IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
If we look at a map of South London compiled at any time during the
eighteenth century it is surprising to observe how little the place had
grown since the fifteenth. There runs, as of old, the Causeway at right
angles to the Embankment. On either side of the Causeway or High Street
or St. Margaret's Hill, run off right and left a few narrow streets: the
continuity of houses is broken by St. George's Church, south of which,
although there are, here and there, detached houses and even rows of
houses or terraces, there are open fields, streams, ponds and gardens.
St. George's Fields, crossed by paths, are broad and open fields
stretching out westward till they join Lambeth Marsh. St. Margaret's
Church has long since vanished: he who knows the old maps can still put
his finger on the site, but its burial ground has wholly disappeared.
There are four old churches in Southwark proper: St. George's, St.
Saviour's, St. Thomas's, and St. Olave's. On the east are the churches
of Bermondsey and Rotherhithe, not to speak of Deptford: on the west is
Lambeth Church: on the south are the churches of Newington and
Kennington. As for other institutions, there are the two great hospitals
St. Thomas's and Guy's almost side by side: and there are the prisons,
that of the King's Bench, the Marshalsea and the White Lyon. They were
all on the east side of the street until 1756, when the King's Bench
Prison was removed across the road nearly opposite to St. George's. Some
time after the Marshalsea was moved further south on the site of the old
White Lyon and including that ancient Clink. The old Clink on Bankside
had vanished. But the Borough Compter was still flourishing--a grimy,
filthy, fever-stricken place.
[Illustration: OLD HOUSE, STONEY STREET, SOUTHWARK]
At the back of the houses and narrow streets to east and west, the
fields began with open ditches or sewers and sluggish streams. 'Snow's'
Fields on the east were as well known as St. George's in the West. 'Long
Lane' ran from St. George's to Bermondsey Church: it contained a few
houses: Bermondsey Lane, commonly called Barmsie, ran from the old cross
to the same church: it was already a street of houses. The most crowded
part of Southwark proper was the street called Tooley or St. Olave's,
the most ancient street in the Borough, originally built upon the
Embankment, the Thames Street of South London. Here, in the eighteenth
century, there were no vestiges left of the former palaces: everything
had gone except a crypt or a vault: at every step one came upon the
entrance to a court, narrow, mean and squalid: these courts remain, also
narrow, mean and squalid, to the present day. There were no places in
London, unless in the neighbourhood of Hermitage Street, Wapping, where
human creatures had to pig together in such horrible conditions. There
was no water supply to these courts: there was no lighting: there was no
paving, not even with the round cobbles which they still called paving.
[Illustration: ST. THOMAS'S HOSPITAL
(_From an old Print_)]
[Illustration: Some Ancient Houses in the Long Walk, Bermondsey]
[Illustration: Jamaica House, Bermondsey]
On the west side of the High Street, of which a map is given on p. 85
of this volume, beyond St. Saviour's, the nave of which was fast falling
into ruins, came Bankside. Alas! It was deserted: not a single theatre
was left: not a baiting Place: not a Bear to bait: there was no longer a
poet or an actor or a musician on Bankside: there were no more evenings
at the Falcon: there was no longer heard the tinkling of the guitar, and
the scraping of the violin. South of Bankside lay two broad gardens,
side by side: one called Pye Garden; and the other, west of Winchester
House, was called Winchester Park. Paris Gardens were no more.
Blackfriars Bridge Road, in which there were as yet but few houses, had
been cut ruthlessly right through the middle of the old Gardens; the
trees, once so thick and close, had been laid low, but there were still
kitchen gardens. South of the Gardens, with an interval of a few side
streets, we come upon St. George's Fields, and on the west of these
fields upon Lambeth Marsh, which was cut up into ropewalks, tenter
grounds, nurseries, and kitchen gardens. Where Waterloo Station now
stands were Cuper's Gardens: there were half a dozen Pleasure Gardens,
of which more anon: there were turnpikes wherever two roads met. But
perhaps the most remarkable feature of this quarter in the last century
was the immense number of streams and ditches and ponds: most of these
were little better than open sewers: complaints were common of the
pollution of these streams--but it was in vain: people will always throw
everything that has to be ejected into the nearest running water if they
can. One wants the map in order to understand how numerous were these
streams. There was one murky brook which ran along the backs of all the
houses on the east side of High Street--the prisoners of the Marshalsea
and the King's Bench grumbled about it continually: another
corresponding stream ran behind the west side of High Street. Maiden
Lane, now called Park Lane, rejoiced in one: Gravel Lane, more blessed
still, was happy with a ditch or stream on each side: Dirty Lane had
one: another ran along Bandy Leg Walk: other streams flowed, or crept,
or crawled, across Lambeth Marsh and St. George's Fields. Where there
were no houses, and therefore no pollutions, the streams of this broad
marsh, lying beneath and between the orchards, fringing the gardens, and
crossing the open fields, were a pleasant feature, though they had no
stones to prattle over, but only the dark peaty _humus_ of the marsh:
and the water channels necessitated frequent little rustic bridges which
were sometimes picturesque. Some of the streams again were of
considerable size, especially that called 'The Shore' by Roques. It was
also called the Effra. Along the banks of this stream stood here and
there cottages, having little gardens in front and rustic bridges across
the stream. But whether these streams ran or whether they crawled,
behind or beside the crowded houses they were foul and fetid and
charged with all the things which should be buried away or burned way:
they were laden with fevers and malaria and 'putrid' sore throat.
[Illustration: QUEEN ELIZABETH'S FREE GRAMMAR SCHOOL]
[Illustration: ANCIENT BUILDINGS, HIGH STREET, BOROUGH
(_From a Drawing by T. Higham, 1820_)]
[Illustration: THE FALCON TAVERN, BANKSIDE]
The High Street of Southwark is now a crowded thoroughfare, because it
is the main artery of a town containing a population of many hundreds
of thousands. In the last century it was quite as animated because it
was one of the main arteries by which London was in communication with
the country. An immense number of coaches, carts, waggons, and
'caravans' passed every day up and down the High Street, some stopping
or starting in Southwark itself; some going over London Bridge to their
destination in the City. The coach of the first half of the century can
be restored from Hogarth. That of the latter half of the century was in
all respects like the revived coaches of the present day, adapted for
rapid travelling along a smooth road. The carts were carriers' carts on
two wheels with a tilt or cover; they carried parcels and small
packages, and on occasions, but not always, one or two passengers. The
waggons, which carried heavy goods and passengers not in a hurry, were
also covered with a tilt; their broad wheels and capacious interior can
be restored, as well as the coach, from that most trustworthy painter of
his own time. As for the caravans, I am in some doubt. I suppose,
however, that a caravan was then what it is now, in which case it was
an elementary Pullman's car, in which people and their effects were
drawn slowly along the road, in a four-wheeled covered cart. Perhaps the
passengers slept in the car at night, drawn up by the roadside, like the
gipsies. But of this theory I have no kind of proof.
[Illustration: AN OLD MILL, BANKSIDE]
[Illustration: JOHN BUNYAN'S MEETING HOUSE, BANKSIDE]
From the Borough alone, without counting the vehicles which passed
through to or from the City, there were sent out, every week, one
hundred and forty-three stage coaches: one hundred and twenty-one
waggons: and one hundred and ninety-six carts and caravans. And, of
course, the same number came back every week. There was a continual
succession of departures and arrivals; all day long, one after the
other, the stage coaches came galloping up each to its own inn; while
they were still far away the people of the inn knew when their own coach
was coming by the tune played on the guard's bugle: the High Street, in
fact, was like a railway terminus, where trains are arriving and leaving
all day long.
[Illustration: The Old Town Hall, Southwark]
I am quite sure that we have no idea at all of the life and animation at
a London inn when the stages were started and when they arrived. With as
much method, and as quickly as the railway porters clear out the luggage
and get rid of the train, the horses were taken out: the passengers got
down: the coachman looked inside for his perquisites in the shape of
anything forgotten and left behind: the luggage was laid out: the
porters seized it and carried it off to the hackney coach outside: the
passengers followed their luggage: and the courtyard was ready for the
next coach. Outside the courtyard there hung about, all day long, whole
companies of thieves waiting for the chance of carrying off something
unconsidered or forgotten. Generally, they stood in with the stable boys
and the porters, who, for a trifle, were good enough to shut their eyes.
If a trunk was seen to lie unclaimed, one of them came bustling in.
'Give us a hand, Jack,' he cried to one of the porters, as if he had
been ordered to call for and bring away that trunk. A confederate or two
stood at the door to trip up a pursuer or a proprietor, if there was
one, and in a moment man and box would be lost to sight in a
neighbouring court. Pickpockets as well abounded about the courtyards:
outside were houses filled with disorderly folk of all kinds waiting to
entrap and to tempt and to rob the country bumpkin. There was the couple
ready with the confidence trick: the generous and hospitable gentleman
to welcome the country lad: there was the lady of the ready smile: and
the taverns with the doors open to all. The numbers of coaches and
waggons I have given refer to Southwark alone, and to the conveyances
which belonged to the inns up and down in the High Street. But a great
many more came across the bridge from the City daily. Now, if we are
considering the traffic and animation of the roads leading to the City,
remember that the High Street, Borough, was only one of many main lines
of traffic. There were, besides, the roads to the North: to the Eastern
counties: to the Midlands: to the West: and to the Northwest. Day and
night the roads all round London were thronged with these coaches,
carts, caravans, and waggons: but these vehicles were for ordinary folk
only: for tradesmen, attorneys, clergymen, farmers, riders (that is,
commercial travellers) and servants: a nobleman or a country gentleman
scorned to travel in a public conveyance: he came up to London, if not
in his own coach, then in a post-chaise, of which there were thousands
on the road. Add to these the horsemen, of whom there were an immense
number riding from place to place: add, further, the long droves of
cattle, sheep and pigs: the cattle, however, to save their feet and to
keep them in condition, were mostly taken along 'drives' by the
roadside, where the ground was soft. One of these can still be seen on
the other side of Hampstead. Pedestrians there were also by thousands:
soldiers: sailors: gipsies: strolling actors: tinkers and tramps--the
land was full of tramps: in a word the roads near London were crowded
and animated and full of adventure, character, incident, and
picturesqueness: indeed, the dismal and deserted condition of the modern
road makes it difficult for us to realise the crowds and the life of the
road in the eighteenth century.
[Illustration: Old Houses in Ewer Street]
Of society in the Borough there is little information to be procured.
The place had, however, its better class. One infers so much from the
fact that there were Assembly Rooms in the High Street, and that a
Borough Assembly was held during the winter on stated days, at which the
fashion and aristocracy of the place were gathered together. I have
gathered one anecdote alone concerning this Assembly. It is of an
accident.
[Illustration: Courtyard of the Dog & Bear Inn]
The company were assembled: the Minuets had begun: the orchestra was in
full play: the ladies were dressed in their finest: hoops were swinging:
towering heads were nodding: the gentlemen were splendid in pale blue
satin and in pink, when suddenly the doors, which stood on the level of
the street, were pushed open, and a dozen oxen came running in one after
the other. The company parted right and left, falling over benches and
each other: the creatures, terrified by the light and the shrieks of the
ladies, began to point threatening horns: nobody dared to drive them out
till the 'well-known'--the phrase is pathetic, because fame is so
short-lived--the 'well-known' Mrs. A. advanced, and with a brandishing
of her apron and the magic of a 'Shoo! Shoo!' persuaded the animals to
leave the place. Then who shall tell of the raising of fallen and
fainting damsels? Who shall speak of the rending of skirts and
embroidered petticoats? Who can describe the deplorable damage to the
heads? And who can adequately celebrate the gallantry of the men when
there was no more danger? Bowls of punch, I am pleased to record, were
quickly administered as a restorative: and after certain necessary
repairs to the heads and the sewing up of torn skirts, the wounded
spirits of the company revived, and the ball proceeded.
Another indication of society in Southwark is the fact that on one
occasion--perhaps on more than one occasion--when the black footmen of
London resolved on holding an Assembly of their own, it was in the
Borough that they held it. And a very interesting evening it must have
proved, had we any record of the proceedings. Perhaps black cooks were
found to dance with black footmen.
[Illustration: THE WHITE BEAR TAVERN, SOUTHWARK]
Since it contained the headquarters of so many stage coaches, carts and
waggons, the High Street was bound to contain, as well, many houses of
entertainment, if only as stables for the horses and accommodation for
the drivers and grooms. The inns of Southwark, however, were far more
ancient than the stage coaches. We have seen already that from the
earliest times of trade the southern suburb was the place where
merchants and those who brought produce of all kinds to London out of
the south country put up their teams of pack-horses and their goods, and
found bed and board and company for themselves. We have also seen how
the inns of Southwark were used as gathering places and starting places
for the Pilgrims bound for St. Thomas's Shrine, Canterbury. The mediæval
inn was not much like that of later times. It contained a common hall
and a common dormitory, with another for women. There was also a covered
place for goods, and stables for horses. A small specimen of a
fifteenth-century inn survives at Aylesbury: the hall, quite a small
room, is very well preserved. That of the Tabard must have been much
larger, in order to accommodate so large a company. The quaint old inns,
so long the delight of the artist, now nearly all gone, were not
earlier than the sixteenth or seventeenth century. They consisted of a
large open courtyard filled with waggons and vehicles of all kinds,
surrounded by galleries, at the back of which were bedrooms, and other
chambers opening from the gallery. On the ground floor were the
kitchens, dining-rooms, and private sitting-rooms. There was generally a
large room for public dinners and other occasions. The inns of Southwark
formed, so long as they stood, the most picturesque part of modern
Southwark. Scarcely anything now remains of them, the George alone
preserving anything of its ancient picturesqueness. The reader who
desires a closer acquaintance with these inns is referred to Mr. Philip
Norman's exquisitely illustrated book, which presents in a lasting form
the vanished glories of the High Street.
