different arts.
Charles Street has changed less in appearance and atmosphere than any other of the Mayfair streets. It was here, where the house numbered 42 is, that Beau Brummel lived in 1792.
Memories crowd thickly about the old houses around Berkeley Square, laid out in 1698. On the west side in the house numbered 45 Lord Clive the founder of the British Empire in India, lived, and where he killed himself in 1774. At No. 11 Horace Walpole whose lettersgive the record of fashionable society of his day died in 1797.
Below the level of the Lansdowne Gardens, off Berkeley Street, is the Lansdowne Passage. The curious iron bar that blocks the entrance is a reminder of the act of a bold highwayman in the last days of the 18th century. After robbing a man in nearby Piccadilly, and mounting his horse, he dashed through Bolton Street, then through this passage and up the stone steps at full gallop. The bars were put up to prevent a recurrence of this. Anthony Trollope in his book "Phineas Redux" makes this dark uncanny looking passage the scene of a murder, and the place where a body was found.
Opposite Lansdowne Passage is Hay Hill, once a favourite resort of highwaymen. Here the Prince of Wales, afterwards George IV., and the Duke of York were halted one night by a man, revolver in hand, who fared ill, however, as the two nobleman had only three shillings between them. It was a custom to exhibit on HayHill the heads of executed persons as an example to evildoers. Here was exposed the head of Thomas Wyatt the younger, in the rebellion of 1554 when he was captured after his attack on Ludgate Hill.
In Berkeley Street a few doors south of Berkeley Square lived Alexander Pope, the poet, on the east side of the street opposite Lansdowne House.
Dover Street, named for a very early resident, Henry Jermyn, Lord Dover, was long a thoroughfare noted for the homes of statesmen. John Evelyn, the diarist, lived here, near Piccadilly, and in 1705 died here. To-day it is wholly given over to trade.
Albemarle Street was a dignified thoroughfare, and here lived at different times James and Robert Adam, two of the famous brothers who laid out the Adelphi district; Zoffany, who painted the portrait of John Wilkes; Lord Butte,and Charles and James Fox. Now it is as much of a business section as it was once residential.
In quiet Savile Row the place of high-priced tailors, on No. 12, a yellow brick house with link snuffers before the door, is a tablet telling that here Grote the historian died, and reading:
George Grote
1794-1871
Historian
Died Here
Close by in Savile Row No. 14 is a house now quite conventional in appearance where Sheridan the dramatist lived and died, as is set forth on the tablet of the house-front: