royal road outlining the waterside. On one side were the castles of
noblemen fronting on the river, with gardens between, and state barges
carried the courtiers to the Tower, to Richmond or to Westminster
wherever the king was to be found. The chief castle belonged to Peter of
Savoy uncle of Henry III., and was set in the midst of an estate granted
by the king in 1245. In those days the bishops were the principal owners
of palaces on the Strand--the courtiers preferring the City as being
safer from the attacks of their enemies. But the bishops were regarded
as sacred and could live anywhere they pleased unmolested. The Strand
became a regular thoroughfare about 1560.
At the time of the Reformation the palace of Walter Stapleton Bishop of
Exeter was on the south, or river, side of the Strand and was called
Exeter House. Afterward when the Earl of Essex, Elizabeth's favourite
lived there it was called Essex House for him and the present Essex
Street so gets its name. The only tangible survival of Essex House is at
the end of the street--the aged and picturesque Water Gate, with the
worn stone stairs that once led directly to the water where the barges
received visitors from the palace. It was down these stairs that the
Earl of Essex was taken on his way to the Tower to be beheaded at the
command of the fickle queen.
In Essex Street just where is now an entrance into New Court stood the
tavern of the Essex Head. Here, in 1783, Samuel Johnson then suffering
from the diseases which caused his death in the next year established a
conversation club that was to meet three times a week. Johnson attended
regularly as long as he was able to walk from his home not far away in
Bolt Court.
Opposite Essex Street in the middle of the Strand is the church of St.
Clement Danes, designed by Sir Christopher Wren in 1681. At this church
Dr. Johnson was a regular attendant for years and the pew he sat in, No.
18 in the north gallery, is marked with a tablet telling of "the
philosopher, the poet, the great lexicographer, the profound moralist
and chief writer of his times." Joe Miller, the man of jokes, was buried
here, and his epitaph records among other things that he was a facetious
companion, a sincere friend and a tender husband, which is about all a
man need be.
In the 16th century the Bishop of Bath's palace was on the river side of
the Strand. It was called Arundel House and gave its name to Arundel
Street.
Norfolk Street, now a quiet thoroughfare of private hotels, is where at
No. 21 Dickens located "Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings." In the first house
from the river on the west side Peter the Great of Russia lived when he
came to London in 1698 on the invitation of William III., to make a
personal study of British industrial pursuits, military art, science and
trade, a study which he did make, carrying back to Russia with him more
than five hundred artisans, surgeons, artificers and engineers.
In Surrey Street the dramatist William Congreve who has been called the
greatest English master of pure comedy lived at the height of his
success, long after "The Old Bachelor," "Love for Love" and "The
Mourning Bride" had made him famous, and here he died.
Placed squarely in the centre of the Strand opposite Somerset House,
forming a cross current in the rush of traffic, stands the church of St.
Mary-le-Strand, since 1717. It is on the spot of an old Maypole and
bears the name of an older church demolished to make room for Somerset
House. The Maypole was set up originally in 1601 to honour the wife of
General Monk.
In the open space to the west of the church of St. Mary-le-Strand, in
1634, the first cab stand in London was established.
[Illustration: Entrance to old Roman Bath--Strand Lane]
In the narrow Strand Lane opposite the church of St. Mary-le-Strand is
the framework of an ancient Roman bath. It is one of the few survivals
of Roman London and has been here for fifteen hundred years. Water still
flows into it from a hidden spring and it is well worth passing through
the door of No. 5 Strand Lane to look upon this relic and to be assured
that the days of Boadicea were real.
The great inner square of the present Somerset House covers vaults built
into the cellars forming tombs in which lie many a favourite of King
James I. and King Charles I. But though the building has the same name
all else is changed and it is not the same Somerset House which
represented the height of political and kingly grandeur. At the time of
the Reformation on the Strand by the river were palaces of the Bishops
of Landaff, Chester and Worcester, and these palaces were torn down by
"The Protector" the Earl of Somerset uncle of Edward VI. On their site
in 1549 he had Somerset House built. But the lives of nobles were brief
in those days and Somerset was beheaded in 1552 before the completion of
his palace which became Crown property. James I. gave the mansion to
his queen Anne of Denmark and she called it Denmark House. When Charles
I. came to the throne Queen Henrietta Maria lived in Somerset's palace
and liked it so well it was her home for many years. In the reign of
Charles II., Somerset House passed to Queen Catherine of Braganza. It
was here that Inigo Jones died, and here that at different times lay in
state the bodies of Anne of Denmark, James I. and Oliver Cromwell. In
1775 when Buckingham House in St. James' Park was purchased for Queen
Charlotte, wife of George III., to replace Somerset, the home of many
famous folk was destroyed. Then the present structure was erected and
since that time has been used for various offices of State, requiring an
army of Government clerks and officials.
Midway between the Strand and the river, closed in by buildings and
reached by winding ways of which Savoy Street is one, is the Savoy
Church, the only reminder of the great palace which stood in this domain
of the House of Savoy. In 1246 Henry III. granted to his wife's uncle
Peter of Savoy certain land along the Thames. On this land Peter of
Savoy built a palace outside the City walls between the road called the
Strand and the River Thames. When he died in 1268, bequeathing his
Palace of Savoy in London to the reverent friars of Montjoy, they in
turn sold the palace to Queen Eleanor. She left it to her son Edmund of
Lancaster. After that it became the headquarters of the Duchy of
Lancaster and is much to be read of until 1381 when it was destroyed by
the followers of Wat Tyler. Henry IV. came into possession of the Duchy
of Lancaster on the death of John of Gaunt and in this roundabout way
the present Savoy Church became a "Chapel Royal." From 1381 the year of
its demolishment until 1509 it was little more than a ruin. In 1509
Henry VII. founded a hospital for the poor on the site--a group of
buildings directly on the river. This was finally dissolved in 1702, and
the buildings, used for various purposes, gradually vanished until now
only the chapel remains. This has been restored many times but much of
it is the same--part of the Lancastrian palace of Savoy.
A great modern hostelry, the Savoy Hotel, stands on part of the site of
the old Palace of Savoy and the statue over the entrance is that of
Count Peter of Savoy former owner of the palace.
On the north side of the Strand between Burleigh and Exeter streets and
on ground now occupied by a popular restaurant was Exeter House, the
home of the great statesman William Cecil, Lord Burleigh. Queen
Elizabeth visited here and on his explaining that he was unable to stand
in her presence, "because of the badness of my legs," the queen
graciously replied: "We do not make use of you, My Lord, for the badness
of your legs, but for the goodness of your head." The famous Exeter Hall
occupied this site later, but was demolished in 1908.
In York Street, laid out in the 17th century, on the south side at No. 4
Thomas De Quincey lived and wrote "The Confessions of an English
Opium-Eater;" a gruesome chronicle much read and said to be partly
autobiographical. A sadness seems to hang about the place, especially
when it is "To be Let," with gaping windows and desolate brick front.
For a century Bow Street has been closely associated with the chief
police court of London where many famous criminals have ended their days
of liberty. Wycherley the dramatist lived here, when he lay ill, and
Charles II. came to him and gave him the five hundred pounds that took
him to the south of France in search of health.
Grinling Gibbons, also had his home in Bow Street. A remarkable carver
in wood, whose work adorns many of the London church interiors, he was
an unknown worker in a small English town when John Evelyn the 17th
century writer and diarist discovered him and placed his work before
King Charles II. But in London Gibbons' art was not at first recognized
and he had a struggle for existence. In time however he became master
carver to the Court, an appointment which lasted until the reign of
George I. The subjects of his carvings were usually flowers, foliage,
birds and lace and they are remarkable for their delicacy of finish and
naturalness. He also finished many works in bronze and marble.
In a house standing where the Bow Street police station is now Henry
Fielding wrote "Tom Jones" in 1749,--a story famous as a picture of the
times and undoubtedly containing much autobiography.
At the northwest corner of Russell Street where it touches Bow, stood
Will's Coffee House, where from 1660 on for fifty years the literary
life of London centred. The coffee house was named for William Urwin,
the original owner. Dryden spent his dinner hours here for 35 years and
was the acknowledged leader of literary fashion until his death in 1700.
This, too, was the favourite house of Wycherley and Congreve the
dramatists.
To-day on the site of Will's Coffee House stands the old home of Charles
and Mary Lamb, where was written the first series of the "Essays of
Elia." Russell Street is a place of wholesale fruit and vegetable
dealers now, but there are signs of old-time pleasantness to be found,
especially in the delightful cornices over many of the windows.
Opposite Will's, Button's Coffee House was established in 1712, presided
over by Addison's old servant Daniel Button. As Will's was a place for
literary controversy, Button's was first of all ground for the
discussion of matters political. Joseph Addison was the recognized head
of the coterie who met there, among whom were Alexander Pope, Ambrose
Philips, Thomas Tickell, Henry Carey, Richard Steele and Richard Savage.
One faithful habitué was a playwright named Charles Johnson, whose fame
rested chiefly on the fact that for many years he wrote a play every
season and went to Button's every day. Steele, then editing the
"Guardian," was so constant in his attendance that he used the rooms as
his editorial office, setting up a lion's head, into the mouth of which
correspondents deposited communications to which Steele replied in the
pages of the "Guardian." Button the proprietor died in 1730 in great
poverty and was buried in the churchyard of St. Paul's, Covent Garden,
at the expense of the parish.
Another celebrated coffee house was Tom's, on the north side of Russell
Street, at No. 17, taking its name from Thomas West its first
proprietor. West killed himself by jumping from the second story window
of the house in 1722 but the business was continued with considerable
success until 1814.
Far back in the 13th century all the land about what is now the Covent
Garden district was a real garden, a great fertile tract attached to the
convent of the monks of Westminster. Since those early days it has
always been associated with flowers and growing things and the Covent
Garden Market is now the chief flower, fruit and vegetable market of
London. A map of the middle of the 16th century shows it a tract
stretching approximately from the Strand to the Long Acre of to-day and
surrounded by a wall. The Crown granted the land to the Bedfords in
1552, and in 1621 Inigo Jones planned the Covent Market Square. In 1831
the market buildings of this day were erected, but they have since been
added to and improved.
Under the Piazza in Covent Garden was Bedford's Coffee House, the
successor in popularity to Will's and Button's. Here gathered David
Garrick, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, William Hogarth, Samuel Foote and
Henry Fielding. The house continued a popular rendezvous until about
1803.
On the west side of Covent Garden, plain, dingy and unkempt in
appearance, blending with the unpleasantness of the streets surrounding
the market, is the church of St. Paul's, Covent Garden. Francis, fifth
Earl of Bedford, in the 17th century owned all the land hereabouts and
directed Inigo Jones to build a chapel for Covent Garden. But, he
explained, it must not cost much money--build simply a barn. And Inigo
Jones responded: "It shall be the handsomest barn in England." And he
built St. Paul's. One of the memories associated with it is the record
that here, in 1773, William Turner, the hair-dresser of Maiden Lane, was
married to Mary Marshall. Their son was baptised here in 1775 and
afterwards became the artist Joseph Mallord William Turner. In the
forlorn burial ground back of this church were buried Samuel Butler,
author of "Hudibras," in 1680; Grinling Gibbons, the wood carver, in
1721, and Edward Kynaston, an actor of female rôles, in 1712. This actor
gained fame not only as a rare interpreter of character, but on one
memorable occasion by keeping King Charles II. waiting, "because the
queen was not yet shaved." William Wycherley, dramatist and author of
"The Country Girl," was laid here in 1715, and T. A. Arne, composer of
"Rule Britannia," in 1778. It is here, too, that Daniel Button,
proprietor of the famous Button's Coffee House in Russell Street, lies,
and others whose names are known all over the world.
