PUTNEY—FULHAM BRIDGE—FULHAM
The way from Barnes into Putney is now, when once you have passed the
Common, wholly cut up into a suburb of streets originally mean, and at
last, by contact with the stern squalors of life in a striving quarter
of London town, become little removed above the level of slums. But
Barnes Common remains something considerable in the way of an asset,
and through it still runs the Beverley Brook along the last mile or two
of its nine-miles course from Cheam to its outlet into the Thames at
Barnes Elms. I should say it would be a sorry business attempting to
fish nowadays in the Beverley Brook; but regrets on that score are the
sheerest futilities, and it should rather be a matter for congratulation
that the brook has not been piped, and so altogether hidden from the
eye of day. One, to be sure, regrets many things within this sphere of
change; notably the very considerable slices the London and South-Western
Railway has been allowed to appropriate from the very middle of the
Common, not only for the purpose of running the line through it, which,
it might possibly be argued, was a geographical necessity, but also
for the building of its Barnes station there, which was nothing less
than a sublime piece of impudence. What is left of Barnes Common is
particularly beautiful in the way of towsled gorse and some pretty clumps
of silver-birches. On a byroad leading off it into Putney—a route called
Mill Hill road—is something very much in the nature of a surprise in
these parts, nothing less than an old toll-house; a queer little building
picturesquely overhung by bushy poplars. Its unexpected presence here (it
must be now the nearest survival of its kind to London) hints that the
days when Putney was really a village are not, after all, so long gone by.
Presently we come into Putney, and to the tramway terminus hard by the
bridge and under the shadow of the church-tower, whose great sundial
warns all and sundry that “Time and Tide Wait for no Man.” Is it a
result of laying to heart this maxim, truism, self-evident proposition,
or whatever else you choose to call it, that the tramway-cars and the
motor-omnibuses hustle so impatiently round the corners of the bridge?
Those two church-towers, that stand so prominently here on either side of
the river and seem to bear one another close company, although divided,
as a matter of fact by a quarter of a mile, with the broad river running
between, belong to the churches of Putney and Fulham, both now to be
regarded as parts of London.
Putney Church, standing with its churchyard actually on the river bank,
was almost wholly rebuilt about 1856, the exterior disclosing walls built
of what was once white brick, reduced now to a subdued neutral tint. The
old tower is left, and some few small and late and much-battered brasses,
now preserved on the walls of a little north-eastern chancel chapel,
which is a survival from an earlier building, and has a fine, though
small, vaulted ceiling.
The usual absurd legends that seek to explain place-names to the ignorant
and the credulous are, of course, not lacking here. The names of Putney
and Fulham, and their situation directly opposite one another, on the
Surrey and the Middlesex sides of the river, both so prominently marked
by their church-towers, seem to the popular mind to need some story.
The writer on places becomes tired in course of time at meeting those
familiar rival “sisters” of legend, who are always found, in these
strictly unveracious tales, to have been the competitive builders of the
two churches occasionally found in one churchyard, of the twin towers
possessed by some few parish churches, and indeed of most buildings
which, for no very immediately apparent reason, have been duplicated
within sight of one another.
[Illustration: THE OLD TOLL-HOUSE, BARNES COMMON.]
Here, therefore, we learn of two strange sisters of gigantic stature
who, in the conveniently vague period of “once upon a time,” lived on
these opposite banks of the Thames. One is almost ashamed to repeat the
stupid tale of their having agreed to build the towers of the respective
churches, and having only one hammer between them, being accustomed to
throw it across from one to the other when required. When the sister on
the Fulham side needed the hammer, she asked the other to throw it over
“full home.” When it was returned, it was flung with a will, in response
to the request “put nigh!” The flinging back and forth with every stone
bedded must have been very wearing, and the shouting terrific. At last
the hammer got broken, and had it not been for the help of a blacksmith
up-river, who promptly mended it, the building must have ceased. Of
course you guess where this kindly craftsman lived. Where else than at
the place ever after called, in memory of him, “Hammersmith”?
The expansion of Putney from the likeness to a country village which
it wore until quite recent times well within the memory of many who do
not yet call themselves old, dates from the completion of the new and
commonplace bridge that spans the river here in five flattened arches,
and is seven hundred feet in length, and cost over £240,000. Handbooks
and guides of various sorts will tell those who know nothing about it
that the old wooden bridge which this replaced in 1886 was “ugly and
inconvenient.” The inconvenience we may readily enough grant, but no
artist who ever knew old Putney Bridge will agree to its having been
ugly. Indeed, so picturesque was it, in its maze of timbering, that every
one who knew it, and at the same time owned the artistic sense, bitterly
regretted its clearing away to give place to the present commonplace,
though convenient, stone structure. Old Putney Bridge was the first to
span the river between Fulham and Putney, and was originally projected
in 1671. The proposal to build a bridge here was in the first stage
discussed in Parliament, and there met with such opposition and ridicule
that the scheme failed and was not revived until 1722, finally meeting
with the approval of the House and receiving the Royal sanction in the
early part of 1726. It is well worth while, after that space of time,
to recover some of the discussion in 1671 respecting the providing of a
bridge in place of the immemorially old ferry. It was not only honest
ridicule, but also a good deal of the fear and jealousy felt by “vested
interests,” that at first prevented a bridge being built here. And what
person, or what corporate body, think you, was threatened so seriously
by a bridge between Putney and Fulham? The owner of the ferry? the
local watermen? my Lord Bishop of London, whose palace was and still
is, on yonder bank? None of these were in such near prospect of being
overwhelmed; but it would appear that the great, ancient, and prosperous
City of London, more than five miles downstream, was in that perilous
state, on the mere threatening of a bridge at Putney. It was a Mr. Jones,
representative of the City of London in that honourable House, who caught
the Speaker’s eye and thus held forth, in mingled appeal, warning, and
denunciation:
“It is impossible to contemplate without feelings of the most afflictive
nature the probable success of the Bill now before the House. I am
sensible that I can hardly do justice by any words of mine to the
apprehensions which not only I myself personally feel upon the vital
question, but to those which are felt by every individual in the kingdom
who has given this very important subject the smallest share of his
consideration. I am free to say, Sir, and I say it with the greater
freedom, because I know that the erection of a bridge over the river
Thames at Putney will not only injure the great and important city which
I have the honour to represent, not only jeopardise it, not only destroy
its correspondence and commerce, but actually annihilate it altogether.”
It might be thought that this ludicrous extravagance of language would
have aroused derisive laughter; but no, the House appears to have taken
him seriously, for, “Hear, hears” are reported at this stage. Apparently
fortified by them, he continued in the same strain:
“I repeat, in all possible seriousness, that it will question the very
existence of the metropolis; and I have no hesitation in declaring
that, next to pulling down the whole borough of Southwark, nothing can
destroy more certainly than building this proposed bridge at Putney.
(Hear, hear.) Allow me, Sir, to ask, and I do so with the more confidence
because the answer is evident and clear, How will London be supplied
with fuel, with grain, or with hay if this bridge is built? All the
correspondences westward will be at one blow destroyed. I repeat this
fact boldly, because, as I said before, it is incontrovertible. As a
member of this honourable House, I should not venture to speak thus
authoritatively unless I had the best possible ground to go upon, and I
state, without the least fear of contradiction, that the water at Putney
is shallow at ebb, and assuming, as I do, that the correspondences of
London require free passage at all times, and knowing, as I do, that if
a bridge be built there not even the common wherries will be able to
pass the river at low water, I do say that I think the Bill one which
only tends to promote a wild and silly scheme, likely to advantage a few
speculators, but highly unreasonable and unjust in its character and
provisions; because independently of the ruin of the City of London,
which I consider inevitable in the event of its success, it will effect
an entire change in the position and affairs of the watermen—a change
which I have no hesitation in saying will most seriously affect the
interests of His Majesty’s Government, and not only the interests of the
Government, but those of the nation at large.”
Mr. Jones was followed by a member arguing with almost equal extravagance
and vehemence in favour of the proposed bridge. It appeared to him
that, if built, it “could not fail to be of the greatest utility and
convenience to the whole British nation.”
Then presently arose Sir William Thompson, who considered this project
“romantic and visionary.” He added, “If a bridge be built at Putney,
London Bridge may as well be pulled down. (Hear, hear!) Yes, Sir, I
repeat it—because this bridge, which seems to be a favourite scheme
of some honourable gentleman whom I have in my eye—if this bridge be
permitted, the rents necessary to the maintenance of London Bridge will
be annihilated; and therefore, as I said before, the bridge itself must
eventually be annihilated also. But, Sir, this is not all. I speak
affectionately of the City of London, and I hope I shall never be
forgetful of its interests (‘Hear, hear,’ from Mr. Jones); but I take
up the question on much more liberal principles, and assume a higher
ground, and I will maintain it. Sir, London is circumscribed—I mean the
City of London. There are walls, gates, and boundaries, the which no
man can increase or extend; those limits were set by the wisdom of our
ancestors, and God forbid they should be altered. But, Sir, though these
landmarks can never be removed—I say, _never_, for I have no hesitation
in stating that when the walls of London shall no longer be visible and
Ludgate is demolished, England itself shall be as nothing; yet it is in
the power of speculative theorists to delude the minds of the people
with visionary projects of increasing the skirts of the City so that it
may even join Westminster. When that is the case, Sir, the skirts will
be too big for our habits; the head will grow too big for the body, and
the members will get too weak to support the constitution. But what
of this? say honourable gentlemen; what have we to do to consider the
policy of increasing the town while we are only debating a question about
Putney Bridge? To which I answer, Look at the effects _generally_ of the
important step you are about to sanction: ask me to define those effects
_particularly_, and I will descend to the minutiæ of the mischief you
appear prone to commit. Sir, I, like my honourable friend the Member for
the City of London, have taken opinions of scientific men, and I declare
it to be their positive conviction, and mine, that if the fatal bridge
(I can find no other suitable word) be built, not only will quicksands
and shelves be created throughout the whole course of the river, but the
western barges will be laid up high and dry at Teddington, while not a
ship belonging to us will ever get nearer London than Woolwich. Thus,
not only your own markets, but your Custom House, will be nullified;
and not only the whole mercantile navy of the country be absolutely
destroyed, but several west-country bargemen actually thrown out of
employ. I declare to God, Sir, that I have no feeling on the subject but
that of devotion to my country, and I shall most decidedly oppose the
Bill in all its stages.”
