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THE FASCINATION
OF LONDON
HOLBORN AND BLOOMSBURY
_IN THIS SERIES._
Cloth, price 1s. 6d. net; leather, price 2s. net, each.
THE STRAND DISTRICT.
By Sir WALTER BESANT and G. E. MITTON.
WESTMINSTER.
By Sir WALTER BESANT and G. E. MITTON.
HAMPSTEAD AND MARYLEBONE.
By G. E. MITTON. Edited by Sir WALTER BESANT.
CHELSEA.
By G. E. MITTON. Edited by Sir WALTER BESANT.
KENSINGTON.
By G. E. MITTON. Edited by Sir WALTER BESANT.
HOLBORN AND BLOOMSBURY.
By Sir WALTER BESANT and G. E. MITTON.
[Illustration: STAPLE INN, HOLBORN BARS]
The Fascination of London
HOLBORN AND
BLOOMSBURY
BY
SIR WALTER BESANT
AND
G. E. MITTON
LONDON
ADAM & CHARLES BLACK
1903
PREFATORY NOTE
A survey of London, a record of the greatest of all cities, that should
preserve her history, her historical and literary associations, her
mighty buildings, past and present, a book that should comprise all that
Londoners love, all that they ought to know of their heritage from the
past--this was the work on which Sir Walter Besant was engaged when he
died.
As he himself said of it: "This work fascinates me more than anything
else I've ever done. Nothing at all like it has ever been attempted
before. I've been walking about London for the last thirty years, and I
find something fresh in it every day."
Sir Walter's idea was that two of the volumes of his survey should
contain a regular and systematic perambulation of London by different
persons, so that the history of each parish should be complete in
itself. This was a very original feature in the great scheme, and one in
which he took the keenest interest. Enough has been done of this
section to warrant its issue in the form originally intended, but in the
meantime it is proposed to select some of the most interesting of the
districts and publish them as a series of booklets, attractive alike to
the local inhabitant and the student of London, because much of the
interest and the history of London lie in these street associations.
The difficulty of finding a general title for the series was very great,
for the title desired was one that would express concisely the undying
charm of London--that is to say, the continuity of her past history with
the present times. In streets and stones, in names and palaces, her
history is written for those who can read it, and the object of the
series is to bring forward these associations, and to make them plain.
The solution of the difficulty was found in the words of the man who
loved London and planned the great scheme. The work "fascinated" him,
and it was because of these associations that it did so. These links
between past and present in themselves largely constitute The
Fascination of London.
G. E. M.
HOLBORN AND BLOOMSBURY
The district to be treated in this volume includes a good many
parishes--namely, St. Giles-in-the-Fields; St. George, Bloomsbury; St.
George the Martyr; St Andrew, Holborn; Hatton Garden, Saffron Hill;
besides the two famous Inns of Court, Lincoln's and Gray's, and the
remaining buildings of several Inns of Chancery, now diverted from their
former uses. Nearly all the district is included in the new Metropolitan
Borough of Holborn, which itself differs but little from the
Parliamentary borough known as the Holborn Division of Finsbury. Part of
St. Andrew's parish lies outside both of these, and is within the
Liberties of the City. The transition from Holborn borough to the City
will be noted in crossing the boundary. As it is proposed to mention the
parishes in passing through them, but not to describe their exact
limitations in the body of the book, the boundaries of the parishes are
given concisely for reference on p. 100.
Kingsway, the new street from the Strand to Holborn, cuts through the
selected district. It begins in a crescent, with one end near St.
Clement's Church, and the other near Wellington Street. From the site of
the Olympic Theatre it runs north, crossing High Holborn at Little Queen
Street, and continuing northward through Southampton Row. A skeleton
outline of its course is given on p. 28. This street runs roughly north
and south throughout the district selected, and dividing it east and
west is the great highway, which begins as New Oxford Street, becomes
High Holborn, and continues as Holborn and Holborn Viaduct.
The tradition that Holborn is so named after a brook--the Old
Bourne--which rose on the hill, and flowed in an easterly direction into
the Fleet River, cannot be sustained by any evidence or any indications
of the bed of a former stream. Stow speaks positively as to the
existence of this stream, which, he says, had in his time long been
stopped up. Now, the old streams of London have left traces either in
the lanes which once formed their bed, as Marylebone Lane and Gardener's
Lane, Westminster, or their courses, having been accurately known, have
been handed on from one generation to another. We may therefore dismiss
the supposed stream of the "Old Bourne" as not proven. On the other
hand, there have been found many springs and wells in various parts of
Holborn, as under Furnival's Inn, which may have seemed to Stow proof
enough of the tradition. The name of Holborn is probably derived from
the bourne or brook in the "Hollow"--_i.e._, the Fleet River, across
which this great roadway ran. The way is marked in Aggas's map of the
sixteenth century as a country road between fields, though, strangely
enough, it is recorded that it was paved in 1417, a very ancient date.
Malcolm in 1803 calls it "an irregular long street, narrow and
inconvenient, at the north end of Fleet Market, but winding from Shoe
Lane up the hill westward."
Holborn Bars stood a little to the west of Brooke Street, and close by
was Middle Row, an island of houses opposite the end of Gray's Inn Road,
which formed a great impediment to the traffic. The Bars were the
entrance to the City, and here a toll of a penny or twopence was exacted
from non-freemen who entered the City with carts or coaches.
