Transcribed from the 1873 William Collins, Sons and Company edition by
David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
[Picture: Cover of book]
[Picture: Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, Westminster Hall,
Crimean and Canning Monuments. Penitentiary, Vauxhall Bridge, Lambeth
Suspension Bridge, Lambeth Place, and Bethlehem Hospital in the distance]
COLLINS’
ILLUSTRATED
GUIDE TO LONDON
AND
NEIGHBOURHOOD:
BEING A
CONCISE DESCRIPTION OF THE CHIEF PLACES OF INTEREST IN THE
METROPOLIS, AND THE BEST MODES OF OBTAINING ACCESS
TO THEM: WITH INFORMATION RELATING TO
RAILWAYS, OMNIBUSES, STEAMERS, &c.
* * * * *
With fifty-eight Illustrations by Sargent and others,
AND
A CLUE-MAP BY BARTHOLOMEW.
* * * * *
LONDON:
WILLIAM COLLINS, SONS, AND COMPANY,
17 WARWICK SQUARE, PATERNOSTER ROW.
1873.
PREFACE.
IN this work an attempt is made to furnish Strangers with a handy and
useful Guide to the chief objects of interest in the Metropolis and its
Environs: comprising also much that will be interesting to permanent
Residents. After a few pages of General Description, the various
Buildings and other places of attraction are treated in convenient groups
or sections, according to their nature. Short Excursions from the
Metropolis are then noticed. Tables, lists, and serviceable information
concerning railways, tramways, omnibuses, cabs, telegraphs, postal rules,
and other special matters, follow these sections. An ALPHABETICAL INDEX
at the end furnishes the means of easy reference.
The information is brought down to the latest date, either in the Text or
in the Appendix at the end. And the Clue-map has, in like manner, been
filled in with the recently opened lines of Railway, &c., as well as with
indications of the Railways sanctioned, but not yet completed.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
HOTEL CHARGES viii
GENERAL DESCRIPTION 9
A FIRST GLANCE AT THE CITY 15
A FIRST GLANCE AT THE WEST-END 27
PALACES AND MANSIONS, ROYAL AND NOBLE 33
HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT; WESTMINSTER HALL; GOVERNMENT OFFICES 40
ST. PAUL’S; WESTMINSTER ABBEY; CHURCHES; CHAPELS; 47
CEMETERIES
BRITISH AND SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUMS; SCIENTIFIC 62
ESTABLISHMENTS
NATIONAL GALLERY; ROYAL ACADEMY; ART EXHIBITIONS 68
COLLEGES; SCHOOLS; HOSPITALS; CHARITIES 70
THE TOWER; THE MINT; THE CUSTOM HOUSE; THE GENERAL 77
POST-OFFICE
THE CORPORATION; MANSION HOUSE; GUILDHALL; MONUMENT; ROYAL 84
EXCHANGE
THE TEMPLE; INNS OF COURT; COURTS OF JUSTICE; PRISONS 90
BANKS; INSURANCE OFFICES; STOCK EXCHANGE; CITY COMPANIES 93
THE RIVER; DOCKS; THAMES TUNNEL; BRIDGES; PIERS 97
FOOD SUPPLY; MARKETS; BAZAARS; SHOPS 109
CLUBS; HOTELS; INNS; CHOP-HOUSES; TAVERNS; COFFEE-HOUSES; 116
COFFEE-SHOPS
THEATRES, CONCERTS, AND OTHER PLACES OF AMUSEMENT 121
PARKS AND PUBLIC GROUNDS; ZOOLOGICAL, BOTANICAL, AND 125
HORTICULTURAL GARDENS
ALBERT HALL AND INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION 129
OMNIBUSES; CABS; RAILWAYS; STEAMERS 136
SHORT EXCURSIONS—
UP THE RIVER 143
DOWN THE RIVER 154
CRYSTAL PALACE, &C. 162
APPENDIX.
TABLES, LISTS, AND USEFUL HINTS—
Suburban Towns and Villages, within Twelve Miles’ 169
Railway-Distance
Chief Omnibus Routes 171
Tramways 173
Clubs and Club-Houses 173
The London Parcels’ Delivery Company 174
Money-Order Offices, and Post-Office Savings-Banks 175
London Letters, Postal and Telegraph System 175
Reading and News-Rooms 176
Chess-Rooms 177
Theatres 177
Concert Rooms 178
Music Halls 178
Modes of Admission to Various Interesting Places 179
Principal, Public, and Turkish Baths 180
Medicated Baths 181
Cabs 182
Hints to Strangers 183
Commissionaires or Messengers 183
THE GREAT INTERCEPTIVE MAIN DRAINAGE SYSTEM OF LONDON 184
INDEX 185
HOTEL CHARGES.
THERE is only one class of hotels in and near London of which the charges
can be stated with any degree of precision. The _old_ hotels, both at
the West-End and in the City, keep no printed tariff; they are not
accustomed even to be asked beforehand what are their charges. Most of
the visitors are more or less _recommended_ by guests who have already
sojourned at these establishments, and who can give information as to
what _they_ have paid. Some of the hotels decline to receive guests
except by previous written application, or by direct introduction, and
would rather be without those who would regard the bill with economical
scrutiny. The _dining_ hotels, such as the _London_ and the _Freemasons’
Tavern_, in London, the _Artichoke_ and various whitebait taverns at
Blackwall, the _Trafalgar_ and _Crown and Sceptre_ taverns at Greenwich,
and the _Castle_ and _Star and Garter_ taverns at Richmond, are costly
taverns for dining, rather than hotels at which visitors sojourn; and the
charges vary with every different degree of luxury in the viands served,
and the mode of serving. The hotels which can be more easily tested, in
reference to their charges, are the _joint-stock_ undertakings. These
are of two kinds: one, the hotels connected with the great railway
termini, such as the _Victoria_, the _Euston_, the _Great Northern_, the
_Great Western_, the _Grosvenor_, the _Charing Cross_, the _Midland_ and
_Cannon Street_; while the other group are unconnected with railways,
such as the _Westminster Palace_, the _Langham_, the _Salisbury_, the
_Inns of Court_, _Alexandra_, _&c._
COLLINS’
ILLUSTRATED GUIDE TO LONDON.
Whether we consider London as the metropolis of a great and mighty
empire, upon the dominions of whose sovereign the sun never sets, or as
the home of more than three millions of people, and the richest city in
the world to boot, it must ever be a place which strangers wish to visit.
In these days of railways and steamers, the toil and cost of reaching it
are, comparatively speaking, small; and, such being the case, the supply
of visitors has very naturally been adjusted to the everyday increasing
opportunities of gratifying so very sensible a desire. To such persons,
on their arrival at this vast City of the Islands, we here, if they will
accept us as their guides, beg to offer, ere going into more minute
details, a
GENERAL DESCRIPTION.
Without cumbering our narrative with the fables of dim legendary lore,
with regard to the origin of London—or _Llyn-Din_, “the town on the
lake,”—we may mention, that the Romans, after conquering its ancient
British inhabitants, about A.D. 61, finally rebuilt and walled it in
about A.D. 301; from which time it became, in such excellent hands, a
place of not a little importance. Roman remains, such as fine tesselated
pavements, bronzes, weapons, pottery, and coins, are not seldom turned up
by the spade of our sturdy excavators while digging below the foundations
of houses; and a few scanty fragments of the old Roman Wall, which was
rather more than three miles round, are still to be seen. London, in the
Anglo-Norman times, though confined originally by the said wall, grew up
a dense mass of brick and wooden houses, ill arranged, unclean, close,
and for the most part terribly insalubrious. Pestilence was the natural
consequence. Up to the great plague of 1664–5, which destroyed 68,596,
some say 100,000 persons—there were, dating from the pestilence of 1348,
no fewer than some nine visitations of widely-spreading epidemics in Old
London. When, in 1666, the great fire, which burnt 13,200 houses, spread
its ruins over 436 acres, and laid waste 400 streets, came to force the
Cockneys to mend their ways somewhat, and open out their over-cramped
habitations, some good was effected. But, unfortunately, during the
rebuilding of the City, Sir Christopher Wren’s plans for laying its
streets out on a more regular plan, were poorly attended to: hence the
still incongruous condition of older London when compared, in many
instances, with the results of modern architecture, with reference to
air, light, and sanitary arrangements. On account of the rubbish left by
the fire and other casualties, the City stands from twelve to sixteen
feet higher than it did in the early part of its history—the roadways of
Roman London, for example, being found on, or even below, the level of
the cellars of the present houses.
From being a city hemmed within a wall, London expanded in all
directions, and thus gradually formed a connection with various clusters
of dwellings in the neighbourhood. It has, in fact, absorbed towns and
villages to a considerable distance around: the chief of these once
detached seats of population being the city of Westminster. By means of
bridges, it has also absorbed Southwark and Bermondsey, Lambeth and
Vauxhall, on the south side of the Thames, besides many hamlets and
villages beyond the river.
By these extensions London proper, by which we mean the _City_, has
gradually assumed, if we may so speak, the conditions of an existence
like that of a kernel in a thickly surrounding and ever-growing mass. By
the census of 1861, the population of the _City_ was only 112,247; while
including that with the entire metropolis, the number was 2,803,034—or
_twenty-five times_ as great as the former! It may here be remarked,
that the population of the _City_ is becoming smaller every year, on
account of the substitution of public buildings, railway stations and
viaducts, and large warehouses, in place of ordinary dwelling-houses.
Fewer and fewer people _live_ in the City. In 1851, the number was
127,869; it lessened by more than 15,000 between that year and 1861;
while the population of the _whole_ metropolis increased by as many as
440,000 in the same space of time.
If we follow the Registrar-General, London, as defined by him, extends
north and south between Norwood and Hampstead, and east and west between
Hammersmith and Woolwich. Its area is stated as 122 square miles. From
the census returns of 1861, we find that its population then was
2,803,921 souls. It was, in 1871, 3,251,804. The real _city_ population
was 74,732.
The growth of London to its present enormous size may readily be
accounted for, when we reflect that for ages it has been the capital of
England, and the seat of her court and legislature; that since the union
with Scotland and Ireland, it has become a centre for those two
countries; and that, being the resort of the nobility, landed gentry, and
other families of opulence, it has drawn a vast increase of population to
minister to the tastes and wants of those classes; while its fine natural
position, lying as it does on the banks of a great navigable river, some
sixty miles from the sea, and its generally salubrious site and soil—the
greater part of London is built on gravel, or on a species of clay
resting on sand—alike plead in its favour.
At one time London, like ancient Babylon, might fairly have been called a
brick-built city. It is so, of course, still, in some sense. But we are
greatly improving: within the last few years a large number of
stucco-fronted houses, of ornamental character, have been erected; and
quite recently, many wholly of stone, apart altogether from the more
important public buildings, which of course are of stone. Of distinct
houses, there are now the prodigious number of 500,000, having, on an
average, about 7.8 dwellers to a house. For our own part we are somewhat
sceptical as to this average. But we quote it as given by a professedly
good authority.
The Post-Office officials ascertained that there was built in one year
alone, as long ago as 1864, no fewer than 9,000 new houses. Though, by
comparison with the houses of Edinburgh and some other parts of the
kingdom, many of these are small structures, with but two rooms, often
communicating, on a floor, a visitor to London will find no difficulty in
seeing acres of substantial residences around him as he strolls along
through the wide, quiet squares of Bloomsbury, the stuccoed and more
aristocratic quarters of Belgravia and South Kensington, or by the old
family mansions of the nobility and gentry in, say, Cavendish, Grosvenor,
or Portman Squares, and the large and more modern houses of many of our
wealthy citizens in Tyburnia and Westburnia, farther westward of the
Marble Arch. But of this more anon.
We have often heard foreigners laughingly remark of sundry London
houses—apropos of the deep, open, sunk areas, bordered by iron railings,
of many of them—that they illustrate, in some sense, our English reserve,
and love of carrying out our island proverb—viz., that “every
Englishman’s house is his castle,”—in its entirety, by each man
barricading himself off from his neighbours advances by a fortified
_fosse_!
Without particular reference to municipal distinctions, London may (to
convey a general idea to strangers) be divided into four principal
portions—the _City_, which is the centre of corporate influence, and
where the greatest part of the business is conducted; the _East End_, in
which are the docks, and various commercial arrangements for shipping;
the _West End_, in which are the palaces of the Queen and Royal family,
the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, and the residences of most
of the nobility and gentry; and the _Southwark and Lambeth_ division,
lying on the south side of the Thames, containing many manufacturing
establishments, but few public buildings of interest. Besides these, the
northern suburbs, which include the once detached villages of Hampstead,
Highgate, Stoke Newington, Islington, Kingsland, Hackney, Hornsey,
Holloway, &c., and consist chiefly of private dwellings for the
mercantile and middle classes, may be considered a peculiar and distinct
division. It is, however, nowhere possible to say (except when separated
by the river) exactly where any one division begins or ends; throughout
the vast compass of the city and suburbs, there is a blending of one
division with that contiguous to it. The outskirts, on all sides,
comprise long rows or groups of villas, some detached or semi-detached,
with small lawns or gardens.
The poet Cowper, in his _Task_, more than a hundred years ago,
appreciatively spoke of
“The villas with which London stands begirt,
Like a swarth Indian with his belt of beads.”
We wonder what he would think now of the many houses of this kind which
extend, in some directions, so far out of town, that there seems to be no
getting beyond them into the country.
From the Surrey division there extends southward and westward a great
number of those ranges of neat private dwellings, as, for instance,
towards Camberwell, Kennington, Clapham, Brixton, Dulwich, Norwood,
Sydenham, &c.; and in these directions lie some of the most pleasant
spots in the environs of the metropolis.
The flowing of the Thames from west to east through the metropolis has
given a general direction to the lines of street; the principal
thoroughfares being, in some measure, parallel to the river, with the
inferior, or at least shorter, streets branching from them. Intersecting
the town lengthwise, or from east to west, are three great leading
thoroughfares at a short distance from each other, but gradually
diverging at their western extremity. One of these routes begins in the
eastern environs, near Blackwall, and extends along Whitechapel,
Leadenhall Street, Cornhill, the Poultry, Cheapside, Newgate Street,
Holborn, and Oxford Street. The other may be considered as starting at
London Bridge, and passing up King William Street into Cheapside, at the
western end of which it makes a bend round St. Paul’s Churchyard; thence
proceeds down Ludgate Hill, along Fleet Street and the Strand to Charing
Cross, where it sends a branch off to the left to Whitehall, and another
diagonally to the right, up Cockspur Street; this leads forward into Pall
Mall, and sends an offshoot up Waterloo Place into Piccadilly, which
proceeds westward to Hyde Park Corner. These two are the main lines in
the metropolis, and are among the first traversed by strangers. It will
be observed that they unite in Cheapside, which therefore becomes an
excessively crowded thoroughfare, particularly at the busy hours of the
day. More than 1000 vehicles _per hour_ pass through this street in the
business period of an average day, besides foot-passengers! To ease the
traffic in Cheapside, a spacious new thoroughfare, New Cannon Street, has
been opened, from near London Bridge westward to St. Paul’s Churchyard.
The third main line of route is not so much thronged, nor so interesting
to strangers. It may be considered as beginning at the Bank, and passing
through the City Road and the New Road to Paddington and Westbourne. The
New Road here mentioned has been re-named in three sections—Pentonville
Road, from Islington to King’s Cross; Euston Road, from King’s Cross to
Regent’s Park; and Marylebone Road, from Regent’s Park to Paddington.
The main cross branches in the metropolis are—Farringdon Street, leading
from Blackfriars Bridge to Holborn, and thence by Victoria Street to the
King’s Cross Station; the Haymarket, leading from Cockspur Street; and
Regent Street, already mentioned. There are several important streets
leading northward from the Holborn and Oxford Street line—such as
Portland Place, Tottenham Court Road, King Street, and Gray’s Inn Lane.
The principal one in the east is St. Martin’s-le-Grand and Aldersgate
Street, which, by Goswell Street, lead to Islington; others
are—Bishopsgate Street, leading to Shoreditch and Hackney; and Moorgate
Street, leading northwards. A route stretching somewhat
north-east—Whitechapel and Mile End Roads—connects the metropolis with
Essex. It is a matter of general complaint that there are so few great
channels of communication through London both lengthwise and crosswise;
for the inferior streets, independently of their complex bearings, are
much too narrow for regular traffic. But this grievance, let us hope, is
in a fair way of abatement, thanks to sundry fine new streets, and to the
Thames Embankment, which, proceeding along the northern shore of the
river, now furnishes a splendid thoroughfare right away from Westminster
Bridge to Blackfriars Bridge, by means of which the public are now
enabled to arrive at the Mansion House by a wide street—called Queen
Victoria Street, and, by the Metropolitan District Railway, to save time
on this route from the west.
We shall have occasion again to allude to the Thames Embankment some
pages on, and therefore, for the present, we will take
A FIRST GLANCE AT THE CITY.
London is too vast a place to be traversed in the limited time which
strangers usually have at their disposal. Nevertheless, we may rapidly
survey the main lines of route from east to west, with some of the
branching offshoots. All the more important buildings, and places of
public interest, will be found specially described under the headings to
which they properly belong.
The most striking view in the interior of the city is at the open central
space whence Threadneedle Street, Cornhill, Lombard Street, King William
Street, Walbrook, Cheapside, and Princes Street, radiate in seven
different directions. (See illustration.) While the corner of the Bank
of England abuts on this space on the north, it is flanked on the south
by the Mansion House, and on the east by the Royal Exchange. It would be
a curious speculation to inquire how much money has been spent in
constructions and reconstructions in and around this spot during half a
century. The sum must be stupendous. Before new London Bridge was
opened, the present King William Street did not exist; to construct it,
houses by the score, perhaps by the hundred, had to be pulled down. Many
years earlier, when the Bank of England was rebuilt, and a few years
later, when the Royal Exchange was rebuilt, vast destructions of property
took place, to make room for structures larger than those which had
previously existed for the same purposes. For some distance up all the
radii of which we have spoken, the arteries which lead from this heart of
the commercial world, a similar process has been going on to a greater or
less extent. Banking-houses, insurance-offices, and commercial
buildings, have been built or rebuilt at an immense cost, the outlay
depending rather on the rapidly increasing value of the ground than on
the actual charge for building. If this particular portion of the city,
this busy centre of wealth, should ever be invaded by such railway
schemes as 1864, 1865, and 1866 produced, it is difficult to imagine what
amounts would have to be paid for the purchase and removal of property.
Time was when a hundred thousand pounds per mile was a frightful sum for
railways; but railway directors (in London at least) do not now look
aghast at a million sterling per mile—as witness the South-Eastern and
the Chatham and Dover Companies, concerning which we shall have to say
more in a future page.
[Picture: Bank of England, Royal Exchange, Mansion House, &c. (Cornhill,
Lombard, Threadneedle Streets.)] {16}
The seven radii of which we have spoken may be thus briefly described, as
a preliminary guide to visitors: 1. Leaving this wonderfully-busy centre
by the north, with the Poultry on one hand and the Bank of England on the
other, we pass in front of many fine new commercial buildings in Princes
and Moorgate Streets; indeed, there is not an old house here, for both
are entirely modern streets, penetrating through what used to be a close
mass of small streets and alleys. Other fine banking and commercial
buildings may be seen stretching along either side in Lothbury and
Gresham Streets. Farther towards the north, a visitor would reach the
Finsbury Square region, beyond which the establishments are of less
important character. 2. If, instead of leaving this centre by the north,
he turns north-east, he will pass through Threadneedle Street between the
Bank and the Royal Exchange; [Picture: King William Street, Gracechurch
Street, &c. (Bank and Royal Exchange in the distance.)] next will be
found the Stock Exchange, on the left hand; then the Sun Fire Office, and
the Bank of London (formerly the Hall of Commerce); on the opposite side
the City Bank, Merchant Taylor’s School, and the building that was once
the South Sea House; beyond these is the great centre for foreign
merchants in Broad Street, Winchester Street, Austin Friars, and the
vicinity. 3. If, again, the route be selected due east, there will come
into view the famous Cornhill, with its Royal Exchange, its well-stored
shops, and its alleys on either side crowded with merchants, brokers,
bankers, coffee-houses, and chop-houses; beyond this, Bishopsgate Street
branches out on the left, and Gracechurch Street on the right, both full
of memorials of commercial London; and farther east still, Leadenhall
Street, with new buildings on the site of the late East India House,
leads to the Jews’ Quarter around Aldgate and Houndsditch—a strange
region, which few visitors to London think of exploring. “Petticoat
Lane,” perhaps one of the most extraordinary marts for old clothes, &c.,
is on the left of Aldgate High Street. It is well worth a visit by
connoisseurs of queer life and character, who are able to take care of
themselves, and remember to leave their valuables at home. 4. The fourth
route from the great city centre leads through Lombard Street and
Fenchurch Street—the one the head-quarters of the great banking firms of
London; the other exhibiting many commercial buildings of late erection:
while Mincing Lane and Mark Lane are the head-quarters for many branches
of the foreign, colonial, and corn trades. 5. The fifth route takes the
visitor through King William Street to the Monument, Fish Street Hill,
Billingsgate, the Corn Exchange, the Custom House, the Thames Subway, the
Tower, the Docks, the Thames Tunnel, London Bridge, and a host of
interesting places, the proper examination of which would require
something more than merely a brief visit to London. Opposite this
quarter, on the Surrey side of the river, are numerous shipping wharfs,
warehouses, porter breweries, and granaries. The fire that occurred at
Cotton’s wharf and depôt and other wharfs near Tooley Street, in June,
1861, illustrated the vast scale on which merchandise is collected in the
warehouses and wharfs hereabout. {18} Of the dense mass of streets lying
away from the river, and eastward of the city proper, comprising
Spitalfields, Bethnal Green, Whitechapel, Stepney, &c., little need be
said here; the population is immense, but, excepting the Bethnal Green
Museum and Victoria Park, there are few objects interesting; nevertheless
the observers of social life in its humbler phases would find much to
learn here. 6. The southern route from the great city centre takes the
visitor, by the side of the Mansion House, through the new thoroughfare,
Queen Victoria Street—referred to at a previous page—to the river-side.
It will therefore be useful for a stranger to bear in mind, that the best
centre of observation in the city is the open spot between the Bank, the
Mansion House, and the Royal Exchange; where more omnibuses assemble than
at any other spot in the world; and whence he can ramble in any one of
seven different directions, sure of meeting with something illustrative
of city life. The 7th route, not yet noticed, we will now follow, as it
proceeds towards the West End.
The great central thoroughfare of Cheapside, which is closely lined with
the shops of silversmiths and other wealthy tradesmen, is one of the
oldest and most famous streets in the city—intimately associated with the
municipal glories of London for centuries past. Many of the houses in
Cheapside and Cornhill have lately been rebuilt on a scale of much
grandeur. Some small plots of ground in this vicinity have been sold at
the rate of nearly _one million sterling_ per acre! On each side of
Cheapside, narrow streets diverge into the dense mass behind—Ironmonger
Lane, King Street, Milk Street, and Wood Street, on the north; and among
others, Queen Street, Bread Street, where Milton was born, and where
stood the famous Mermaid Tavern, where Shakespeare and Raleigh, Ben
Jonson and his young friends, Beaumont and Fletcher, those
twin-dramatists, loved to meet, to enjoy “the feast of reason and the
flow of soul,” to say nothing of a few flagons of good Canary wine, Bow
Lane, and Old ’Change, on the south. The greater part of these back
streets, with the lanes adjoining, are occupied by the offices or
warehouses of wholesale dealers in cloth, silk, hosiery, lace, &c., and
are resorted to by London and country shopkeepers for supplies. Across
the north end of King Street stands the Guildhall; and a little west, the
City of London School and Goldsmiths’ Hall. At the western end of
Cheapside is a statue of the late Sir Robert Peel, by Behnes. Northward
of this point, in St. Martin’s-le-Grand, are the buildings of the Post
and Telegraph Offices; beyond this the curious old Charter House; and
then a line of business streets leading towards Islington. Westward are
two streets, parallel with each other, and both too narrow for the trade
to be accommodated in them—Newgate Street, celebrated for its Blue Coat
Boys and, till the recent removal of the market to Smithfield, for its
carcass butchers; and Paternoster Row, still more celebrated for its
publishers and booksellers. In Panyer Alley, leading out of Newgate
Street, is an old stone bearing the inscription:
When ye have sovght the citty rovnd,
Yet stil this is the highst grovnd.
Avgvst the 27, 1688. {20}
[Picture: Old stone]
At the west end of Newgate Street a turning to the right gives access to
the once celebrated Smithfield and St. John’s Gate. South-west of
Cheapside stands St. Paul’s Cathedral, that first and greatest of all the
landmarks of London. In the immediate vicinity of St. Paul’s, the names
of many streets and lanes (Paternoster Row, Amen Corner, Ave Maria Lane,
Creed Lane, Godliman Street, &c.) give token of their former connection
with the religious structure and its clerical attendants. The enclosed
churchyard is surrounded by a street closely hemmed in with houses, now
chiefly dedicated to trade: those on the south side being mostly
wholesale, those on the north retail. An open arched passage on the
south side of the churchyard leads to Doctors’ Commons, once the
headquarters of the ecclesiastical lawyers.
[Picture: St. Paul’s, West End of Cheapside, Paternoster Row, &c.
(Newgate Street and Fleet Street in the distance.)]
Starting from St. Paul’s Churchyard westward, we proceed down Ludgate
Street and Ludgate Hill, places named from the old Lud-gate, which once
formed one of the entrances to the city ‘within the walls.’ The Old
Bailey, on the right, contains the Central Criminal Court and Newgate
Prison, noted places in connection with the trial and punishment of
criminals. On the left of Ludgate Hill is a maze of narrow streets;
among which the chief buildings are the new Ludgate Hill Railway Station,
Apothecaries’ Hall, and the printing office of the all-powerful _Times_
newspaper, in Printing-House Square. The printer of the _Times_, Mr.
Goodlake, if applied to by letter, enclosing card of any respectable
person, will grant an order to go over it, at 11 o’clock only, when the
second edition of “the Thunderer” is going to press. At the bottom of
Ludgate Hill we come to the valley in which the once celebrated Fleet
River, now only a covered sewer, ran north and south from St. Pancras to
Blackfriars, where it entered the Thames. A new street, called Victoria
Street, formed by pulling down many poor and dilapidated houses, marks
part of this valley; while Farringdon Street, where a market, mostly for
green stuff, is held, occupies another part. Newgate Street and Ludgate
Hill are on the east of the Fleet Valley; Holborn and Fleet Street on the
west. The Holborn Valley Viaduct crosses at this spot. And of this
wonderful triumph of engineering skill we have now to speak.
[Picture: Holborn Valley Viaduct]
It was an eventful day in the annals of the Corporation of the City of
London, when Queen Victoria, on November 6, 1869, declared Blackfriars
Bridge—about which more hereafter—and Holborn Valley Viaduct formally
open. The Holborn Valley improvements, it should be remembered, were
nothing short of the actual demolition and reconstruction of a whole
district, formerly either squalid, over-blocked, and dilapidated in some
parts, or over-steep and dangerous to traffic in others. But a short
time ago that same Holborn Valley was one of the most heart-breaking
impediments to horse-traffic in London. Imagine Holborn Hill sloping at
a gradient of 1 in 18, while the opposite rising ground of Skinner
Street—now happily done away—rose at about 1 in 20. Figure to yourself
the fact, that everything on wheels, and every foot passenger entering
the City by the Holborn route, had to descend 26 feet to the Valley of
the Fleet, and then ascend a like number to Newgate, and you will at once
see the grand utility of levelling up so objectionable a hollow. To
attempt to give a stranger to London even a faint idea of what has been
accomplished by Mr. Haywood’s engineering skill, by a necessarily brief
description here, is an invidious task. Nevertheless, we must essay it;
premising, by-the-by, that if our readers while in London do not go to
see the Viaduct for themselves, our trouble will be three parte thrown
away. The whole structure is cellular, to begin with. To strip the
subject of crabbed technicalities, imagine for a moment a long succession
of—let us call them—railway-like arches supporting the carriage-way:
these large vaults being available for other purposes. Outside this
carriage-way, and under the edge of the foot-paths on either side, is a
subway, some 7 feet wide and 11 feet or so high. Against the walls of
this sub-way are fixed, readily connectable, gas mains and water mains
and telegraph tubes. This was the first time all these important pipes
had been so cleverly arranged in one easily accessible place. They are
ventilated and partially lighted through the pavement, and by gas. Under
each sub-way goes a sewer, with a path beside it for the sewer men when
at work. Outside the sub-way are ordinary house vaults of two or three
storeys high, according to the height of the Viaduct. These are divided
by transverse walls; and, when houses are built against it, the Holborn
Valley Viaduct will be shut out from sight, except in the case of the
simple iron girder bridge over Shoe Lane, and the London, Chatham, and
Dover bridge, with its sub-ways for gas and water pipes, and the fine
bridge over Farringdon Street. You will, we trust, now see how
marvellously every yard of space has been utilized by the engineer, from
the roadway down to the very foundations. A few words must now be said
about the splendid bridge over Farringdon Street. This has public
staircases running up inside handsome stone buildings—the upper parts of
which have been let for business purposes. It is a handsome skew bridge
of iron, toned to a deep bronze green by enamel paint, and richly
ornamented; its plinths above ground, its moulded bases, and its shafts,
are respectively of grey, black, and exquisitely polished red granite.
Its capitals are of grey granite, also polished, and set off by bronze
foliage. Bronze lions, and four statues of Fine Art, Science, Commerce,
and Agriculture, stand on the parapet-line on handsome plinths. These,
and the projecting balconies and dormer window of the stone buildings
just named, with their four statues of bygone civic worthies,—Fitz
Aylwin, Sir William Walworth, Sir Thomas Gresham, and Sir Hugh
Myddleton,—enhance the effect of the whole.
Poor Chatterton, “the marvellous boy, the sleepless soul that perished in
his pride,” after poisoning himself, in 1770, ere he was eighteen years
of age, in Brooke Street, on the north side of Holborn, was laid in a
pauper’s grave, in what was then the burying-ground of Shoe Lane
Workhouse, and is now converted to very different purposes.
Let us now come to Fleet Street. This thoroughfare—the main artery from
St. Paul’s to the west—for many years has been emphatically one of
literary associations, full as it is of newspaper and printing-offices.
The late Angus B. Reach used humorously to call it, “The march of
intellect.” Wynkyn de Worde, the early printer, lived here, and two of
his books were “fynysshed and emprynted in Flete Streete, in ye syne of
ye Sonne.” The _Devil_ tavern, which stood near Temple Bar, on the south
side, was a favourite hostelrie of Ben Jonson. At the _Mitre_, near
Mitre Court, Dr. Johnson, Goldsmith, and Boswell, held frequent
rendezvous. The _Cock_ was one of the oldest and least altered taverns
in Fleet Street. The present poet-laureate, in one of his early poems,
“A Monologue of Will Waterproof,” has immortalized it, in the lines
beginning—
“Thou plump head waiter at the _Cock_,
To which I most resort,
How goes the time? Is ’t nine o’clock?
Then fetch a pint of port!”
[Picture: Fleet Street from Mitre Court to Temple Bar. (The Temple, the
River, Lambeth, and Houses of Parliament in the distance.)]
Dr. Johnson lived many years either in Fleet Street, in Gough Square, in
the Temple, in Johnson’s Court, in Bolt Court, &c., &c.; and in Bolt
Court he died. William Cobbett, and Ferguson the astronomer, were also
among the dwellers in that court. John Murray (the elder) began the
publishing business in Falcon Court. Some of the early meetings of the
Royal Society and of the Society of Arts took place in Crane Court.
Dryden and Richardson both lived in Salisbury Court. Shire Lane (now
Lower Serle’s Place), close to Temple Bar on the north, can count the
names of Steele and Ashmole among its former inhabitants. Izaak Walton
lived a little way up Chancery Lane. At the confectioner’s shop, nearly
opposite that lane, Pope and Warburton first met. Sir Symonds D’Ewes,
‘Praise-God Barebones,’ Michael Drayton, and Cowley the poet, all lived
in this street. Many of the courts, about a dozen in number, branching
out of Fleet Street on the north and south, are so narrow that a stranger
would miss them unless on the alert. Child’s Banking House, the oldest
in London, is at the western extremity of Fleet Street, on the south
side, and also occupies the room over the arch of Temple Bar. St.
Bride’s Church exhibits one of Wren’s best steeples. St. Dunstan’s
Church, before it was modernized, had two wooden giants in front, that
struck the hours with clubs on two bells—a duty which they still fulfil
in the gardens belonging to the mansion of the Marquis of Hertford in the
Regent’s Park. North of Fleet Street are several of the _Inns of Court_,
where lawyers congregate; and southward is the most famous of all such
Inns, the large group of buildings constituting the _Temple_. In the
cluster of buildings lying east from the Temple once existed the
sanctuary of Whitefriars, or _Alsatia_, as it was sometimes called, a
description of which is given by Scott in the _Fortunes of Nigel_. The
streets here are still narrow and of an inferior order, but all
appearance of Alsatians and their pranks is gone. The boundary of the
city, at the western termination of Fleet Street, is marked by Temple
Bar, consisting of a wide central archway, and a smaller archway at each
side for foot-passengers. There are doors in the main avenue which can
be shut at pleasure; but, practically, they are never closed, except on
the occasion of some state ceremonial, when the lord mayor affects an act
of grace in opening them to royalty. The structure was designed by Sir
Christopher Wren, and erected in 1672. The heads of decapitated
criminals, after being boiled in pitch to preserve them, were exposed on
iron spikes on the top of the Bar. Horace Walpole, in his _Letters_ to
Montague, mentions the fact of a man in Fleet Street letting out
“spy-glasses,” at a penny a peep, to passers-by, when the heads of some
of the hapless Jacobites were so exposed. The last heads exhibited there
were those of two Jacobite gentlemen who took part in the rebellion of
1745, and were executed in that year. Their heads remained a ghastly
spectacle to the citizens till 1772, when they were blown down one night
in a gale of wind.
Having thus noticed some of the interesting objects east of Temple Bar,
we will now take
A FIRST GLANCE AT THE WEST END.
The Strand—so called because it lies along the bank of the river, now
hidden by houses—is a long, somewhat irregularly built street, in
continuation westward from Temple Bar; the thoroughfare being incommoded
by two churches—St. Clement Dane’s and St. Mary’s—in the middle of the
road. On the site of the latter church once stood the old Strand
Maypole. The new _Palace of Justice_, about whose site there have been
so many Parliamentary discussions, will stand on what is at present a
huge unsightly space of boarded-in waste ground, formerly occupied by a
few good houses, between Temple Bar and Clement’s Inn, and many wretched
back-slums. Not having the gift of prophecy as to its future, and warned
by so many long delays in its case, we hazard no conjecture as to the
time when it will gladden our eyes. In the seventeenth century the
Strand was a species of country road, connecting the city with
Westminster; and on its southern side stood a number of noblemen’s
residences, with gardens towards the river. The pleasant days are long
since past when mansions and personages, political events and holiday
festivities, marked the spots now denoted by Essex, Norfolk, Howard,
Arundel, Surrey, Cecil, Salisbury, Buckingham, Villiers, Craven, and
Northumberland Streets—a very galaxy of aristocratic names. The most
conspicuous building on the left-hand side is Somerset House, a vast
range of government offices. Adjoining this on the east (occupying the
site once intended for an east wing to that structure), and entering by a
passage from the Strand, is a range of rather plain, but massive brick
buildings, erected about thirty years ago for the accommodation of King’s
College; and adjoining it on the west, abutting on the street leading to
Waterloo Bridge, is a still newer range of buildings appropriated to
government offices—forming a west wing to the whole mass. The Strand
contains no other public structure of architectural importance, except
the spacious new Charing Cross Railway Station and Hotel on the south
side. The eastern half of the Strand, however, is thickly surrounded by
theatres—Drury Lane, Covent Garden, the Olympic, the Charing Cross, the
Adelphi, the Vaudeville, the Lyceum, the Gaiety (built on the site of
Exeter ’Change and the late Strand Music Hall, as is the Queen’s on that
of St. Martin’s Hall in Long Acre), the Globe, and the Strand Theatres,
are all situated hereabouts. Exeter Hall is close by, and—pardon the
contrast of ideas—so is Evans’s Hotel and Supper Rooms, long famous for
old English glees, madrigals, chops and steaks, and as a place for
friendly re-unions, without the objectionable features of many musical
halls.
Northumberland House, the large mansion with the lion on the summit,
overlooking Charing Cross, is the ancestral town residence of the
Percies, Dukes of Northumberland. Over the way is St. Martin’s Church,
where lie the bones of many famous London watermen—the churchyard used to
be called “The Waterman’s Churchyard”—and those of that too celebrated
scoundrel and housebreaker, Jack Sheppard, hanged in 1724. There also
lies the once famous sculptor, Roubilac, several monuments from whose
chisel you can see in Westminster Abbey. Here, too, are interred the
witty, but somewhat licentious dramatist, Farquhar, author of _The Beau’s
Stratagem_; the illustrious Robert Boyle, a philosopher not altogether
unworthy to be named in the same category with Lord Bacon and Sir Isaac
Newton; and John Hunter, the distinguished anatomist.
The open space is called Charing Cross, from the old village of Charing,
where stood a cross erected by Edward the First, in memory of his Queen
Eleanor. Wherever her bier rested, there her sorrowful husband erected a
cross, or, as Hood whimsically said, in his usual punning vein, apropos
of the cross at Tottenham,
“A Royal game of Fox and Goose
To play for such a loss;
Wherever she put down her orts,
There he—set up a _cross_!”
At the time of the Reformation you could have walked with fields all the
way on the north side of you from the city to Charing Cross. The history
of the fine statue of Charles the First, by Le Sœur, is curious. It was
made in Charles the First’s reign, but, on the civil war breaking out ere
it could be erected, was sold by the Parliament to a brazier, who was
ordered to demolish it. He, however, buried it, and it remained
underground till after the Restoration, when it was erected in 1674. It
marks a central point for the West End.
[Picture: Trafalgar Square]
Southward are Whitehall and the Palace of Westminster; to the west,
Spring Gardens, leading into St. James’s Park; north-west lie Pall Mall
and Regent Street. By-the-way, it just occurs to us that the old game
_Paille Maille_, from which Pall Mall took its name, was a sort of
antique forerunner of croquet! The former game, much beloved by Charles
the Second, was played by striking a wooden ball with a mallet through
hoops of iron, one of which stood at each end of an alley. Eastward is
the Strand. On the north, Trafalgar Square, with Nelson’s statue and
Landseer’s four noble lions couchant—which alone are worth a visit—at its
base. There are also statues to George IV., Sir Charles James Napier,
and Sir Henry Havelock. A statue of George the Third—with, we think, in
an equestrian sense, one of the best “seats” for a horseman in London—is
close by. The National Gallery bounds the northern side. Of the two
wells which supply the fountains in this square, one is no less than 400
feet deep.
Turning southward from this important western centre, the visitor will
come upon the range of national and government buildings—the Admiralty,
the Horse Guards, the Treasury, the Home Office, &c., &c.—in Whitehall,
particulars of which will be given a few pages further on under
_Government Offices_. Then there are the fine Banqueting House at
Whitehall, and some rather majestic mansions in and near Whitehall
Gardens—especially one just erected by the Duke of Buccleuch. Beyond
these, in the same general direction, are the magnificent Houses of
Parliament, Marochetti’s equestrian statue of Richard Cœur de Lion,
Westminster Abbey, Westminster Hall, Mr. Page’s beautiful new Westminster
Bridge, and a number of other objects well worthy of attention.
Returning to Charing Cross, the stranger may pursue his tour through
Cockspur Street to Pall Mall, and thence proceed up Regent Street. As he
enters this new line of route, he will perceive that the buildings assume
a more important aspect. They are for the most part stucco-fronted, and
being frequently re-painted, they have a light and cheerful appearance.
In the Haymarket are Her Majesty’s Theatre and the Haymarket Theatre; and
near at hand are many club-houses and Exhibition-rooms. Pall Mall
displays a range of stone-fronted club-houses of great magnificence. At
the foot of Regent Street is the short broad thoroughfare of Waterloo
Place, lined with noble houses, and leading southwards to St. James’s
Park. Here stands the column dedicated to the late Duke of York; not far
from which is the Guards’ Memorial, having reference to troops who fell
in the Crimea. From this point, for about a mile in a northerly
direction, is the line of Waterloo Place, Regent Street, and Portland
Place, forming the handsomest street in London. At a point a short way
up we cross Piccadilly, and enter a curve in the thoroughfare, called the
Quadrant; at the corners of which, and also in Upper Regent Street, are
some of the most splendid shops in London, several being decorated in a
style of great magnificence. Regent Street, during the busy season in
May and June, and during the day from one till six o’clock, exhibits an
extraordinary concourse of fashionable vehicles and foot-passengers;
while groups of carriages are drawn up at the doors of the more elegant
shops. Towards its upper extremity Regent Street crosses Oxford Street.
The mass of streets west from it consist almost entirely of private
residences, with the special exception of Bond Street. In this quarter
are St. James’s, Hanover, Berkeley, Grosvenor, Cavendish, Bryanstone,
Manchester, and Portman Squares—the last four being north of Oxford
Street; and in connection with these squares are long, quiet streets,
lined with houses suited for an affluent order of inhabitants. In and
north from Oxford Street, there are few public buildings deserving
particular attention; but a visitor may like to know that hereabouts are
the Soho, Baker Street, and London Crystal Palace Bazaars. The once
well-known Pantheon is now a wine merchant’s stores.
The residences of the nobility and gentry are chiefly, as has been said,
in the western part of the metropolis. In this quarter there have been
large additions of handsome streets, squares, and terraces within the
last thirty years. First may be mentioned the district around Belgrave
Square, usually called _Belgravia_, which includes the highest class
houses. North-east from this, near Hyde Park, is the older, but still
fashionable quarter, comprehending Park Lane and May Fair. Still farther
north is the modern district, sometimes called _Tyburnia_, being built on
the ground adjacent to what once was “Tyburn,” the place of public
executions. This district, including Hyde Park Square and Westbourne
Terrace, is a favourite place of residence for city merchants and other
wealthy persons. Lying north and north-east from Tyburnia are an
extensive series of suburban rows of buildings and detached villas, which
are ordinarily spoken of under the collective name St. John’s Wood:
Regent’s Park forming a kind of rural centre to the group. Standing
higher and more airy than Belgravia, and being easily accessible from
Oxford Street, this is one of the most agreeable of the suburban
districts.