All this reads sufficiently absurdly nowadays, but it is surpassed in
curious interest by the remarks added by a Mr. Boscawen, who, after
declaring that, before he had come down to the House he could not
understand what possible reason there could be for building a bridge at
Putney, went on to say that “now he had heard the reasons of honourable
gentlemen, he was equally at a loss to account for them.”
And then, with concentrated satire, he proceeded: “If there were any
advantage derivable from a bridge at Putney, perhaps some gentleman would
find that a bridge at Westminster would be a convenience.”
It should be remembered here that the first bridge at Westminster was
not opened until 1750. Until that date there was not any bridge between
London Bridge and Putney. Hence the true inwardness of the sarcasm in Mr.
Boscawen’s remarks already quoted, and of those now about to be set forth.
Thus he continued: “Other honourable gentlemen might dream that a bridge
from the end of Fleet Market into the fields on the opposite side of the
water would be a fine speculation; or who knew but at last it might
be proposed to arch over the river altogether and build a couple more
bridges; one from the Palace at Somerset House into the Surrey marshes,
and another from the front of Guildhall into Southwark (great laughter).
Perhaps some honourable gentlemen who are interested in such matters
would get up in their places and propose that one or two of these bridges
should be built of iron. (Shouts of laughter.) For his part, if this
Bill passed, he would move for leave to bring in half a dozen more Bills
for building bridges at Chelsea, and at Hammersmith, and at Marble Hall
Stairs, and at Brentford, and at fifty other places besides.”
Bridges at all those places have long since been built, and, of course,
many of them in iron; so the foolishness of one generation becomes the
sober commonplace fact of the next.
The bridge thus hotly debated and rejected and at last permitted to
be built, was eventually begun in 1729. It was wholly a commercial
speculation. The Company interested in it had at the beginning to satisfy
the claims of the Duchess Dowager of Marlborough, Lady of the Manor of
Wimbledon, and of the Bishop of London, Lord of the Manor of Fulham,
for the extinction of their respective rights in the ancient ferry. The
Duchess received £364 10_s._, and the Bishop the meagre amount of £23.
The three tenants of the ferry, however, received altogether as much as
£8,000; and at the same time the Bridge Act provided for £62 per annum to
be paid by the Company, in perpetuity, to the churchwardens of Putney and
Fulham; to be divided between the watermen, their widows and children,
for the loss of the Sunday ferry.
On November 27, 1729, the bridge was fully opened. The cost was
remarkably small. Including Parliamentary expenses and the amounts paid
to persons interested in the ferry, it totalled only £23,084 14_s._ 1_d._
The old building, narrow, and patched, and crazy-looking, but strong
enough to have stood for many more long years, remained to the last in
all essentials the bridge of 1729. It had twenty-nine openings, and at
the top of the cut-waters of every pier a sanctuary for foot-passengers
to step into when wheeled traffic occupied the narrow road. The modest
sum of one halfpenny freed the pedestrian, except on Sunday, when the
discouragement to gadding about on the Sabbath was a doubled toll. In
1880 the Metropolitan Board of Works purchased the bridge for £58,000,
and on June 26 of the same year it was declared free of toll. The last
chapter of its long story was concluded on May 29, 1886, when, upon the
opening of the new bridge, it was closed.
[Illustration: MONUMENT TO VISCOUNT MORDAUNT, FULHAM CHURCH.]
Putney Bridge is found sometimes referred to as “Fulham” Bridge,
but those references are few, and there has never been any general
disposition to style it other than the name it bears by common usage.
Yet it is as much Fulham Bridge as Putney. The present costly structure,
built at such great expense in 1886, is already of insufficient width
for conveniently carrying the great press of traffic that now uses it,
especially since electric tramways have been laid across. The cynical
indifference to the comfort and even the safety of other users of the
road often displayed by public bodies and by the engineers who lay
tram-rails, is shown markedly here, where the London County Council’s
lines run for a considerable distance within two feet of the kerb. It is
already so evident that the width of the bridge is insufficient that the
ordinary observer would not be surprised to find the necessary widening
works soon begun.
Fulham Church was rebuilt in 1881, and only the ancient tower of
the former building remains. It is in the Perpendicular style of
architecture, of a quite common type, and greatly resembles in general
style that of Putney Church, at the other end of the bridge; but is on a
much larger scale. It contains a peal of ten bells, of which the Fulham
people used to be very proud, but an inordinate fondness for ringing them
in crashing peals has destroyed any liking; and, in any case, Fulham of
to-day, as a part of London, has lost that sense of individuality which
used to take a proud interest in local possessions.
The interior of the church, which has weathered so greatly in the few
years of its existence that it resembles an ancient building, is rich
in monuments, but at one time possessed many more. The oldest is a
lozenge-shaped Flemish brass dated 1529 to one Margaret Svanders, with a
curious head-and-shoulders representation of the lady herself; but the
oddest of all the memorials here is that to John, Viscount Mordaunt,
including a statue of that nobleman, rather larger than life-size,
in white marble. It has now been banished to the tower, from the
prominent position it formerly occupied in the south aisle, and is not
a little startling, seen suddenly and unexpectedly in a half light. The
weird-looking figure is like that of a lunatic policeman standing on a
dining-room table in his socks, and pretending to direct the traffic,
with a sheet wound partly round his nakedness, and something like a
rolling-pin in his hand.
It stands on a raised slab of polished black marble, with a black
background throwing it into further relief. This extraordinary effigy was
sculptured by Bird, author of the original statue of Queen Anne in front
of St. Paul’s Cathedral, of which an exact replica by Richard Belt now
occupies the same spot.
The mad-policeman idea is due, of course, to the sculptor having chosen
to represent that distinguished nobleman as a Roman, with a truncheon,
which he is seen to be wielding with a mock-heroic gesture. The truncheon
typifies the official position he held as Constable of Windsor Castle.
Lord Mordaunt was a younger son of the first Earl of Peterborough.
Born in 1627, he was active among the younger Royalists, and figured
at last in the restoration of Charles the Second, who created him
Viscount Aviland, a title which seems to have been somewhat thrust into
the background. He died of a fever in 1675, and appears to have led an
active and an honourable life, which ought to have excused him from this
posthumous grotesquery. The whole monument is indeed a prominent example
of the fantastic taste of its period, and is set about with marble
pedestals bearing epitaph and family genealogy, and sculptured gauntlets
and coronets.
A number of very distinguished personages lie in the great churchyard.
Prominent among the later monuments, as you enter along Church
Row and past the Powell almshouses, is that of the fifth and last
Viscount Ranelagh and Baron Jones, who died November 13, 1885, in his
seventy-third year. There are still very many who well recollect the
distinguished-looking figure of Lord Ranelagh: a tall, slim, bearded man,
with his hair brushed in front of his ears in an old-world style, a silk
hat rakishly poised at an angle, a tightly buttoned frock-coat, in which
always appeared a scarlet geranium, throughout the year, and light-tinted
trousers. He gave the general impression of one who had seen life in
circles where it is lived rapidly; and to this his broken nose, which
he had acquired in thrashing a coal-heaver who had been rude to him in
the street, picturesquely contributed. He looked in some degree like a
survival from the fast-living age of the Regency, although, as a matter
of fact, he was born only when that riotous period was nearly over. The
very title “Ranelagh” has something of a reckless, derring-do sound. He
was one of the early Volunteers, and raised the Second (South) Middlesex
corps, of which he remained colonel until his death. The military
funeral given him by his men would have been of a much more imposing,
and even national, character, befitting the important part he took in
the Volunteer movement, had it not been that a general election was in
progress at the time. At such times the military and auxiliary forces are
by old statutes not allowed to assemble. The theory is the old one of
possible armed interference with the free choice of electors.
Numerous monuments to long-dead and forgotten Bishops of London are
found here. A group of them, eight in number, chiefly of the eighteenth
century, is found to the east of the church. They are a grim and
forbidding company. Amid them is found the meagre headstone and concise
inscription to a humorist of considerable renown: “Theodore Edward Hook,
died 24th August, 1841, in the 53rd year of his age.” Efforts to provide
a better monument have failed to secure support. Perhaps it is thought by
those who withhold their subscriptions that the reading his books is the
best memorial an author can be given.
[Illustration: THE TOWER, FULHAM CHURCH.]
Immediately to the west of the church extend the grounds of Fulham
Palace, which run for some distance alongside the river, where a strip
has been modernised and provided with an embankment wall, and opened to
the public as the “Bishop’s Park”; Fulham Palace and its wide-spreading
lands forming the “country seat” of the Bishops of London, whose “town
house” is in St. James’s Square. The Bishops of London have held their
manor of Fulham continuously for about nine centuries, and are said
in this respect to be the oldest landed proprietors in England. Here
they have generally maintained a considerable degree of state and
secluded dignity, hidden among the luxuriant trees and enclosed within
the dark embrace of a sullen moat, which to this day encircles their
demesne, as it probably has done since the time when a body of invading
Danes wintered here in A.D. 880-1. This much-overgrown moat is a mile
round, and, together with the surrounding ancient muddy conditions
which were remarkable enough to have given Fulham its original name of
the “foul home,” or miry settlement, must have proved a very thorough
discouragement to visitors, both welcome and unwelcome.
Fulham Palace does not look palatial, and its parts are very dissimilar.
The two principal fronts of the roughly quadrangular mass of buildings
face east and west. That to the east was built by Bishop Howley in 1815,
and has the appearance of the usual modest country mansion of that
period; while the west front, which is the oldest part of the Palace,
and dates from 1502-1522, when the then dilapidated older buildings were
cleared away, is equally typical of the less pretentious country-houses
of the age. It was Bishop Fitzjames who rebuilt this side, and his
approach gateway and the tower by which the Palace is generally entered,
remain very much the same as he left them. A modest, reverend dignity of
old red brick, patterned, after the olden way, with lozenges of black,
pervades this courtyard, upon which the simply framed windows still look,
unaltered. The sculptured stone arms under the clock upon the tower are
those of Bishop Juxon, more than a century later than the date of these
buildings, and have no connection with the position given them here in
modern times.
The Great Hall is immediately to the left of this entrance. It is in many
ways the most important apartment in Fulham Palace. Here, while it was
yet a new building, the ferocious Roman Catholic Bishop Bonner sometimes
sat to examine heretics, while on other occasions they would appear to
have been questioned in the old chapel, a structure that seems to have
been situated in the eastern, rebuilt, portion of the groups of offices.
The boldness of those sturdy men, many of whom became martyrs and
confessors for righteousness’ sake, reads amazingly. They were brought
here in custody to the enemy’s own precincts, and questioned for their
lives, with preliminary tastes, in the shape of burning on the hands, of
greater torments to come if their answers were deemed unsatisfactory. Yet
we do not find that they often faltered. On September 10, 1557, there
were brought before Bonner, in his private chapel here, Ralph Allerton
and three other religious suspects. To one of these Bonner propounded the
singular question, “Did he know where he was?” The answer came swiftly,
“In an idol’s temple.” This was bold indeed, but awfully injudicious,
according to modern ideas. But expediency and time-serving were cast
aside then, and men were earnest though they died for it. I do not know
what happened to the person who made that bitter repartee, but I suspect
he suffered for it.
[Illustration: THE FITZJAMES COURTYARD, FULHAM PALACE.]
In the Great Hall occasionally used by Bonner in his examination of those
who were not of his way of thinking in religious matters, Thomas Tomkins
had his hand burned over the flame of a candle. He perished at Smithfield
in February 1555.
This hall, after various changes, was converted into a domestic chapel
by Bishop Howley, who had demolished the old chapel in the course of his
rebuilding works. And so it remained until Bishop Tait had completed
his modern chapel, in 1867; when it became again the Hall, and the
marble flooring in black and white squares, with which it was paved, was
replaced by oak.
Among the several changes that followed upon Bishop Howley’s rebuilding
of a portion of the Palace was that by which the old dining-parlour was
converted into a kitchen. In the time when Beilby Porteous was Bishop of
London, 1787-1809, there hung over the mantelpiece an object that aroused
the curiosity of all the Bishop’s visitors; not because they did not know
what it was—for it was nothing more than a whetstone, a sufficiently
common object outside the dining-room of a Bishop—but because they could
not understand its being here. And when the Bishop further mystified his
guests by telling them it had been given to him on one of his journeys
as a prize for being an accomplished liar, they gave up wondering, and
waited for the story obviously belonging to it.
The particular journey on which he accomplished these supposed prodigious
feats of lying and prize-winning took him to Coggeshall, in Essex, which
appears at that time to have rejoiced in the possession of a “Liars’
Club.” The tale is well told in the old _New Quarterly Magazine_: “There
is a story that Bishop Porteous once stopped in this town to change
horses, and, observing a great crowd in the streets, put his head out
of the window to inquire the cause. A townsman standing near by replied
that it was the day upon which they gave the whetstone to the biggest
liar. Shocked at such depravity, the good Bishop proceeded to the scene
of the competition, and lectured the crowd upon the enormity of the sin,
concluding his discourse with the emphatic words: ‘I never told a lie
in my life,’ whereupon the chief umpire exchanged a few words with his
fellows, and, approaching the carriage, said: ‘My Lord, we unanimously
adjudge you the prize,’ and forthwith the highly objectionable whetstone
was thrust in at the carriage window.”
This inimical article in course of time disappeared from these walls,
later Bishops being less appreciative of the peculiar humour of
the situation, or perhaps feeling themselves to be unworthy of the
exceptional honour; for, after all, if Bishop Porteous “never told a lie
in his life,” surely he must have ranked with the only other personage
reputed to have been naturally truthful, George Washington. But it is
to be remarked that we have these statements from suspect sources—from
the personages themselves. The Bishop said he had never done such a
thing, and Washington as a boy declared he “could not.” Now, it has
been declared on eminent authority which no one will care to dispute
that “all men are liars,” and it would seem, therefore, that these two
were superhuman. They were not, on account of that alleged natural
truthfulness, one whit the better than their fellow-men, for there is
more joy in one sinner that sees the error of his ways and repents than
in a hundred just men.
On the north side of the old courtyard are the rooms especially
associated, according to tradition, with Bonner, whose ghost is said to
haunt the corridors and the apartment still known as his bedroom. This
part of the Palace is appropriately dark, and the passages narrow. These
rooms are now occupied by the servants, as also are those on two other
sides of the quadrangle, generally known as Bishop Laud’s rooms. Until
a few years ago—and perhaps even yet—the servants were wakened in the
morning by a man known as the “knocker-up,” who went round the courtyard
with a long wand, and tapped sharply with it at the upper windows.
In these days of pageants, the picturesque wooded grounds of Fulham
Palace have witnessed some striking reconstructions of the brave and the
terrible days of old. There was, for example, the Church Pageant, in
which numbers of participants enjoyed themselves immensely as in a long
bout of private theatricals, all in aid of some deserving charity. The
charity did not, it would appear, benefit after all, for those doings
resulted in a deficit, and a Military Pageant was held the following year
to make up the loss. What was done to abolish the loss that probably
resulted from this is not within my knowledge.
The Bishops of London, or the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, are now
making some profit by letting or selling land for building upon, around
the outskirts of the park. If any kind friend can help an overburdened
Bishop who cannot without difficulty make two ends meet, let him remember
the occupant of Fulham Palace. His bitter cry has appeared in the
newspapers, so that there can be no breach of delicacy in mentioning the
subject here.
Not the least of his burdens is the large sum it is necessary to
disburse before he can finally style himself “London.” Thus, the
Reverend Winnington Ingram, when installed Bishop of London, found his
accession to the Episcopal Bench and his coming to Fulham Palace a little
expensive. Other newly made Bishops had ever found the like, but they had
never before taken the public into their confidence, nor raised a howl of
despair at the fees customarily payable by new-made Right Reverend Father
in God. But this is an age of publicity, in which very few unexplored
or secret corners survive; and Dr. Ingram is essentially at one with an
epoch which has produced General Booth and the Reverend Wilson Carlile.
We should, however, be grateful for this, for by favour of it we learn
some curious ecclesiastical details that beset those unhappy enough to
have obtained high preferment in the Church.
[Illustration: THE GREAT HALL, FULHAM PALACE.]
Thus, on filling up a vacancy on the Bench of Bishops, the first step,
it seems, is that taken by the Crown Office, which confers upon Dean
and Chapter the Sovereign’s _congé d’élire_, or leave to elect; not, be
it said, the leave to elect whom they please, but permission to elect
whomsoever it shall please the Sovereign (or the Prime Minister at the
head of the Government at the time in power) to select, in place of the
right reverend prelate recently gathered to Abraham’s bosom. The warrant
for this humorous “leave” to elect is paid for by the Bishop who is
presently elected. It costs £10, and is but the first of a series of
complicated costs that come out of his pocket, and in the end total £423
19_s._ 2_d._
The initial warrant is followed by a certificate, costing £16 10_s._, and
that by letters patent, costing another £30, with 2_s._ for the “docquet.”
So far, your Bishop is only partly made. He is “elected by Dean and
Chapter.” Thereupon, through the Crown Office, the assent of the
Sovereign to the choice himself has made through his Prime Minister, is
graciously signified, and the original costs are reimposed, plus 10_s._
The chapter-clerk of the Bishop’s own cathedral then requests fees
totalling £21 6_s._ 8_d._
A technical form of procedure, known as “restitution of temporalities,”
has then to be enacted, not without its attendant fees, which include
£10 for a warrant, £31 10_s._ 6_d._ for a certificate, £30 for letters
patent, and 2_s._ for another “docquet.”
Next comes the Home Office, clamouring for Exchequer fees: £7 13_s._
6_d._ for the original _congé d’élire_, and the like for letters
recommendatory, Royal assent, and restitution of temporalities. The oath
of homage costs £6 6_s._ 6_d._
The new Bishop has then to reckon with the Board of Green Cloth, with
its homage fees to the Earl Marshal and the heralds, totalling £15 0_s._
2_d._
Your Bishop is not yet, however, out of the wood of expenditure. When he
takes his seat in the House of Lords the Lord Great Chamberlain’s Office
wants £5—and gets it. When he is enthroned the precentor pockets £10
10_s._, and the chapter-clerk £9 14_s._ 8_d._, the bell-ringers of the
Cathedral ring a merry peal—fee £10 10_s._ The choir then chorify at a
further expense of £6 17_s._ 4_d._
Have we now done? Not at all. The clerk of the Crown Office is tipped
half a guinea, plus two guineas for “petty expenses”; and takes £14 when
the Bishop takes his place among his brethren in the House of Lords.
When all these various officers of Church and State are busily picking
the new Bishop’s pockets, in advance of their being filled, as an
Irishman might say, the Archbishop himself is not behindhand. His turn
comes when the archiepiscopal fees for confirmation are demanded; and
they are heavy, costing in all £68 4_s._ 10_d._ These imposts are
made up of the following items: Secretary, with Archbishop’s fiat for
confirmation, £17 10_s._, Vicar-General, £31 0_s._ 10_d._, fees at
church where confirmation is made, £10 5_s._, and to Deputy Registrar,
for mandate of induction, £9 9_s._ To the Bishop’s own secretaries a
sum of £36 5_s._ is then payable. The Bishop may then, surveying these
devastations, at last consider himself elected, and in every way complete.
Let us hope that although the spreading tentacles of London town have
enfolded Fulham and abolished its old market-gardens and numerous stately
mansions in favour of commonplace streets, the evident episcopal wish to
be rid of Fulham Palace will not lead to it being alienated. It remains
one of the very few things that connect this now populous suburb with the
village that many still remember; and the romantic-looking moat, often
threatened to be filled up, is a relic of remote antiquity it would be
vandalism to destroy. “No one,” as Sir Arthur Blomfield remarked in 1856,
“could say that the Bishops of London had constructed that defence. We
may well hesitate to believe that any prelate, however rich and powerful,
would have in any age undertaken to dig round his house a moat of such
extent that, if intended as a means of defence, it would require a very
large force to render it effective; still less can we believe that it
was ever dug with any other object than that of defence.” The Danes
constructed it, and the bishops found it here when they came. It is fed
by a sluice communicating with the river, and was until recent times a
stagnant, malodorous place, owing to the sluice being rarely raised, the
ditch cleansed, or the water changed. On the rare occasions when the mud
was cleared away, the cost varied from £100 to £150, owing to the great
accumulation of it. Those were the times when lilies grew in the moat.
The Fulham people called them “Bishops’ wigs.” In 1886 the then Bishop of
London received a communication from the Fulham Vestry, requiring him to
fill up the evil-smelling moat, or to cleanse it. He had it cleaned out,
and it looks no less a place of romance than before. It is too greatly
overgrown with trees and brushwood to make a picture for illustration,
but while it lasts, with the woodland park it encloses, Fulham will still
keep some vestige of its olden condition of a Thames-side village.
INDEX
Abingdon, i. 159, 216-33
Ashton Keynes, i. 22-30
Augustine, St., i. 47
Bablockhythe, i. 161
Bampton, i. 121-4
Barnes, ii. 253-8
Basildon, i. 295
Benson, i. 268
Besselsleigh, i. 157-60
Beverley Brook, ii. 258
Binsey, i. 190-92
Bisham, ii. 45-50, 201
Bourne End, ii. 56
Boveney, ii. 109
Bray, ii. 69-81
Brentford, ii. 220-36
Brightwell, i. 268
⸺ Salome, i. 268
Buckland, i. 118-21
Burford, i. 105-7
“Burlington,” ii. 251
Burnham Abbey, ii. 105
Buscot, i. 89-92
Cæsar, Julius, ii. 157, 221-9
Cambridge, H.R.H. Duke of, ii. 64
Carfax Conduit, i. 215
Castle Eaton, i. 50-58
Caversham, i. 304-7
Chamey Brook, i. 124
Chertsey, ii. 150, 161, 201
Chiswick, ii. 245-53
Cholsey, i. 293
Churn, River, i. 17-19, 45, 94
Cirencester, i. 9-13, 18
Clanfield, i. 107-9
Clewer, ii. 110
Clifton Hampden, i. 247, 252-6
Cliveden, ii. 60-64
Coln, River, i. 66, 73, 74
Colne, River, ii. 141
Cookham, ii. 59
Cote, i. 124-7
Coway Stakes, ii. 157-65, 221
Cricklade, i. 30-46, 69
Crowmarsh Gifford, i. 283
Cumnor, i. 161-85
Damer, Anne Seymour, ii. 25
Datchet, ii. 131
Day’s Lock, i. 256, 259
Dorchester, i. 259-68
Dorney, ii. 86-105
Down Ampney, i. 47