The George and Blue Boar stood on the south side of Holborn, opposite
Red Lion Street, and it is said that it was here that Charles I.'s
letter disclosing his intention to destroy Cromwell and Ireton was
intercepted by the latter; but this is very doubtful.
On Holborn Hill was the Black Swan Inn, which has been described as one
of the most ancient and magnificent places for the reception of
travellers in London, and which Dr. Stukeley, with fervent imagination,
declared dated from the Conquest. Another ancient inn in Holborn was
called the Rose. It was from here that the poet Taylor started to join
Charles I. in the Isle of Wight, of which journey he says,
"We took one coach, two coachmen, and four horses,
And merrily from London made our courses;
We wheeled the top of the heavy hill called Holborn,
Up which hath been full many a sinful soul borne,"
which is quoted merely to show that there is a possible rhyme to
Holborn.
Pennant says also there was a hospital for the poor in Holborn, and a
cell of the House of Clugny in France, but does not indicate their
whereabouts. Before the building of the Viaduct in 1869 (see p. 54),
there was a steep and toilsome descent up and down the valley of the
Fleet. This was sometimes called "the Heavy Hill," as in the verse
already quoted, and in consequence of the melancholy processions which
frequently passed from Newgate bound Tyburn-wards, "riding in a cart up
the Heavy Hill" became a euphemism for being hanged. From Farringdon
Street to Fetter Lane was Holborn Hill, and Holborn proper extended from
Fetter Lane to Brooke Street.
In James II.'s reign Oates and Dangerfield suffered the punishment of
being whipped at the cart's tail all the way along Holborn.
There were Bridewell Bridge, Fleet Bridge, Fleet Lane Bridge, and
Holborn Bridge across the Fleet River. Holborn Bridge was the most
northerly of the four. It was a bridge of stone, serving for passengers
from the west to the City by way of Newgate. The whole thoroughfare of
Oxford Street and Holborn is the result of the diversion of the north
highway into the City from the route by Westminster Marshes.
The antiquities of Holborn and its streets north and south are not
connected with the trade or with the municipal history of London. On the
other hand, the associations of this group of streets are full of
interest. If we take the south side of the street, we find ourselves
walking past Shoe Lane, St. Andrew's Church, Thavies' Inn, Fetter Lane,
Staple Inn, Barnard's Inn, Chancery Lane, Great and Little Turnstiles,
Little Queen Street, Drury Lane, and St. Giles's. On the north side we
pass Field Lane, Ely Place, Hatton Garden, Brooke Street, Furnival's
Inn, Gray's Inn, Red Lion Street, and Tottenham Court Road. All these
will be found described in detail further on. Of eminent residents in
Holborn itself, Cunningham mentions Gerarde, the author of the "Herbal";
Sir Kenelm Digby; Milton, who lived for a time in one of the houses on
the south side, looking upon Lincoln's Inn Fields; and Dr. Johnson, who
lived at the sign of the Golden Anchor, Holborn Bars. There were also
the Bishops of Ely, Sir Christopher Hatton, Francis Bacon, Sir Thomas
More, Charles Dickens, Fulke Greville, Thomas Chatterton, Lord Russell,
Dr. Sacheverell, and many others.
It is necessary now, however, to leave off generalization, and to begin
with a detailed account of the parishes which fall within the district;
of these, St. Giles-in-the-Fields is the most interesting.
ST. GILES-IN-THE-FIELDS.
The name of the parish is derived from the hospital which stood on the
site of the present parish church, and was dedicated to the Greek saint
St. Giles. It was at first known as St. Giles of the Lepers, but when
the hospital was demolished became St. Giles-in-the-Fields.
In a plan dated 1600 St. Giles's is shown to consist largely of open
fields. The buildings, which before the dissolution had belonged to the
hospital, form a group about the site of the church. A few more
buildings run along the north side of the present Broad Street. There
are one or two at the north end of Drury Lane, and Drury House is at
the south end. Southampton House, in the fields to the north, is marked,
but the parish is otherwise open ground. In spite of many edicts to
restrain the increase of houses, early in the reign of James I. the
meadows began to be built upon, and, though a little checked during the
Commonwealth, after the Restoration the building proceeded rapidly,
stimulated by the new square at Lincoln's Inn Fields then being carried
out by Inigo Jones. To St. Giles's may be attributed the distinction of
having originated the Great Plague, which broke out in an alley at the
north end of Drury Lane. Several times before this there had been
smaller outbreaks, which had resulted in the building of a pest-house.
Even after this check the parish continued to increase rapidly, and by
the early part of the last century was a byword for all that was squalid
and filthy. Its rookeries and slums are thus described in a newspaper
cutting of 1845: "All around are poverty and wretchedness; the streets
and alleys are rank with the filth of half a century; the windows are
half of them broken, or patched with rags and paper, and when whole are
begrimed with dirt and smoke; little brokers' shops abound, filled with
lumber, the odour of which taints even that tainted atmosphere; the
pavement and carriage-way swarm with pigs, poultry, and ragged
children.... But in the space called the Dials itself the scene is far
different. There at least rise splendid buildings with stuccoed fronts
and richly-ornamented balustrades.... These are the gin-palaces."