To speak of these inns is like entering upon a historical catalogue.
There are so many of them, and the associations connected with them
carry one away into so many directions and land him into many strange
corners of history.
At the south end of London Bridge, and on the west side of it, stood a
tavern called the 'Bear at the Bridge Foot.' It was built in the year
1319 by one Thomas Drinkwater, taverner of London. In Riley's
'Memorials' may be found a lease of this house by the proprietor to one
James Beauflur. The lease is for six years. James Beauflur is to pay no
rent, because he has advanced money to Thomas Drinkwater to help in the
building. James is, in fact, to act as manager of a 'tied' house. Thomas
Drinkwater will furnish all the wine, and will keep an exact account of
the same and will have a settlement twice a year. Thomas will also
complete the furniture of the house with 'hanaps,' that is, handled mugs
of silver and of wood, with curtains, clothes, and everything else
necessary for the proper conduct of a tavern.
[Illustration: ALLEN ROPEWALK, SOUTHWARK]
One hopes that James Beauflur made the tavern pay. This was the
commencement of a long and singularly prosperous inn. It became one of
the most famous inns of London, and one of the most popular for
dinners. Hither came the Churchwardens and vestry of St. Olave's to
feast at the expense of the parish as long as feasts were allowed. Some
of the bills of these dinners have been preserved among the papers of
St. Saviour's. Rendle the antiquary and historian of Southwark gives
one:
P^d for 3 Geese, 3 Capons and one Rabbit 00 14 08
3 Tarts 00 12 00
a Giblett pie makyng 00 02 08
Beefe 01 02 06
3 leggs of mutton 00 8 00
wine and dresing the meat and naperie,
fire, bread and beere 02 11 00
18 oz Tobacco and 12 pipes 00 01 02
12 Lemmonds and 18 Oranges 00 03 00
-----------
05 15 00
-----------
Among the names of persons connected with the tavern must be noticed
that of the Duke of Norfolk--'Jockey of Norfolk'--in 1463. Two hundred
years later, one Cornelius Cooke, late a Colonel in Cromwell's army and
a commissioner for the sale of the King's lands, enters upon a new
sphere of usefulness by turning landlord of the Bear at the Bridge Foot.
Samuel Pepys records several visits paid to the tavern. From this house
the Duke of Richmond carried off Miss Stewart. It was pulled down in
1761, when the end of the bridge was widened. I need not catalogue the
whole long list of the Southwark inns: you may find them all enumerated
in Rendle's book, but mention may be made of the more important. Some of
them, it will be seen, had been in more ancient times the town houses of
great people--Bishops, Abbots and nobles. Other town houses, those off
the highway of trade, having been deserted by their former occupants,
fell upon evil times, went down in the world, even became mere
tenements. This happened to Sir John Fastolf's house, and to the house
of the Prior of Lewes, and to many others. Those standing in the
highway, whither came all the merchants; whither came all the waggons;
became transformed, and proved more valuable property as inns than as
residences.
[Illustration: A SOUTH LONDON SLUM]
Thus, in Foul Lane, now just south of St. Mary Overies, was the entrance
to the Green Dragon Inn. This inn was anciently the town house of the
Cobhams. This family left Southwark, and the house, with some
alterations, became an Inn. When carriers began to ply between London
and the country towns, Tunbridge was connected by a carrier's cart with
the Green Dragon. Early in the eighteenth century it became the
Southwark post-office. Another and a much more important inn for
carriers and waggons was the King's Head. Taylor, the Water Poet, says
that 'carriers come into the Borough of Southwark out of the counties of
Kent, Sussex, and Surrey: from Reigate to the Falcon: from Tunbridge,
Seavenoks, and Staplehurst to the Katherine Wheel, and others from
Sussex thither; Dorking and Ledderhead to the Greyhound: some to the
Spurre, the George, the King's Head: some lodge at the Tabbard or
Talbot: many, far and wide, are to be had almost daily at the White
Hart.'
The White Hart is, if possible, a more historical inn than Chaucer's
Tabard itself. It was the headquarters of Jack Cade, as has already been
related in chapter vi. In front of this inn one Hawarden was beheaded:
and also in front of this inn the headless body of Lord Say, after being
dragged at the horsetail from the Standard at Chepe, was cut up in
quarters, which were displayed in various places in order to strike
terror into the minds of the people.
[Illustration: THE OLD TABARD INN, SOUTHWARK]
I have spoken sufficiently of Chaucer already. The Tabard Inn, from
which the famous Company set out, was named after the ornamented coat or
jacket worn by Kings at Coronations, and by heralds, or even by ordinary
persons. In the fourteenth century it was the town house of the Abbot
of Hyde, Winchester. Does this mean that the Abbot allowed the place to
be used as an ordinary inn? It is clear that Chaucer speaks of it as an
ordinary inn. Yet in 1307 the Bishop of Winchester licenses a chapel at
the Abbot's Hospitium in the Parish of St. Margaret, Southwark. At the
Dissolution it is surrendered as 'a hostelry called the Taberd, the
Abbot's place, the Abbot's stable, the garden belonging, a dung place
leading to the ditch going to the Thames.' It is explained in Spight's
'Chaucer,' 1598, that the old Tabard had much decayed, but that it had
been repaired 'with the Abbot's house adjoining.' Until the inn was
finally pulled down, a room used to be shown as that in which Chaucer's
Company assembled. This, however, was not the room, though it may have
been rebuilt on the site of the old room. For on Friday, May 26, 1676, a
destructive fire broke out, which raged over a large part of the Borough
and destroyed the Queen's Head, the Talbot, the George, the White Hart,
the King's Head, the Green Dragon, the Borough Compter, the Meat Market,
and about 500 houses. St. Thomas's Hospital was saved by a change of
wind, which also seems to have saved St. Mary Overies.
[Illustration: ST. GEORGE, SOUTHWARK: NORTH-WEST VIEW
(_From an Engraving by B. Cole_)]
Walk with me from the Bridge head southwards, noting the Inns first on
the right or the west, and then on the left or east.
We have, first, the Bear on Bridge Head: then, before getting to Ford
Lane, the Bull's Head: opposite the market place, the Goat: next the
Clement. Opposite St. George's Church we cross over, and are on the east
side, going north again: here we have a succession of Inns: the Half
Moon: the Blue Maid and the Mermaid: the Nag's Head: the Spur: the
Christopher: the Cross Keys: the Tabard: the George: the White Hart: the
King's Head: the Black Swan: the Boar's Head. There is a pleasing
atmosphere of business mixed with festivity about this street of inns
and courtyards: of stables and grooms: of drivers and guards: of coaches
and waggons: of merchants and middlemen: of country squires come up on
business, with the hope of combining a little pleasure amongst the
excitements of the town with a profitable deal or two. There is the
smell of roast meats hanging about the courtyards of the inns. There is
a continual calling for the drawers, there is a clinking of hanaps and a
murmur of voices.
The _strepitus_, however, of the High Street is not like that of
Bankside. There is no tinkling of guitars: no singing before noon or
after noon: no laughing: the country folk do not laugh: they do not
understand the wit of the poets and the players. High Street has nothing
to do with Bankside: the merchants and the squires know nothing about
the Show Folk.
There was one exception. Among the Show Folk was a certain Edward
Alleyn, who was a man of business as well as a conductor of
entertainments. He was on the vestry of St. Saviour's: he was also
churchwarden, his name appears in the parish accounts of the period. He
was a popular churchwarden: probably he had about him so much of the
showman that he was genial, and mannerly, and courteous--these are the
elementary virtues of the profession. For we find that when he proposes
to retire his fellow members of the vestry refuse to let him go.
It is melancholy to walk down the High Street and to reflect that all
these inns, most of them so picturesque, were standing thirty or forty
years ago, and that some of them were standing ten years ago. One of
them is figured in the 'Pickwick Papers.' The courtyard is too vast: the
figures are too small: the galleries are too large: but the effect
produced is admirable. Now not only are the old Inns gone, but there is
nothing to take their place: a modern public-house is not an Inn. The
need of an Inn at Southwark is gone: there are no more caravans of
produce brought up to the Borough: the High Street has become the shop
and the provider of everything for the populations of the parishes of
St. Saviour, St. Olave, St. Thomas, and St. George.