and at the time of its building had a magnificent situation, with an
uninterrupted prospect right up to the hills of Hampstead and Highgate,
and the only house then standing was on the east side; it belonged to
the profligate Lord Baltimore, and was later occupied by the Duke of
Bolton. The new Russell Hotel, at the corner of Guilford Street, and
Pitman's School of Shorthand, in the south-eastern corner, are the only
two buildings to note. A bronze statue of Francis, Duke of Bedford,
executed by Westmacott, stands on the south side of the Square; this
faces a similar statue of Fox in Bloomsbury Square.
The Square seems to have been peculiarly attractive to men high up in
the profession of the law. Sir Samuel Romilly, the great law reformer,
lived here until his sad death in 1818; he committed suicide in grief at
the loss of his wife. In the same year his neighbour Charles Abbot,
afterwards first Baron Tenterden, was made Lord Chief Justice. He was
buried at the Foundling Hospital by his own request. In 1793 Alexander
Wedderburn (first Baron Loughborough and first Earl of Rosslyn), also a
resident in the Square, was appointed Lord Chancellor. After this he
probably moved to the official residence in Bedford Square.
Frederick D. Maurice was at No. 5 from 1856 to 1862. Sir Thomas Lawrence
lived for twenty years at No. 65, and while he was executing the
portrait of Platoff, the Russian General, the Cossacks, mounted on small
white horses, stood on guard in the Square before his door.
Bloomsbury Square was at first called Southampton Square, and the sides
were known by different names--Seymour Row, Vernon Street, and Allington
Row. The north side was occupied by Bedford House. It is considerably
older than its large neighbour on the north, and is mentioned by Evelyn
in his Diary, on February 9, 1665. In Queen Anne's reign it was a most
fashionable locality. The houses suffered greatly during the Gordon
Riots, especially Lord Mansfield's house, in the north-east corner,
which was completely ruined internally, and in which a most valuable
library was destroyed, while Lord and Lady Mansfield made their escape
from the mob by a back-door. Pope refers to the Square as a fashionable
place of resort. Among the names of famous residents we have Sir Richard
Steele, Richard Baxter, the Nonconformist divine, Dr. Akenside, and Sir
Hans Sloane. The elder D'Israeli, who compiled "Curiosities of
Literature," lived in No. 6; he came here in 1818, when his famous son
was a boy of fourteen.
The College of Preceptors stands on the south side. The Pharmaceutical
Society, established in 1841, first took a house in the Square in that
year. It was incorporated by royal charter two years later, and in 1857
the two adjacent houses in Great Russell Street were added to the
premises, which include a library and museum. There is also at No. 30
the Institute of Chemistry of Great Britain and Ireland.
In Southampton Street Colley Cibber, the dramatist and actor, was born.
Silver Street, which is connected with Southampton Street by a covered
entry, is described by Strype as "indifferent well built and
inhabited"--a character it apparently keeps up to this day.
Bloomsbury Market Strype describes as "a long place with two
market-houses, the one for flesh and the other for fish, but of small
account by reason the market is of so little use and so ill served with
provisions, insomuch that the inhabitants deal elsewhere." In Parton's
time it was still extant, "exhibiting little of that bustle and business
which distinguishes similar establishments." Though it was cleared away
in 1847, its site is marked by Market Street, which with Silver and
Bloomsbury Streets forms a cross.
Southampton Row is a very long street, extending from Russell Square to
High Holborn. It includes what was formerly King Street and Upper King
Street, which together reached from High Holborn to Bloomsbury Place.
Gray, the poet, lodged in this Row in 1759.
The Church of St. George is in Hart Street. St. George's parish was
formed from St. Giles's on account of the great increase of buildings in
this district. In 1710 the proposal for a new church was first mooted,
and in 1724 the parishes were officially separated. The church stands on
a piece of ground formerly known as Plough Yard. It is the work of
Hawkesmoor, Wren's pupil, and was consecrated in 1730. It cannot be
better described than in the words of Noorthouck: "This is an irregular
and oddly constructed church; the portico stands on the south side, of
the Corinthian order, and makes a good figure in the street, but has no
affinity to the church, which is very heavy, and would be better suited
with a Tuscan portico. The steeple at the west is a very extraordinary
structure; on a round pedestal at the top of a pyramid is placed a
colossal statue of the late King [George I.], and at the corners near
the base are alternately placed the lion and unicorn, the British
supporters, with festoons between. These animals, being very large, are
injudiciously placed over columns very small, which make them appear
monsters." The lions and unicorns have now been removed. This steeple
has been described by Horace Walpole as a masterpiece of absurdity.
Within, the walls rise right up to the roof with no break, and give an
impression of great spaciousness. There is a small chapel on either
side, that on the east, of an apselike shape, being used as a
baptistery. The western one contains a ponderous monument erected in
memory of one of their officials by the East India Company. There are
other monuments in the church, but none of any general interest. The
Communion-table is enclosed by a wooden canopy with fluted columns,
said to be of Italian origin, and to have been brought from old Montague
House.
In Little Russell Street are the parochial schools. These were
established in 1705 in Museum Street, and were removed in 1880 to the
present building. They were founded by Dr. Carter for the maintenance,
clothing, and education of twenty-five girls, and the clothing and
education of eighty boys. The intentions of the founder are still
carried out, as recorded on a stone slab on the front of the building,
which is a neat brick edifice, with a group of a woman and child in
stone in a niche high up, and an appropriate verse from Proverbs below.
Allusion has already been made to New Oxford Street. It extends from
Tottenham Court Road to Bury Street, and is lined by fine shops and
large buildings, chiefly in the ornamental stuccoed style. The Royal
Arcade--"a glass-roofed arcade of shops extending along the rear of four
or five of the houses, and having an entrance from the street at each
end"--was opened about 1852, but did not answer the expectations formed
of it, and was pulled down (Walford).
At the corner of Museum Street, once Peter Street, is Mudie's famous
library. The founder, who died in 1890, began a lending library in King
Street in 1840, and in 1852 removed to the present quarters. In 1864 the
concern was turned into a limited liability company. The distribution
of books now reaches almost incredible figures.
Great Russell Street Strype describes as being very handsome and very
well inhabited. Thanet House, the town residence of the Thanets in the
seventeenth century, stood on the north side. Sir Christopher Wren built
a house for himself in this street. Among the inhabitants and lodgers
have been Shelley and Hazlitt, J. P. Kemble, Speaker Onslow, Pugin the
elder, Charles Mathews the elder, and, in later years, Sir E.
Burne-Jones.
At the west end Great Russell Street runs into Tottenham Court Road, a
portion of which lies in the parish of St. Giles. Toten Hall itself,
from which the name is taken, stood at the south end of the Hampstead
Road, and an account of it belongs to the parish of St. Pancras. There
is little to remark upon in that part of the Road we can now claim. At
the south end is Meux's well-known brewery, bought by the family of that
name in 1809. In 1814 an immense vat burst here, which flooded the
immediate neighbourhood in a deluge of liquor. The Horseshoe Hotel can
claim fairly ancient descent; it has been in existence as a tavern from
1623. It was called the Horseshoe from the shape of its first
dining-room. A Consumption Hospital stands midway between North and
South Crescent.
Bedford Square also falls within St. Giles's parish, but it belongs by
character and date to Bloomsbury. The Square was erected about the very
end of the eighteenth century. Dobie says that "Bedford Square arose
from a cow-yard to its present magnificent form ... with its avenues and
neighbouring streets ... chiefly erected since 1778," while it appears
in a map of 1799 as "St. Giles's Runs." The official residence of the
Lord Chancellor was on the east side. Lord Loughborough lived there, and
subsequently Lord Eldon, who had to escape with his wife into the
British Museum gardens when the mob made an attack on his house during
the Corn Law riots.
The streets running north and south are all of the same prosperous,
substantial character. About Chenies Street large modern red-brick
mansions have arisen.
Woburn Square is a quiet place, with fine trees growing in its pleasant
garden. In it is Christ Church, the work of Vulliamy, date 1833. It is
of Gothic architecture, and is prettily finished with buttresses and
pinnacles, in spite of the ugly material used--namely, white brick. It
was at first designed to call the Square Rothesay Square, but it was
eventually named Woburn, after the seat of the Duke of Bedford.
Great Coram Street was, of course, named after the genial founder of the
Foundling Hospital. In it is the Russell Institution, built at the
beginning of the century as an assembly-room, and later used as
institute and club. It was frequently visited by Dickens, Leech, and
Thackeray, the last named of whom came here in 1837, and remained until
1843, when the house had to be given up owing to the incurable nature of
his wife's mental malady. He wrote here many papers and articles,
including the famous "Yellow-plush Papers," which appeared in _Fraser's
Magazine_; but his novels belong to a later period.
We have now wandered over a district rich in association, containing
some of the oldest domestic architecture existing in London, but which,
taken as a whole, is chiefly of a date belonging to the late seventeenth
and early eighteenth centuries--a date when ladies wore powder and
patches, when sedan-chairs were more common than hackney cabs, and when
the voice of the link-boy was heard in the streets.
BOUNDARIES OF THE ECCLESIASTICAL PARISHES.
ST. GILES-IN-THE-FIELDS.
This parish is bounded on the south by Castle Street; east by part of
Drury Lane, Broad Street, and Dyott Street, thence by a line cutting
diagonally across the south-east corner of Bedford Square, across Keppel
Street and Torrington Mews, and touching Byng Place at the north-west
corner of Torrington Square; on the north by a line cutting across from
this point westward, and striking Tottenham Court Road just above Alfred
Mews; on the westward by Tottenham Court Road and Charing Cross Road to
Cambridge Circus, thence by West Street to the corner of Castle Street,
and so the circuit is complete.
ST. GEORGE THE MARTYR.
Bounded on the south by Theobald's Road, on the east by Lamb's Conduit
Street (both included in the parish), on the north by Guilford Street,
and on the west by Southampton Row (which are not so included).
ST. ANDREW, HOLBORN.
Bounded on the east by Farringdon Street from Charterhouse Street to No.
66, which is just beyond Farringdon Avenue; on the north by Holborn and
High Holborn from the Viaduct Bridge to Brownlow Street; on the west by
a line drawn from the upper end of Brownlow Street across High Holborn,
cutting through No. 292, and through part of Lincoln's Inn (taking in
Stone Buildings, and as far as a few yards south of Henry VIII.'s
gateway); on the south by a line from Lincoln's Inn across Chancery
Lane, along Cursitor Street, cutting across Fetter Lane, down Dean
Street to Robin Hood Court, across Shoe Lane to Farringdon Street.
ST. GEORGE, BLOOMSBURY.
Bounded on the south by Broad Street and High Holborn to Kingsgate
Street; on the east by Kingsgate Street, and a line behind the east side
of Southampton Row (including it), coming out at No. 54, Guilford
Street; on the north by a line across the north side of Russell Square
and along Keppel Street; on the west from thence by a diagonal line,
which cuts off the south-east corner of Bedford Square to Dyott Street,
and so to Broad Street.
HATTON GARDEN, SAFFRON HILL.
Bounded on the west by Leather Lane; on the south by Holborn and
Charterhouse Street to Farringdon Road; on the east by Farringdon Road;
and on the north by Back Hill.
INDEX
Abernethy, 78
Akenside, Dr., 93
Aldewych, 26
Alexandra Hospital, 83
Ancaster House, 34
Arundel, Bishop, 60
Babington, 33
Bacon, Francis, 6
Bacon, Roger, 75, 76
Bainbridge Street, 21
Bangor Court, 59
Barnard's Inn, 49
Baxter, Richard, 51, 93
Bedford Row, 78
Bedford Square, 97
Belayse, John, 16
Betterton, 25
Betterton Street, 24
Birkbeck Bank, 45
Black Bull, 70
Black Swan, 3
Bleeding Heart Yard, 67
Bloomsbury Market, 94
Bowl, The, 18
Bradshaw, 77
British Museum, 88
Broad Street, 18
Brooke Street, 70
Brownlow, Sir John, 24
Buckridge Street, 21
Burghley, Lord, 77
Burne-Jones, Sir E., 80, 97
Burton St. Lazar, 11
Caledonian School, 67
Camden, 77
Carew, Sir Wymonde, 13
Chancery Lane, 44
Chapman, George, 16
Charles Street, 67
Chatterton, Thomas, 57, 70
Church Street, 21
Churches:
Christ Church, 24
City Temple, 54
St. Andrew's, 54
St. Ethelreda's Chapel, 64
St. George the Martyr, 83
St. George's, Bloomsbury, 94
St. Giles's, 8, 14
St. John the Evangelist's, 79
St. Peter's, 68
Moravian Chapel, 51
Trinity Church, 30
Cibber, Colley, 93
Clare House, 26
Clifford's Inn, 45
Coal Yard, 19, 25
Cope, Sir Walter, 14
Cobham, Lord, 19
Cock and Pye, The, 22
Cockpit, 25
Coke, Sir Edward, 62
College of Preceptors, 93
Craven House, 26
Croche Hose, 8
Cromwell, Oliver, 78
Cromwell, Richard, 43
Cromwell, Thomas, 76
Cross Street, 67
Cursitor Street, 45
De Luda, Bishop, 60
Denmark Street, 18
Dickens, Charles, 48
Digby, Sir Kenelm, 6
Disraeli, Benjamin, 81
D'Israeli, Isaac, 93
Donne, John, 40
Drury Lane, 25
Dudley, Duchess of, 14
Dyers' Buildings, 49
Dyott Street, 20
Earl Street, 24
Edward III., 11
Egerton, Lord Keeper, 43
Emery, 58
Endell Street, 24
Ely Place, 60
Eyre Street, 71
Fairfax, Sir Thomas, 27
Fetter Lane, 51
Fickett's Field, 31
Field Lane, 67
Fleur-de-Lys Court, 52
Florio, 58
Franklin, Benjamin, 29
Freemasons' Hall, 27
Furnival's Inn, 48
Furnival Street, 48
Gate Street, 30
George and Blue Boar, 3
Gerarde, 5
Gloucester Street, 81
Goldsmith Street, 25
Gordon Riots, 51, 93
Gray's Inn, 72
Gray, Thomas, 94
Great and Little Turnstile, 30
Great Coram Street, 98
Great Ormond Street, 84
Great Queen Street, 27
Great Russell Street, 97
Gresham, Sir T., 77
Greville, Fulke, 6
Guildford, Lord Keeper, 46
Gunpowder Alley, 58
Gwynne, Nell, 25, 26
Hale, Sir Matthew, 43
Hanway, Jonas, 79
Hare and Hounds, 9
Hatton Garden, 60, 66
Hatton, Sir Christopher, 61
Hatton Wall, 69
Hazlitt, 97
Henry II., 10
Henry VIII., 11
Herbert of Cherbury, Lord, 17, 27
Herring, Bishop, 40
High Street, 19
Hockley Hole, 71
Hogarth, 8
Hoggarty, Haggart, 20
Holborn, 3
Holborn Baths, 19
Holborn, Borough of, 1
Holborn Bridge, 5
Holborn Circus, 53
Holborn Hill, 4
Holborn Music Hall, 30
Holborn Restaurant, 30
Holborn Town Hall, 72
Holborn Viaduct, 54
Homoeopathic Hospital, 85
Hoole, 27
Hospital for Paralysis, 82
Hospital for Sick Children, 85
Hyde, Chief Justice, 46
Inns of Court Hotel, 33
Irving, Edward, 67
Italian Hospital, 83
Johnson, Dr., 6
Jonson, Ben, 42
Kemble, 97
Kemble Street, 29
Kingsgate Street, 80
Kingsway, 2, 29
Kirkby, Bishop, 60
Kirkby Street, 67
Kneller, Sir Godfrey, 27
Kniveton, Lady Frances, 16
Kynaston, 25
Lamb, Mary, 30
Lamb's Conduit Street, 86
Lawrence, Sir Thomas, 92
Leather Lane, 69
Le Lane, 21
Lenthall, 43
L'Estrange, Roger, 17
Lilly, 58
Lincoln, Earl of, 37
Lincoln's Inn, 36
Lincoln's Inn Fields, 31
Lindsey House, 34
Lisle, Viscount, 11
Little Queen Street, 29
Little Russell Street, 96
Long Fields, 90
Lord Chancellor's House, 98
Lovelace, 58
Lovell, Sir Thomas, 37
Lying-in Hospital, 24
Macaulay, Zachary, 86
Mackworth, Dr. John, 50
Manor House, 13, 18
Marsden, William, 56
Marshlands, 9, 22
Marvell, Andrew, 16, 17
Mathews, Charles, 97
Matilda, Queen, 10
Maurice, Rev. F. D., 85, 92
Mead, Dr., 84
Mercers' School, 49
Meux's Brewery, 97
Middle Row, 3, 49
Milton, 6, 79
Monmouth Street, 21
Montague House, 87
More, Sir Thomas, 6, 37, 43, 48
Morland, 71
Morris, William, 80
Mudie's Library, 96
Nelson, Robert, 81
Newcastle House, 34
New Compton Street, 21
New Oxford Street, 9, 96
Nisbett, Canon, 16
Nottingham, Earl of, 27
Novelty Theatre, 29
O'Connell, 58
Old Bell, 70
"Old Bourne" 2
Old Curiosity Shop, 35
Onslow, Speaker, 97
Opie, John, 27
Pendrell, Richard, 17
Pepys, 26
Pindar, Peter, 27
Portpool Lane, 70
Portsmouth House, 35
Powis, Duke of, 34
Powis House, 84
Pugin, 97
Queen Square, 81
Queen Street, 24
Raymond, Lord, 80
Red Lion Square, 78
Romilly, Sir S., 77, 92
Rose, The, 4
Rosebery Avenue, 71
Royal College of Surgeons, 35
Royal Mews, 87
Royal Society, 52
Russell Institution, 99
Russell, Lord, 32, 45
Russell Square, 91
Sacheverell, 6, 56
St. Andrew's Street, 24, 53
St. Giles's Burial-ground, 17
St Giles's Hospital, 10
St. Giles-in-the-Fields, Parish of, 6
St. James's Street, 77
Sardinia Street, 29
Savage, Robert, 57
Scrope's Inn, 59
Serjeants' Inn, 45
Seven Dials, 7, 23
Shaftesbury Avenue, 9, 21
Shakespeare, 77
Shelley, Percy, 97
Sheridan, 27
Shirley, 17
Shoe Lane, 58
Short's Gardens, 24
Sidmouth, Viscount, 78
Silver Street, 94
Sloane, Sir Hans, 93
Soane Museum, 34
Southampton Buildings, 46
Southampton House, 90
Southampton Row, 94
Southampton Street, 93
Staple Inn, 46, 47
Steele, Sir Richard, 93
Stiddolph Street, 21
Stillingfleet, Bishop of Worcester, 56
Stratford, Lord, 46
Strange, Sir Robert, 27
Stukeley, Dr., 83
Swan Distillery, 50
Swan on the Hop, 8
Thackeray, 99
Thanet House, 97
Thavie's Inn, 53
Theobald's Road, 81
Thomson, Bishop, 40
Thurlow, Lord, 85
Tonson, Jacob, 46, 77
Toten Hall, 97
Tottenham Court Road, 97
Turk's Head, The, 20
Turner, Sharon, 80
Tyburn procession, 8, 18
Vine Inn, 80
Walton, Izaak, 46
Warburton, Bishop, 78
Webster, John, 57
Wedderburn, Alexander, 92
Wesley, 51
Whetstone Park, 30
Whiston, 67
Whitefield, 51
White Hart, The, 8, 26
White Horse Inn, 50
White Lion Street, 24
Wild House, 29
Wild Street, Great, 29
Wilkes, 59
Woburn Square, 98
Wolsey, Cardinal, 37
Working Men's College, 85
Worlidge, Thomas, 27
Wren, Sir Christopher, 97
Wriothesley, 57
Zinzendorf, Count, 52
THE END
* * * * *
BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD
* * * * *
[Illustration: HOLBORN DISTRICT
Published by A. & C. Black, London.]
* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes
The following errors in the original text have been corrected:
Page 89: In then became changed to It then became
Page 103: Bambridge Street, 21 changed to Bainbridge Street, 21