Dudley, Robert, Earl of Leicester, i. 171-85
Eaton Weir, i. 92
Eisey Chapel, i. 50
Eton, ii. 115-19
Ewen, i. 21
Eynsham, i. 186-9
Fairford, i. 66, 73-85
“Fair Rosamond,” i. 193-6
Faringdon, i. 102, 110-17
Folly Bridge, i. 197-9
Fulham, ii. 259, 273-92
⸺ Palace, ii. 276-92
Gathampton, i. 290
Gaunt’s House, i. 141-5
Godstow, i. 193-6
Goring, i. 284-90
Great Faringdon, i. 102, 110-17
⸺ Marlow, ii. 51-6
Grove Park, ii. 245
Halliford, ii. 158
Ham, ii. 185
Hamble, River, ii. 30
Hambleden, ii. 30-4
Harcourt family, The, i. 146-9, 155, 186; ii. 136
Harcourt, Sir William, i. 207, 212
Hart’s Weir, i. 92
Hell-Fire Club, The, ii. 34-8
Henley, ii. 22-30
Hennerton Backwater, ii. 22
Hoby, Lady, ii. 49
Horton, ii. 137-41
Hurley, ii. 41-5
Hurst, ii. 8-10
Iffley, i. 200-7
⸺ Mill, i. 22, 203
Inglesham, i. 64-6
⸺ Round House, i. 64-6
Isis, River, i. 16, 69; ii. 5
Isleworth, ii. 210-20
Jesus Hospital, ii. 81
Kederminster family, The, ii. 120-8
Kelmscott, i. 66, 93
Kemble, i. 19-21
Kempsford, i. 58-64, 91-8
Kew, ii. 237
Kew Gardens, ii. 220, 230, 237
Kit’s Quarries, i. 106
Laleham, ii. 145-9, 162
Langley Marish, ii. 119-28
Latton, i. 47
Leach, River, i. 66, 94
Lechlade, i. 66-73, 85
“Lertoll Well,” i. 47-9
Leslie, G. D., R.A., ii. 64
Little Wittenham, i. 247, 251
Littleton, ii. 149
Loddon, River, ii. 7, 17
Long Wittenham, i. 241, 251
Maidenhead, ii. 64-8
Mapledurham, i. 300-4
Marlow, ii. 51-6
Marsh Lock, ii. 25
Medley, i. 190, 196
Medmenham, ii. 34-8
Milton, John, ii. 137-41
Mongewell, i. 268, 283
Morris, William, i. 94-8
Mortlake, ii. 253
Moulsford, i. 293
New Bridge, i. 138-41
Newnham Murren, i. 283
Norreys family, The, ii. 82-5
North Stoke, i. 283
Northmoor, i. 124, 145
Nuneham Courtney, i. 207-15
Oaklade Bridge, i. 29, 94
Oatlands, ii. 161, 167
Ockwells, ii. 82-6
“Old England,” ii. 225
“Old Man’s Bridge,” i. 117
Old Windsor, ii. 131
Osiers, i. 132-6
Palmer family, The, ii. 89-105
Pangbourne, i. 5; ii. 296-9
Patrick Stream, The, ii. 17
Penton Hook, ii. 150
Petersham, ii. 185-211
Pope, Alexander, i. 151, 304
Purley, i. 307-11
Putney, ii. 259-63
⸺ Bridge, ii. 263-73
Pye, Henry James, Poet Laureate, i. 113-15
Radcot Bridge, i. 101-7, 117
Ray, River, i. 50
Reading, i. 304, 307; ii. 1
Richmond, ii. 193, 209, 210, 237
Robsart, Amy, i. 172-85
Runnymede, ii. 132
Ruscombe, ii. 11
Rushes, i. 137
Rushey Lock, i. 118
St. Augustine, i. 47
St. Frideswide, i. 190, 192
St. John’s Lock, i. 89
St. Lawrence Waltham, ii. 11
Seacourt, i. 190
Seven Springs, i. 17
Shelley, Percy Bysshe, ii. 55
Shepperton, ii. 154, 158, 162
Shifford, i. 127
Shillingford, i. 268
Shiplake, ii. 17
⸺ Mill, i. 25
Shottesbrooke, ii. 11-17
Sinodun, i. 247-251, 256
Smith, Rt. Hon. W. H., ii. 30
Somerford Keynes, i. 21
Sonning, ii. 1-7, 10
Sotwell, i. 268
South Stoke, i. 283
Staines, ii. 141, 145
Standlake, i. 141
Stanton Harcourt, i. 146-56
Stanwell, ii. 142-5
Steventon, i. 234
Strand-on-the-Green, ii. 238-45
Streatley, i. 290-5
Sutton Courtney, i. 234-41
Swillbrook, The, i. 29, 94
Swinford Bridge, i. 186
Tadpole Bridge, i. 118, 121
Thame, River, i. 16
Thames and Severn Canal, i. 14, 45, 59, 64
Thames Head, i. 8, 14-18
Thames, River, i. 16-18; ii. 25
“Torpids,” i. 199
Trewsbury Mead, i. 15
Turnham Green, ii. 246-8
Twickenham, ii. 178
Twyford, ii. 8
Upper Somerford Mill, i. 21
Vicar of Bray, ii. 69-77
Villiers, Barbara, Duchess of Cleveland, ii. 101-5
Walker, Frederick, ii. 45, 59
Wallingford, i. 272
Walton, ii. 158, 161, 165
Warborough, i. 268-83
Wargrave, ii. 18-22
Water Eaton, i. 50-3
Water Hay, i. 29
Wey, River, ii. 154
Weybridge, ii. 150-4, 161
Whitchurch, i. 5; ii. 290
Willows, i. 128-32
Windrush, River, i. 141
Windsor, ii. 110-15
Wittenham, Little, i. 247, 251
⸺ Long, i. 241, 251
Wraysbury, ii. 135-7
Wye, River, ii. 59
Wytham, i. 166, 186-90
_Printed and bound by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury._