built since 1883, containing Buckingham Palace Mansions (flats), the
National Training School of Cookery, and the City of Westminster Public
Baths. Here also is St. Peter's Institute, in connection with St.
Peter's, Eaton Square, which cost £15,000. It consists of a club for 600
men and 600 boys, with gymnasium, class-rooms, reading-room,
concert-hall, etc.
Buckingham Palace Gardens, also on the north side, is a row of large,
ornamental, red-brick houses, newly erected, adjoining the Free Library
built by Bolton and opened in 1894. On the first floor is a natural
history collection presented by a parishioner. St. Philip's Church,
built 1887-90, is a plain but spacious red-brick building, in Early
English style by Brierley and Demaine, with seats (free) for 850.
Adjoining is the Grosvenor Club and Grosvenor Hall, used for social
entertainments, etc. Nearly the whole of the south side of the road has
recently been demolished in view of the extension of Victoria Station.
Inhabitants--Stafford Row: W. Ryland, engineer, executed for forgery
1767; Mrs. Radcliffe, authoress of the "Mysteries of Udolpho"; Richard
Yates, d. 1796. Lower Belgrave Place: No. 3, George Grote, historian
(later 102, Buckingham Palace Road); 29 and 30, Sir Francis Chantrey,
1814-41 (later 98, Buckingham Palace Road); 27, Allan Cunningham, poet,
1824-42; 96, Henry Weekes, R.A. Buckingham Palace Road: E. B. Stephen,
R.A., 1882.
From the end of Buckingham Palace Road Chelsea was reached by the
present Pimlico Road, so called in 1871, when the old names of Jews'
Row, Grosvenor Row (1785), and Queen Street (1774) were abolished. The
origin of the name Pimlico is uncertain. There was one also at Hoxton,
where a certain Ben Pimlico kept a noted hostelry in Queen Elizabeth's
time. It is now officially used to denote the whole district south of
Knightsbridge, but is popularly confined to the part between Chester
Square and the Thames. It began to be sparsely inhabited in 1680, after
which date it is mentioned occasionally in the rate-books, and regularly
after 1739.
On the north side, near the east end, are two narrow streets--Clifford's
Row (1785), and King Street (1785). At the corner of Ebury Street stood
an old inn, the Goat and Compasses, now replaced by the Three Compasses
public-house. Further on is the Chapel of St. John the Baptist, built
about 1850 as a chapel of ease to St. Barnabas. Adjoining is the site of
the Chelsea Bun House, in its best days kept by Richard Hand, "who has
the honour to serve the Royal Family." It was celebrated by Swift in
1711, and was taken down in 1839. Opposite stood Strombelo or Stromboli
House, a minor place of amusement, at its height in 1788. Near here Nell
Gwynne is said to have lived, and her name is kept up by the Nell Gwynne
Tavern and a passage called Nell Gwynne Cottages.
Between the Pimlico and Commercial Roads are several small streets. In
Bloomfield Place stood St. John's School for girls, established in 1859
under the auspices of the Sisterhood of St. John; adjoining, under the
same management, St. Barnabas' Mission House and St. Barnabas'
Orphanage, established in 1860. In Bloomfield Terrace lived at No. 1
Captain Warner, inventor of the "long range," d. 1853.
In Church Street (1846) stands the college of St. Barnabas, founded by
Rev. W. J. Bennett. The buildings are of Kentish ragstone, were designed
by Cundy, and contain a church, clergy house, and school-house with
teacher's residence. The church, originally built as a chapel of ease to
St. Paul's, Knightsbridge, is in Early Pointed style, and has a tower
and spire of Caen stone 170 feet high, with ten bells. The edifice cost
£15,000, and was at the opening signalized by ritualistic disturbances.
The schools built on the site of the Orange Tavern and tea-gardens in
the Pimlico Road were designed for 200 boys, 200 girls, and 200 infants,
but a separate boys' school has been since built in Ebury Street.
Ranelagh Grove occupies the site of The Avenue, which led from Ebury
Bridge to old Ranelagh House, but now ends in the blank wall of Chelsea
Barracks.
In Ranelagh Terrace (now abolished), near Ebury Bridge, d. at No. 2 the
Rev. T. Pennington, son of Elizabeth Carter, in 1852.
Commercial Road (1842) is occupied by works and industrial dwellings
(Gatcliff Buildings, 1867, and Wellington Buildings). On the west side
is the wall of Chelsea Barracks.
It leads by the Chelsea Bridge Road to the embankment at Victoria
Bridge, a light and graceful suspension bridge designed by Page and
opened in 1858. The structure, which cost £88,000, is built of iron, and
rests on piers of English elm and concrete enclosed in iron casings. The
piers are each nearly 90 feet in length by 20 feet in width, with curved
cutwaters. The whole bridge is 915 feet long, 715 feet between
abutments, the centre span 347 feet, side-spans each 185 feet, and there
is a clear water-way of 21 feet above high-water mark. The roadway is
made by two wrought-iron longitudinal girders extending the whole length
of the bridge, suspended by rods from the chains. Toll-houses stand at
each end, but it was purchased in 1879 for £75,000 as a free bridge.
Near the end of the bridge stood the White House, a lonely habitation
much used by anglers; opposite, on the Surrey side, was a similar
building, the Red House. A short way to the east stood the Chelsea
Waterworks, incorporated as a company in 1724, though waterworks seem to
have existed here before that date. They extended, with the Grosvenor
Canal and basin (now occupied by Victoria Station), over 89 acres, and
supplied water to Chelsea, Knightsbridge, Belgravia, Pimlico, and part
of Westminster. The company has now removed to Kingston, and the site is
occupied by the western pumping-station of the main drainage system of
London, built 1873-75 at a cost of £183,000.
Graham Street (1827) incorporated with which in 1894 were Graham Street
West and Gregory Street (1833), contains the Church of St. Mary the
Virgin, a chapel of ease to St. Paul's, Knightsbridge, a red-brick
building with a spire, built in 1872. Caroline Street (1834) is of no
interest. Eaton Terrace (1826) was until 1884 named Coleshill Street. At
the corner of Clieveden Place is an old proprietary chapel, Eaton
Chapel, in Grecian style, built about 1800, with sittings for 1,200. A
chapel existed here, however, before that date, known as the Five Fields
Chapel.
Chester Terrace was in 1878 amalgamated with Minera Street (1830), and
in 1887 with Newland Street (1836).
Chester Square is very long and narrow; it is five acres in extent, and
was commenced about 1834. It has three enclosed gardens. At the west end
is the handsome church of St. Michael, erected 1844-46 in the Decorated
style from designs by Cundy. The tower has a lofty spire. The chancel
was extended in 1874, and the building has on several occasions been
enlarged and restored.
Chester Place, at the east end of the square, was incorporated with it
in 1874.
The portion of our district lying between the Buckingham Palace Road
and Grosvenor Canal and the eastern boundary forms an acute-angled
triangle with the apex at Buckingham Palace. The streets north of
Victoria Street, which lead into Buckingham Palace Road from the east,
are narrow and unimportant. Here is Palace Street (1767), until 1881
called Charlotte Street, after Queen Charlotte, the first royal occupant
of the Palace. In it is St. Peter's Church, a plain building with seats
for 200, which existed as Charlotte Chapel in 1770. Its most famous
incumbent was Dr. Dodd, who was executed for forgery in 1777.
Subsequently it was held by Dr. Dillon, who was suspended in 1840. It
was then a proprietary chapel, but is now a chapel of ease to St.
Peter's, Eaton Square; also St. Peter and St. Edward's Catholic Chapel.
In Palace Place (until 1881 Little Charlotte Street) is St. Peter's
Chapel School, established in 1830.
The St. George's Union Workhouse, a large red-brick building, built in
1884, stands in Wallis's Yard, off Princes Row (1767). Buckingham Palace
(1840), Brewer Street (1811), and Allingham Street (1826) have no
interest. The latter leads to Victoria Street, a broad thoroughfare
opened in 1851, only the western end of which falls within the district.
On the south side is the Victoria Station of the Metropolitan District
Railway, commenced in 1863 and opened in 1868. The line runs in a curve
underground from Sloane Square, crossing Ebury Street at Eaton Terrace,
and Buckingham Palace Road at Grosvenor Gardens. From the Underground
Station a subterranean passage leads to the Victoria terminus, the
starting-point of the London, Brighton, and South Coast and London,
Chatham, and Dover Railway Companies. The present station, which has no
pretension to architectural beauty, is being greatly enlarged and partly
rebuilt. It was built at a cost of £105,000, provided by the Victoria
Station and Pimlico Railway Company, which, having acquired 91 acres of
land, had built a temporary station and opened the line for the two
companies' traffic in 1860. The bridge over the Thames was built about
the same time by Fowler, and on it is the Grosvenor Road
ticket-collecting station. The land occupied by the railways is freehold
of the Victoria Company, and leased by the two lines. In 1863 the lines
of the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway were widened to enable their
trains to come into the station independently. The lines of the London,
Brighton, and South Coast Railway are now being extended. The station of
the latter is a West End branch, the headquarters being at London
Bridge; but the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway have here their
principal starting-point. The ground between Victoria Station and the
river occupies the site of the old manor of Neyte, which belonged to the
Abbey of Westminster until confiscated by Henry VIII. in 1536. It was a
favourite residence of the Abbots, and here also lived John of Gaunt,
and here John, son of Richard, Duke of York, was born in 1448. In 1592
the manor became a farm and passed with the Ebury Estate into the
possession of the Grosvenor family. The manor-house stood where is now
St. George's Row, and in Pepys' time was a popular pleasure-garden.
Between the Willow Walk (Warwick Street) and the river were the Neat
House Gardens, which supplied a large part of London with vegetables.
The name lingered until the present century among the houses on the
river-bank, and is still commemorated by Neat House Buildings in
Ranelagh Road. The whole area was low-lying and swampy, and the
neighbourhood of Eccleston Square was occupied by a vast osier bed. In
1827, however, Cubitt raised the level of the district by depositing the
earth excavated from St. Katharine's Docks, and the present houses and
squares were gradually completed. The whole district is singularly
uninteresting, the streets of good breadth, and the houses faced with
plaster of the type we have seen in Belgravia. North of Belgrave Road
the streets are occupied by the poorer classes, but the squares and
principal streets in this neighbourhood are tenanted by the wealthy. The
southern portion is dully respectable, and most of the houses are let in
lodgings. The eastern end of Warwick Street and Lupus Street contain the
only shops, and those of no great size or importance. The streets, with
their principal buildings, are as follows:
The Vauxhall Bridge Road, commenced after 1816, but first mentioned
under that name in 1827. The following terraces were incorporated with
it in 1865: Bedford Place (1826), Trellick Place (1826), York Place
(1839), Pembroke Place, Gloucester Place, Windsor Terrace, Shaftesbury
Crescent (1826), Howick Place and Howick Terrace (1826).
Wilton Road (1833), with which, in 1890, was incorporated Wilton
Terrace, skirts the east side of Victoria Station. In it stands the
Church of St. John the Evangelist, a chapel of ease to St. Peter's,
Eaton Square. It is a handsome red-brick edifice, built by Blomfield in
1875, and it accommodates about 900. Behind, in Hudson's Place, are St.
Peter's Mission House and parish room.
Gillingham Street (1826), Hindon Street (1826), Berwick Street (1830),
and St. Leonard's Street (1830) are mean and uninteresting.
Warwick Street occupies the site of the ancient Willow Walk, a low-lying
footpath between the cuts of the Chelsea Waterworks, where lived the
notorious Aberfield (Slender Billy) and the highwaymen Jerry Abershaw
and Maclean. It is first mentioned in the rate-books in 1723.
Belgrave Road (1830) is a broad, well-built street, with large houses.
In 1865 Eccleston Terrace, North and South Warwick Terrace, Upper
Eccleston Place, and Grosvenor Terrace, were incorporated with it.
Nearly opposite Eccleston Square is Eccleston Square Chapel
(Congregational), in Classical style, with seats for 1,100. The railway
is crossed by Eccleston Bridge. Eccleston Square is 4 acres in extent,
and is long and narrow, with an enclosed garden, built in 1835.
Warwick Square, of 3 acres, is very similar, and was built in 1843. At
the end stands St. Gabriel's Church, built by Cundy in Early English
style, and consecrated in 1853.
St. George's Road is a broad street joined to Buckingham Palace Road by
Elizabeth Bridge.
In Gloucester Street is the Belgrave Hospital for Children, founded in
1866 by the late Rev. Brymer Belcher, Vicar of St. Gabriel's, 1853-85.
The objects of this charitable institution are:
1. The medical and surgical treatment of the children of the poor.
2. The promotion of the study of children's diseases.
3. The training of pupil nurses.
Clarendon Street (1858) absorbed Warwick Place in 1870. Stanley Street
(1851) was renamed Alderney Street in 1879, Winchester Street 1852,
Cumberland Street 1852.
Ebury Bridge is the oldest of the bridges over the railway and canal. It
was known in early days as Chelsea, and afterwards as Waterworks Bridge,
a wooden structure. A turnpike existed here until 1825. At the south end
stood Jenny's Whim, a celebrated tavern and pleasure-garden, perhaps
named from the name of the proprietress and the fantastic way it was
laid out. It was in the height of its popularity about 1750, and came to
an end _circa_ 1804. When the railway was widened in 1863 all vestiges
of it were swept away.
St. George's Row was built as Monster Row _circa_ 1785, and renamed in
1833. Here was the site of the manor-house of Neyte. The Monster
public-house commemorates the old Monster tavern and garden, the name
being probably a corruption of monastery.
At the corner of Warwick Street are the Pimlico Rooms, containing a hall
for entertainments, etc., and occupied by the Ebury Mission and Pimlico
day-school for boys, girls, and infants. Adjoining the railway is a
double row of industrial dwellings, built by the trustees of the Peabody
fund under the name of Peabody's Buildings.
Westmoreland Street (1852) contains the Pimlico chapel for United Free
Methodists.
Lupus Street (1842) is named after Hugh Lupus, Earl of Chester, an
ancestor of the Duke of Westminster. It contains a hospital for women
and children.
At the eastern end is St. George's Square (1850), a long narrow space
reaching to the river with an enclosed garden in the centre. The houses
are large. At No. 9 Sir J. Barnby d. 1896.
At the north end is St. Saviour's Church, built in 1864 from designs by
Cundy in a Decorated Gothic style. It has sittings for 1,834, and was
restored in 1882. To the east are Pulford Street (1848) and Aylesford
Street, in which is St. Saviour's Mission House, built by the Duke of
Westminster at a cost of £4,000. It serves also for parochial meetings.
Here also are the works of the Equitable Gas Company, established 1830.
In Claverton Street (1852) is a Methodist Wesleyan chapel, in Classical
style, with seats for 1,000.
In Glasgow Terrace (1851), formerly Caledonia Street, are St. Saviour's
and St. Gabriel's National Schools. This neighbourhood contains many
works and offices, the largest of which is Taylor's repository for
storing property. Along the river runs the Grosvenor Road, part of the
Thames Embankment. The houses built on and near it were generally known
in the last century as the Neat Houses. Terraces with various
names--Albion Terrace, Pier Terrace, Erin Place (1826), Thames Parade
(1827), Thames Bank (1828)--were incorporated with the road in recent
years. Facing the river is All Saints' Church, a chapel of ease to St.
Gabriel's, by Cundy, built _circa_ 1870 to replace a mission church;
opposite it is the Pimlico Pier for river steamboats. Adjoining St.
George's Square is the Army Clothing Factory, established in 1857 in the
Vauxhall Bridge Road as an experiment to provide labour for women. The
present establishment was opened in 1859, and has since been largely
increased, occupying a space of about 7 acres. The east block is the
Government store, the west the factory, the centre of which is occupied
by a glass-roofed hall, three stories high, surrounded by spacious
galleries.
[Illustration: BELGRAVIA DISTRICT.
Published by A. & C. Black, London.]
PADDINGTON
BY G. E. MITTON
_Derivation._
The origin of the word Paddington is very obscure. Mr. Edwards in his
"Names of Places" gives "Pad, padi, A.S. equivalent to Paeda, King of
Mercia; hence Paddington, the town of Paeda's descendants."
Paddington is not mentioned in Domesday Book.
The boundaries of the borough of Paddington are not quite coterminous
with those of the parish. It is true that the alteration is not great.
On the east Edgware Road and Maida Vale still mark the limits with a
line as straight as that drawn by a ruler. On the south Bayswater Road
serves a similar purpose as far as the Serpentine, where the boundary
dips to include part of the Gardens; these are the same as the old
boundaries. The present line, however, returns northward up the Broad
Walk to Bayswater Road instead of up Kensington Palace Gardens. From
Bayswater Road it follows Ossington Street, Chepstow Place, Westbourne
Grove, Ledbury Road, St. Luke's Road, and crosses the railway lines
northward to Kensal Road, having from the Bayswater Road been either a
little within or without the parish line, doubtless so drawn for
convenience' sake, as it follows streets and not an arbitrary division.
From Kensal Hall the line follows the canal to Kensal Green Cemetery,
and, going northward, returns east along Kilburn Lane, thus including a
bit of ground previously owned by Chelsea. From Kilburn Lane the
northern boundary dips down between Salisbury Crescent and Malvern Road,
and up again by Kilburn Park Road; in this last part it remains
unaltered.
The Westbourne stream formerly ran right through the district. It rose
in Hampstead, flowed through Kilburn, and followed the trend of the
present Cambridge and Shirland Roads, though keeping on the east side of
the place where these streets now stand. It crossed the Harrow Road, and
ran on the west side of the present Gloucester Terrace until it reached
the Uxbridge Road. It fed the Serpentine, and, crossing the road at
Knightsbridge, formed the eastern boundary of the Chelsea parish.
A stream somewhat similar in course was the Tyburn, which also rose at
Hampstead, but flowed through the parish of Marylebone, the ancient
Tyburnia. This was considerably to the east of Paddington, and has been
treated in the Marylebone section. Oxford Street was the ancient Tyburn
Road, and the gallows stood opposite the Marble Arch.
In Rocque's map (1748) only the Westbourne is marked, but we see Tyburn
Turnpike at the junction of the Edgware Road, and near by "the stone
where soldiers are shot." These things do not belong properly to
Paddington, but are too intimately connected with it to be passed over
without comment. The Edgware Road itself is the old Watling Street,
which was continued at first down Park Lane to the ford at Westminster,
and which afterwards, when London Bridge was built, followed the course
of Oxford Street and Holborn to the Bridge. Edgware was the name of the
first town through which it passed after the forests of Middlesex.
Newcourt says "the parish of Edgeware or Edgeworth consisteth of one
main street ... ten miles north-westward from London."
In Rocque's 1748 map the district is nearly all open ground; part of the
Harrow Road is marked, and there are a few houses on it near the Edgware
Road. The Green Lane, now Warwick Road, runs into it from the north. The
Pest House is marked prominently about where the chapel stands in Craven
Terrace in the south of the parish. Below is marked "Bayswatering."
Queen's Road is Westbourne Green Lane, and the green itself is very
nearly where Royal Oak Station now stands. About it there are a few
scattered houses.
_History._
"King Edgar gave the Manor of Paddington to Westminster Abbey;" this
Lysons affirms without any comment. Dart varies the tradition slightly
by asserting that it was Dunstan and not the King who presented the
manor to the Abbey. But later writers have thrown discredit on both
statements. Paddington is not mentioned in the Conqueror's Survey, which
points to the fact that it was not at that date a separate manor.
Robins, on the authority of the Rev. Richard Widmore, for many years
librarian to the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, boldly states that the
documents supposed to prove this gift are undoubted forgeries.
Newcourt says, "the Manor and Rectory of Paddington (which of old did
belong to the monastery of Westminster)," etc. The first authentic
mention of the manor is in a document "in the thirty-first year of Henry
II.," drawn up between "Walter Abbot of Westminster and Richard and
William de Padinton, brothers, touching the entire tenement which they
held in Padinton of the Church of Westminster," whereby they gave up
their hold on the land in consideration of a sum of money. This Abbot
Walter gave, we are told, the manor of Paddington for the celebration of
the anniversary of the day on which he died.
For this festival
"the manor of Paddington is put wholly into the hands of the
Almoner ... and whatsoever shall be the final overplus shall be
expended charitably in distribution to the poor. On the day of
celebration the Almoner is to find for the Convent fine manchets,
cakes, crumpets, cracknells, and wafers, and a gallon of wine for
each friar, with three good pittances, or doles, with good ale in
abundance at every table, and in the presence of the whole
brotherhood: in the same manner upon other occasions the cellarer
is bound to find beer at the usual feasts or anniversaries on the
great tankard of twenty-five quarts.
"He shall also provide most honourably and in all abundance for the
guests that dine in the refectory, bread, wine, beer, and two
dishes out of the kitchen besides the usual allowance. And for the
guests of higher rank who sit at the upper table under the bell,
with the president, ample provision shall be made as well as for
the Convent: and cheese shall be served on that day to both.
"Agreement shall likewise be made with the cook for vessels,
utensils, and other necessaries, and not less than two shillings
shall be given over above for his own gratification and indulgence.
The Almoner is likewise to find for all comers in general, from the
hour when the memorial of the anniversary is read to the end of the
following day, meat, drink, hay and provender of all sorts in
abundance: and no one either on foot or horseback during that time
shall be denied admittance at the gate."
There are further provisions for allowances to the nuns at "Kilborne,"
and 300 poor who were to have a "loaf of mixed corn" and a "pottle of
ale." The above is taken from Dr. Vincent's translation of the MS. He
was Dean of Westminster in 1804. Mr. Loftie says: "Westbourne was
probably at a very early period separated from the original manor of the
Church of St. Peter.... Of Paddington we only know that it was
separated from the manor of Westminster at some time between Domesday
Survey and the middle of the twelfth century. It was restored to its
original owners ... by the above mentioned agreement between Abbot
Walter and the brothers Padinton."