Naturally, among so much poverty gin-palaces and public-houses abounded.
It is curious to note how many of Hogarth's pictures of misery and vice
were drawn from St. Giles's. "Noon" has St. Giles's Church in the
background, while his "Gin Lane" shows the neighbouring church of St.
George, Bloomsbury; the scene of his "Harlot's Progress" is Drury Lane,
and the idle apprentice is caught when wanted for murder in a cellar in
St. Giles's.
The gallows were in this parish from about 1413 until they were removed
to Tyburn, and then the terrible Tyburn procession passed through St.
Giles's, and halted at the great gate of the hospital, and later at the
public-house called The Bowl, described more fully hereafter. From very
early times St. Giles's was notorious for its taverns. The Croche Hose
(Crossed Stockings), another tavern, was situated at the corner of the
marshlands, and in Edward I.'s reign belonged to the cook of the
hospital; the crossed stockings, red and white, were adopted as the sign
of the hosiers. Besides these, there were numerous other taverns dating
from many years back, including the Swan on the Hop, Holborn; White
Hart, north-east of Drury Lane; the Rose, already mentioned. In the
parish also were various houses of entertainment, of which the most
notorious was the Hare and Hounds, formerly Beggar in the Bush, which
was kept by one Joe Banks in 1844, and was the resort of all classes.
This was in Buckridge Street, over which New Oxford Street now runs. In
the last sixty years the face of the parish has been greatly changed.
The first demolition of a rookery of vice and squalor took place in
1840, when New Oxford Street was driven through Slumland. Dyott (once
George) Street, Church Lane, Buckridge and Bainbridge, Charlotte and
Plumtree, were among the most notorious streets thus wholly or partially
removed.
In 1844 many wretched houses were demolished, and in 1855 Shaftesbury
Avenue drove another wedge into the slums to let in light and air. There
are poor and wretched courts in St. Giles's yet, but civilization is
making its softening influence felt even here, and though cases of
Hooliganism in broad daylight still occur, they are less and less
frequent.
So much for a brief history of the parish. Its soil was from very early
times damp and marshy. To the south of the hospital was a stretch of
ground called Marshlands, probably at one time a pond. Great ditches and
fosses cut up the ground. The most important of these was Blemund's
Ditch, which divided the parish from that of Bloomsbury. This is
supposed to have been an ancient line of fortification. Besides this, a
ditch traversed the marshlands above mentioned, another encompassed the
croft lying by the north gate of the hospital, and there were several
others of less importance.
The Hospital of St. Giles was the earliest foundation of its kind in
London, if we except St. James's Hospital. Stow sums it up thus: "St.
Giles-in-the-Fields was an hospital for leprous people out of the City
of London and shire of Middlesex, founded by Matilde the Queen, wife to
Henry I., and suppressed by King Henry VIII." The date of foundation is
given by Leland and Malcolm as 1101, though Stow and others give 1117,
which was the year before the foundress died. Before this time this part
of London had apparently been included in the great estate of Rugmere,
which belonged to St. Paul's.
Matilda gave the ground, and endowed the hospital with the magnificent
sum of £3 per annum! Her foundation provided for forty lepers, one
chaplain, one clerk, and one servant. Henry II. confirmed all privileges
and gifts which had accrued to the hospital, and added to them himself.
Parton says, "His liberality ranks him as a second founder." During
succeeding reigns the hospital grew in wealth and importance. In Henry
III.'s reign Pope Alexander issued a confirmatory Bull, but the charity
had become a refuge for decayed hangers-on at Court who were not
lepers. This abuse was prohibited by the King's decree. In Edward III.'s
reign the first downward step was taken, for he made the hospital a cell
to Burton St. Lazar. The brethren apparently rebelled, refusing to admit
the visitation of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and destroying many
valuable documents and records belonging to the hospital. Two centuries
later King Henry VIII. desired the lands and possessions of St. Giles's,
and with him to desire was to acquire.
The hospital was thus shorn of the greater part of its wealth, retaining
only the church (not the manor) at Feltham (one of its earliest gifts),
the hospital estates at Edmonton, in the City of London, and in the
various parishes in the suburbs; and in St. Giles's parish the actual
ground it stood on, the Pittance Croft, and a few minor places. But even
this remnant came into the possession of the rapacious King two years
later, at the dissolution of the monasteries, when Burton St. Lazar
itself fell into the tyrant's hands. Henry held these for six years,
then granted both to John Dudley, Viscount Lisle, Lord High Admiral.
From the time of the dissolution the hospital became a manor.
In the earliest charters the head of the hospital is styled Chaplain,
but not Master. The first Master mentioned is in 1212, and after this
the title was regularly used. The government was vested in the Master
or Warden and other officers, together with a certain number of sound
brethren and sisters--and in certain cases lepers themselves--who formed
a chapter. "They assembled in chapter, had a common seal, held courts as
lords of the manor."[1] There were also guardians or custodians, who did
not reside in the precincts of the hospital, and these seem to have been
chosen from the most eminent citizens; they formed no part of the
original scheme.
[1] "Some Account of the Hospital and Parish of St. Giles-in-the-Fields,"
1822, by John Parton.
[Illustration: SEAL OF ST. GILES'S HOSPITAL.]
The sisters appear to have been nurses, for there is no mention made of
any leprous sister. The chapel of the hospital appears from King Henry
II.'s charter to have been built on the site of some older parochial
church. The Bull of Pope Alexander mentions that the hospital wall
enclosed eight acres. Within this triangular space, which is at present
roughly bounded by the High Street, Charing Cross Road, and Shaftesbury
Avenue, was one central building or mansion for the lepers, several
subordinate buildings, the chapel, and the gate-house. Whether the
number of lepers was reduced when the hospital possessions were
curtailed we are not told. After the hospital buildings fell into the
hands of Lord Dudley they underwent many changes. The principal building
he converted into a mansion for his own use; this was the manor-house.
It stood between the present Denmark Street and Lloyd's Court, and its
site is occupied by a manufactory. After two years Lord Dudley obtained
from the King license to transfer all his newly-gained estates to Sir
Wymonde Carew, but there seems reason to suppose that Lord Dudley
remained in possession of the manor-house until his attainder in the
reign of Queen Mary, because the manor then reverted to the Crown, and
was regranted. Clinch gets out of this difficulty by supposing Lord
Dudley to have parted with his estates and retained the manor, but in
the deed of license for exchange all his "mansion place and capital
house, late the house of the dissolved hospital of St. Giles in the
Fields," is especially mentioned. It is possible that Sir Wymonde leased
it again to the Dudley family.
Among the many subsequent holders of the manor we find the name of Sir
Walter Cope, who bought the Manor of Kensington in 1612, and through
whose only child, Isabel, it passed by marriage to Sir Henry Rich,
created Earl of Holland. The Manor of St. Giles was in the possession of
the Crown again in Charles II.'s reign, when Alice Leigh, created by him
Duchess of Dudley, lived in the manor-house. This Duchess made many
gifts to the church, among which was a rectory-house.
The Church of St. Giles at present standing is certainly the third, if
not the fourth, which has been upon the same site. As mentioned above,
there is reason to believe from Henry II.'s charter that a sacred
building of some sort stood here before the leper chapel. The chapel had
a chapter-house attached, and seems to have been a well-cared-for
building. There were several chantry chapels and a high altar dedicated
to St. Giles. St. Giles's in the earlier charters is spoken of as a
village, not a parish, but there is little doubt that after the
establishment of the hospital its chapel was used as a parish church by
the villagers. There was probably a wall screening off the lepers. The
first church of which any illustration is preserved has a curious
tower, capped by a round dome. The view of this church, dated 1560, is
taken after the dissolution of the hospital, when it had become entirely
parochial. In 1617 the quaint old tower was taken down, and replaced by
another, but only six years after the whole church was rebuilt. A view
of this in 1718 gives a very long battlemented body in two stories, with
a square tower surmounted by an open belfry and vane. It possessed
remarkably fine stained-glass windows and a handsome screen presented by
the Duchess of Dudley.
This second church did not last very long, for in Queen Anne's reign the
parishioners petitioned that it should be rebuilt as one of the fifty
new churches, being then in a state of decay. The present church, which
is very solid, and has dignity of outline, was the work of Flitcroft,
and was opened April 14, 1734. The steeple is 160 feet high, with a
rustic pedestal, a Doric story, an octagonal tower, and spire. The
basement is of rusticated Portland stone, of which the church is built,
and quoins of the same material decorate the windows and angles within.
It follows the lines of the period, with hardly any chancel, wide
galleries on three sides standing on piers, from which columns rise to
the elliptical ceiling. The part of the roof over the galleries is
bayed at right angles to the curve of the central part. Monuments hang
on the walls and columns, and occupy every available space. By far the
most striking of these is the full-length figure of a woman in repose
which is set on a broad window-seat. This is the monument of Lady
Frances Kniveton, daughter of Alice Leigh, Duchess of Dudley. The
daughter's tomb remains a memorial of her mother's benefactions to the
parish. The monument of Andrew Marvell, a plain black marble slab, is on
the north wall. Marvell was buried in the church "under the pews in the
south side," but the present monument was not erected until 1764,
eighty-six years after his death, owing to the opposition of the
incumbent of the church. The inscription on it slightly varies from that
intended for the original monument. Besides a handsome brass cross on
the chancel floor to the Rector, Canon Nisbett, a tomb in form of a
Roman altar, designed by Inigo Jones, and commemorating George Chapman,
the translator of Homer, and a touching monument in the lobby to "John
Belayse," put up by his two daughters, there is nothing further worth
seeing.
The graveyard which surrounds the church is supposed to have been the
ancient interment-ground of the hospital. The first mention of it in the
parish books is in 1628, when three cottages were pulled down to
increase its size. It was enlarged again in 1666. Part of the old
hospital wall enclosing it remained until 1630, when it fell down, and
after the lapse of some time a new wall was built. In St. Giles's
Churchyard were buried Lord Herbert of Cherbury, Shirley, Roger
L'Estrange, Andrew Marvell, and Richard Pendrell, who assisted in
Charles II.'s escape; his altar-tomb is easily seen near the east end of
the church. By 1718 the graveyard had risen 8 feet, so that the church
stood in a pit or well. The further burial-ground at St. Pancras was
taken in 1805, and after that burials at St. Giles's were not very
frequent. Pennant was one of the first to draw attention to the
disgraceful overcrowding of the old graveyard. There seem to have been
several gates into the churchyard with the right of private entry, one
of which was used by the Duchess of Dudley. The most remarkable gate,
however, was at the principal entrance to the churchyard, and was known
as the Resurrection Gate, from an alto-relievo of the Last Day. This was
erected about 1687, and was of red and brown brick. The composition of
the relievo is said to have been borrowed, with alterations, from
Michael Angelo's work on the same subject. In 1765 the north wall of the
churchyard was taken down, and replaced by the present railing and
coping. In 1800 the gate was removed, and replaced by the present
Tuscan gate, in which the sculpture has been refixed. This stood at
first on the site of the old one on the north of the churchyard, but was
removed to the west side, where it at present stands in an unnoticeable
and obscure position. It was probably placed there in the idea that the
new road, Charing Cross Road, would run past.
Denmark Street "fronts St. Giles Church and falls into Hog Lane, a fair
broad street, with good houses well inhabited by gentry" (Strype).
This description is no longer applicable. Denmark Place was once Dudley
Court, and the house here with a garden was given by the Duchess of
Dudley as a rectory for the parish. The Court or Row was built on the
site of the house previous to 1722.
Broad Street is one of the most ancient streets in the parish, and there
were a few houses standing on the north side when the rest of the
district was open ground. It was the main route westward for many
centuries, until New Oxford Street was made.
The procession from Newgate to Tyburn used to pass along Broad Street,
and halt at the great gate of the hospital, in order that the condemned
man might take his last draught of ale on earth. An enterprising
publican set up a tavern near here in 1623, and called it the Bowl. He
provided the ale free, and no doubt made much profit by the patronage
he received thereby. The exact site of the tavern was in Bowl Yard,
which ran into Broad Street near where Endell Street now is. Among
Cruikshank's well-known drawings is a series illustrating Jack
Sheppard's progress to the gallows.
The parish almshouses were built in the wide part of Broad Street on
ground granted by Lord Southampton, but were removed as an impediment to
traffic in 1783 to the Coal Yard, near the north of Drury Lane. A row of
little alleys--Salutation, Lamb's, Crown, and Cock--formerly extended
southward over the present workhouse site. There are still one or two
small entries both north and south. The immense yard of a well-known
brewery fills up a large part of the south side, and a large iron and
hardware manufactory on the north gives a certain manufacturing aspect
to the street. The Holborn Municipal Baths are in a fine new building on
the south side.
About High Street, which joins Broad Street at its west end, there is
surely less to say than of any other High Street in London. In 1413 the
gallows were set up at the corner where it meets Tottenham Court Road.
But even previously to this executions had taken place at Tyburn, and
soon Tyburn became the recognised place of execution. Sir John
Oldcastle, Lord Cobham, is the most notable name among the victims who
suffered at St. Giles. He was hung in chains and roasted to death over a
slow fire at this spot as a Lollard.
After they had been removed from the end of Broad Street, to make way
for the almshouses, the parish pound and cage stood on the site of the
gallows until 1765. There was here also a large circular stone, where
the charity boys were whipped to make them remember the parish bounds.
The space to the north of the High and Broad Streets was previously a
notorious rookery. Dyott Street, which still exists, though cut in half,
had a most unenviable reputation. The Maidenhead Inn, which stood at the
south-east corner of this, was a favourite resort for mealmen and
country waggoners. There was in this street also a tavern called the
Turk's Head, where Haggart Hoggarty planned the murder of Mr. Steele on
Hounslow Heath in 1802. Walford mentions also Rat's Castle, a rendezvous
for all the riff-raff of the neighbourhood. Dyott Street was named after
an influential parishioner of Charles II.'s time, who had a house here.
It was later called George Street, but has reverted to the original
name.
South of Great Russell Street there were formerly Bannister's Alley and
Eagle and Child Yard running northwards. From the former of these
continued Church Lane, to which Maynard Lane ran parallel. Bainbridge,
Buckridge, and Church Streets ran east and westward. Of these Bainbridge
remains, a long, narrow alley bounded by the brewery wall. Mayhew says
that here "were found some of the most intricate and dangerous places in
this low locality."
The part of the parish lying to the north, including Bedford Square,
must be for the present left (see p. 98), while we turn southwards.
New Compton Street is within the former precincts of the hospital. When
first made it was called Stiddolph Street, after Sir Richard Stiddolph,
and the later name was taken from that of Sir Frances Compton. Strype
says, "All this part was very meanly built ... and greatly inhabited by
French, and of the poorer sort," a character it retains to this day.
Shaftesbury Avenue, opened in 1885, has obliterated Monmouth Street,
named after the Duke of Monmouth, whose house was in Soho Square (see
_The Strand_, this series). Monmouth Street was notorious for its
old-clothes shops, and is the subject of one of the "Sketches by Boz."
Further back still it was called Le Lane, and is under that name
mentioned among the hospital possessions.
The north end of Shaftesbury Avenue is in the adjoining parish of St.
George's, Bloomsbury, but must for sequence' sake be described here. A
French Protestant chapel, consecrated 1845, which is the lineal
descendant of the French Church of the Savoy, stands on the west side.
Near at hand is a French girls' school. Further north is a Baptist
chapel, with two noticeable pointed towers and a central wheel window.
Bedford Chapel formerly stood on the north side of this. In the lower
half of the Avenue there are several buildings of interest. The first of
these, on the east side, is for the medical and surgical relief of all
foreigners who speak French. Below this is a chapel belonging to the
Baptists, and further southward a working lads' home, established in
1843, for homeless lads at work in London. In connection with it are
various homes in the country, both for boys and girls, and two training
ships, the _Arethusa_ and _Chichester_.
All the ground to the south of Shaftesbury Avenue was anciently, if not
actually a pond, at all events very marshy ground, and was called
Meershelands, or Marshlands. It was subsequently known as Cock and Pye
Fields, from the Cock and Pye public-house, which is supposed to have
been situated at the spot where Little St. Andrew Street, West Street,
and Castle Street now meet. The date at which this name first appeared
is uncertain; it is met with in the parish books after 1666. In the
reign of William III. a Mr. Neale took the ground, and transformed the
great ditch which crossed it into a sewer, preparatory to the building
of Seven Dials. The name of this notorious place has been connected with
degradation and misery, but at first it was considered rather an
architectural wonder. Evelyn, in his diary, October 5, 1694, says: "I
went to see the building beginning near St. Giles, where seven streets
make a star from a Doric pillar placed in the middle of a circular area,
said to be built by Mr. Neale." Gay also refers to the central column in
his "Trivia." The column had really only six dial faces, two streets
converging toward one. In the open space on which it stood was a
pillory, and the culprits who stood here were often most brutally
stoned. One John Waller, charged with perjury, was killed in this manner
in 1732.
In 1773 the column was taken down in a search for imaginary treasure. It
was set up again in 1822 on Weybridge Green as a memorial to the Duchess
of York, who died 1820. The dial was not replaced, and was used as a
stepping-stone at the Ship Inn at Weybridge; it still lies on one side
of the Green. The streets of Seven Dials attained a very unenviable
reputation, and were the haunt of all that was vicious and bad. Terrible
accounts of the overcrowding and consequent immorality come down to us
from the newspaper echoes of the earlier part of the nineteenth
century. The opening up of the new thoroughfares of New Oxford Street,
Shaftesbury Avenue, and Charing Cross Road, have done much, but the
neighbourhood is still a slum. The seven streets remain in their
starlike shape, by name Great and Little White Lion Street, Great and
Little St. Andrew Street, Great and Little Earl Street, and Queen
Street.
Short's Gardens was in 1623 really a garden, and a little later than
that date was acquired by a man named Dudley Short.
Betterton Street was until comparatively recently called Brownlow, from
Sir John Brownlow of Belton, who had a house here in Charles II.'s time.
The street is now, to use a favourite expression of Stow's, "better
built than inhabited," for the row of brick houses of no very squalid
type are inhabited by the very poor.
Endell Street was built in 1844, at the time of the erection of the
workhouse. In it are the National Schools, a Protestant Swiss chapel,
and an entrance to the public baths and wash-houses, to the south of
which rise the towers of the workhouse. Christ Church is hemmed in by
the workhouse, having an outlet only on the street. The church was
consecrated in 1845. In Short's Gardens is the Lying-in Hospital, the
oldest institution of the kind in England. On the west side, between
Castle Street and Short's Gardens, the remains of an ancient bath were
discovered at what was once No. 3, Belton Street, now 23 and 25, Endell
Street. Tradition wildly asserts that this was used by Queen Anne.
Fragments of it still remain in the room used for iron lumber, for the
premises are in the occupation of an iron merchant, but the water has
long since ceased to flow.
Drury Lane has been in great part described in _The Strand_, which see,
p. 97. The Coal Yard at the north-east end, where Nell Gwynne was born,
is now Goldsmith Street. Pit Place, on the west of Great Wild Street,
derives its name from the cockpit or theatre, the original of the Drury
Lane Theatre, which stood here. The cockpit was built previous to 1617,
for in that year an incensed mob destroyed it, and tore all the dresses.
It was afterwards known as the Phoenix Theatre. At one time it seems
to have been used as a school, though this may very well have been at
the same time as it fulfilled its legitimate functions. Betterton and
Kynaston both made their first public appearance here. The actual date
of the theatre's demolition is not known. Parton judges it to have been
at the time of the building of Wild, then Weld, Street. Its performances
are described, 1642, as having degenerated into an inferior kind, and
having been attended by inferior audiences.
At the north-east end of Drury Lane is the site of the ancient hostelry,
the White Hart. Here also was a stone cross, known as Aldewych Cross,
for the lane was anciently the Via de Aldewych, and is one of the oldest
roads in the parish; Saxon Ald = old, and Wych = a village, a name to be
preserved in the new Crescent. It is difficult to understand, looking
down Drury Lane to-day from Holborn, that this most mean and unlovely
street was once a place of aristocratic resort--of gardens, great
houses, and orchards. Here was Craven House, here was Clare House; here
lived the Earl of Stirling, the Marquis of Argyll, and the Earl of
Anglesey. Here lived for a time Nell Gwynne. Pepys says:
"Saw pretty Nelly standing at her lodgings door in Drury Lane in her
smock-sleeves and bodice, looking upon one. She seemed a mighty pretty
creature."
The Lane fell into disrepute early in the eighteenth century. The
"saints of Drury Lane," the "drabs of Drury Lane," the starving poets of
Drury Lane, are freely ridiculed by the poets of that time.
"'Nine years!' cries he, who high in Drury Lane,
Lull'd by soft zephyrs through the broken pane,
Rhymes ere he wakes, and prints before term ends,
Obliged by hunger and request of friends."
The boundary of St. Giles's parish runs down Drury Lane between Long
Acre and Great Queen Street. Of the last of these Strype says: "It is a
street graced with a goodly row of large uniform houses on the south
side, but on the north side is indifferent." The street was begun in the
early years of the seventeenth century, but the building spread over a
long time, so that we find the "goodly row of houses" on the south side
to have been built by Webb, a pupil of Inigo Jones, about 1646. A number
of celebrated people lived in Great Queen Street. The first Lord Herbert
of Cherbury had a house on the south side at the corner of Great Wild
Street; here he died in 1648. Sir Thomas Fairfax, the Parliamentary
General, lived here; also Sir Heneage Finch, created Earl of Nottingham;
Sir Godfrey Kneller, when he moved from Covent Garden; Thomas Worlidge,
the portrait-painter, and afterwards, in the same house, Hoole, the
translator of Dante and Ariosto; Sir Robert Strange, the engraver; John
Opie, the artist; Wolcott, better known as Peter Pindar, who was buried
at St. Paul's, Covent Garden. Sheridan is also said to have lived here,
and it would be conveniently near Drury Lane Theatre, which was under
his management from 1776.
[Illustration: KINGSWAY.]
On the south side of the street are the Freemasons' Hall, built
originally in 1775, and the Freemasons' Tavern, erected subsequently.
Both have been rebuilt, and the hall, having been recently repainted,
looks at the time of writing startlingly new. Near it are two of the
original old houses, all that are left with the pilasters and carved
capitals which are so sure a sign of Inigo Jones's influence.
On the north side of the street is the Novelty Theatre.
Great and Little Wild Streets are called respectively Old and New Weld
Streets by Strype. Weld House stood on the site of the present Wild
Court, and was during the reign of James II. occupied by the Spanish
Embassy. In Great Wild Street Benjamin Franklin worked as a journeyman
printer.
Kemble and Sardinia were formerly Prince's and Duke's Streets. The
latter contains some very old houses, and a chapel used by the Roman
Catholics. This is said to be the oldest foundation now in the hands of
the Roman Catholics in London. It was built in 1648, and was the object
of virulent attack during the Gordon Riots; the exterior is singularly
plain. Sardinia Street communicates with Lincoln's Inn Fields by a heavy
and quaint archway.
Even in Strype's time Little Queen Street was "a place pestered with
coaches," a reputation which, curiously enough, it still retains, the
heavy traffic of the King's Cross omnibuses passing through it. Trinity
Church is in a late decorative style, with ornamental pinnacles, flying
buttresses, and two deeply-recessed porches. Within it is a very plain,
roomlike structure. The church is on the site of a house in which lived
the Lambs, and where Mary Lamb in a fit of insanity murdered her mother.
The Holborn Restaurant forms part of the side of this street; this is a
very gorgeous building, and within is a very palace of modern luxury. It
stands on the site formerly occupied by the Holborn Casino or Dancing
Saloon.
Little Queen Street will be wiped out by the broad new thoroughfare from
the Strand to Holborn to be called Kingsway (see plan).
Gate Street was formerly Little Princes Street. The present name is
derived from the gate or carriage-entrance to Lincoln's Inn Fields.
In Strype's map half of Whetstone Park is called by its present title,
and the western half is Phillips Rents. He mentions it as "once famous
for its infamous and vicious inhabitants."
Great and Little Turnstile were so named from the turning stiles which
in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries stood at their north ends to
prevent the cattle straying from Lincoln's Inn Fields. The Holborn
Music-hall in Little Turnstile was originally a Nonconformist chapel.
After 1840 it served as a hall, lectures, etc., being given by
free-thinkers, and in 1857 was adapted to its present purpose.
LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS.--All the ground on which the present square is
built formed part of Fickett's Field, which was anciently the
jousting-place of the Knights Templars. A curious petition of the reign
of Edward III. shows us that then it was a favourite recreation-ground
or promenade for clerks, apprentices, students, as well as the citizens.
In this petition a complaint is made that one Roger Leget had laid
caltrappes or engines of iron in a trench, to the danger of those who
walked in the fields. Inigo Jones was entrusted by King James I. to form
a square of houses which should be worthy of so fine a situation. Before
this time it appears that there had been one or two irregular buildings.
Inigo Jones conceived the curious idea of giving his square the exact
size of the Great Pyramid of Egypt, and it is accordingly the largest
square in London. But when he had completed the west side only, the
unsettled state of the country hindered further progress, and for many
years the land lay waste, and was unenclosed save by wooden posts and
rails; during this period it was the daily and nightly haunt of all the
beggars, rogues, pickpockets, wrestlers, and vile vagrants in London.
Gay thus speaks of it:
"Where Lincoln's Inn, wide space, is rail'd around,
Cross not with venturous step; there oft is found
The lurking thief, who, while the daylight shone,
Made the walls echo with his begging tone:
That crutch, which late compassion moved, shall wound
Thy bleeding head, and fell thee to the ground.
Though thou art tempted by the linkman's call,
Yet trust him not along the lonely wall;
In the midway he'll quench the flaming brand,
And share the booty with the pilfering band.
Still keep the public streets where oily rays,
Shot from the crystal lamp, o'erspread the ways."
At this time three fields are mentioned as being included in the
square--namely, Purse Field, Fickett's Field, and Cap Field. In 1657 the
inhabitants made an agreement with Lincoln's Inn, to whom some of the
rights of the Templars seem to have descended (Parton), as to the
completion of the square. But even after the two further sides had been
added, the centre seems to have been left in a disorderly and pestilent
state, and it was not until 1735 that the place was properly laid out.
In Strype's map of 1720 the sides are marked Newman's Row North, the
Arch Row West, Portugal Row South, and the wall of Lincoln's Inn
completes the fourth side. Strype speaks of the first two as being of
large houses, generally taken by the nobility and gentry. The historical
event of prominence connected with the centre of the square is the
execution of William, Lord Russell, which took place here in 1683, on
accusation of high treason and complicity in the Rye House Plot. He was
beheaded in Lincoln's Inn Fields, lest the mob should rise and rescue
him were he conveyed to the more public Tower Hill. In spite of his
defiance of lawful authority, Russell's name has always been regarded as
that of a patriot. He and Algernon Sydney are remembered as
single-minded and high-souled men.
Many other executions were held in those fields, notably those of
Babington and his accomplices in 1586, fourteen in all. They were
"hanged, bowelled, and quartered, on a stage or scaffold of timber
strongly made for that purpose, even in the place where they used to
meet and conferre of their traitorous purposes." At present the centre
of the square forms a charming garden, open free to the public, with
fine plane-trees shading grass plots not too severely trimmed, and
flocks of opal-hued pigeons add a touch of bird-life. It is true the
grass is railed in, but the railings are not obtrusive, and do not
interfere with the pleasure of those who sit on the seats or walk under
the trees. Here is assuredly one of the places where we can most feel
the fascination of London as we contrast the present with the past.
On the north side is the Inns of Court Hotel, a massive pile faced with
stone, and with a portico of polished granite columns. This is on the
site of an ancient hostelry in Holborn, the George and Blue Boar, a
famous coaching inn (see p. 3).
The Soane Museum is further westward, and is differentiated from two
similarly built neighbours by a slightly projecting frontage. It was the
former residence of Sir John Soane, who left his collection to the
nation. There are many valuable pictures, as well as curious and
interesting objects. The museum is open free to the public on Tuesday,
Wednesday, Thursday, and Sunday.
On the west side of the square, near Queen Street, stands a very solid
mansion, known first as Powis, then as Newcastle House. The footway in
Great Queen Street runs under an arcade on the north side of this house,
which was built by the first Marquis of Powis, created Duke of Powis by
James II., whom he followed into exile, and bought in 1705 by Holles,
Duke of Newcastle, whose nephew, who led the Pelham Administration under
George II., inherited it. Further south on the same side is Lindsey
House, a large building with pilasters; this was built by Robert Bertie,
Earl of Lindsey, and was later called Ancaster House. It was described
by Hatton as a handsome building, with six spacious brick piers before
it, surmounted by vases and with ironwork between. Only two of these
vases remain. The fleurs-de-lis on the house over the Sardinia Street
entry were put up in compliment to Queen Henrietta Maria, who was the
daughter of Henry IV. of France. The third great house on this side was
Portsmouth House, over Portsmouth Place.
The remainder of the houses have the same general character of stuccoed
and pilastered uniformity, broken here and there by uncovered brick
surfaces or frontages of stone. They are almost uninterruptedly occupied
by solicitors. This is the oldest side of the square, being that built
by Inigo Jones.
At the south corner of the square there is a quaint red-brick,
gable-ended house, with a bit of rusticated woodwork. This is all part
of the same block as the Old Curiosity Shop, supposed to be that
described by Dickens.
On the south side rises the Royal College of Surgeons. The central part
is carried up a story and an entresol higher than the wings, and, like
the wings, is capped by a balustrade. The legend, "Ædes Collegii
Chirurgorum Anglici--Diplomate Regio Corporate A.D. MDCCC," runs across
the frontage. A massive colonnade of six Ionic columns gives solidity to
the basement. The museum of this college has absorbed the site of the
old Duke's Theatre. Its nucleus was John Hunter's collection, purchased
by the college, and first opened in 1813.
This side of the square is outside our present district. (See _The
Strand_, in the same series.)
The origin of the Company of Barber-Surgeons is very ancient, for the
two guilds, Barbers and Surgeons, were incorporated in 1540; but in 1745
they separated, and the Surgeons continued as a body alone. However,
they came to grief in 1790, and the charter establishing the Royal
College of Surgeons of London was granted in 1800; in 1845 the title was
changed to that of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. The present
building, however, dates only from 1835, and is the work of Sir C.
Barry. It has since been enlarged and altered.
With this the ancient parish of St. Giles-in-the-Fields ends, but our
district includes Lincoln's Inn, and beyond it the parish of St. Andrew,
Holborn, into which we pass.
LINCOLN'S INN.
BY W. J. LOFTIE.