Close by busy Covent Garden Market, in the house numbered 27 Southampton
Street, David Garrick the actor lived for more than twenty years. A
fanciful tablet over the doorway reads:
David Garrick
Lived Here
1750-1772
Southampton Street takes its name from the Earl of Southampton, and was
the main approach to Covent Garden in the reign of Charles II.
Unattractive Maiden Lane leading from Southampton Street back of the
Adelphi Theatre is narrow and usually overcrowded with many people and
business vehicles. It was in this street, where the house No. 20 stands,
that the great Turner was born in 1775, his father here having carried
on his profession of hair-dresser. Voltaire, the Frenchman, lived in
this thoroughfare for a time. In our own times, close by the stage door
of the Adelphi, the actor William Terriss was done to death by a
madman.
Claude Duval the highwayman celebrated in song and story was captured in
"The Hole in the Wall," a well-patronized tavern of the 17th century. It
stood in Chandos Street, the second house from Bedford on the north side
of the road.
[Illustration: Adelphi Terrace]
High above Victoria Embankment, Adelphi Terrace, with Cleopatra's Needle
just below by the riverside, shows a line of fine old derelict houses
whose windows command a view of the Thames, Waterloo and Charing Cross
bridges, and the picturesque confusion of shipping on the Surrey side so
often muffled in fog. In the house No. 5, Garrick the actor died, and on
a tablet are the words:
David
Garrick
Actor
Lived Here
B 1716
D 1779
The neighbourhood is known as The Adelphi. In 1760, four brothers,
Scotch architects named Adam, began laying out the roads, and their
names were given to William, Adam, John and Robert streets. At No. 2
Robert Street lived Thomas Hood, and here he wrote the "Song of the
Shirt."
Near Buckingham Street once stood the palace of George Villiers, Duke of
Buckingham, given him by King James I. Before that, in the time of the
Reformation, it had belonged to the Archbishop of York and was on the
south, or river, side of the Strand. The street is dreary and desolate
appearing now. In a house at one end near the old Water Gate Dickens had
Betsy Trotwood engage a room for David Copperfield in the book of that
name. Across the way at the southwest corner overlooking the river
Samuel Pepys lived for many years, and Jean Jacques Rosseau and David
Hume lived together in this street in 1765.
In the public gardens beyond Buckingham Street is the Water Gate of York
House, a substantial relic in the middle of green lawns. It was built
by the Duke of Buckingham as the first stage in the rebuilding of York
Palace but the task was never completed.
Villiers Street is a clean and quiet thoroughfare, where people seem to
walk sedately as though strolling through a graveyard. It is named for
George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, who was a fashionable courtier much
beloved by King James I., and who paid gallant court to Anne of Austria,
wife of the French King Louis XIII. The establishment of Charing Cross
Station robbed the street of its western side. Pepys' companion diarist,
John Evelyn, lived hereabouts, and Richard Steele, too, after the death
of his wife.
A newspaper office now occupies Number 149 Strand where Mrs. Siddons the
actress passed the night after her first appearance in London when she
captured the town by her art.
Charing Cross railway station stands where was once Hungerford Market,
which in 1669 took the place of the recently burned mansion of Sir
Edward Hungerford. On the Villiers Street side were a line of factories,
among them Warren's blacking factory where Charles Dickens worked as a
boy, the scenes and workers of which he reproduced in "David
Copperfield," changing only the character of the business from blacking
to wine. The river then crept up to what is now the northerly side of
the Embankment. At the foot of Villiers Street was the Hungerford Stairs
where passengers landed from the river. There were many of these
"Stairs" along the waterside and two reminders of them may be seen in
Essex and York gates.
When King Edward I., in 1290 journeyed from Lincoln to Westminster Abbey
with the body of his beloved Queen, Eleanor of Castile, he rested the
coffin on the spot now called Charing Cross. Some say the name Charing
was an alteration of Chère Reine (dear queen), but the locality was so
called before Edward's day so this cannot be verified. Charing was a
little settlement that lay in the fields between London and Westminster
and was at first called Cherringe. At all events, in the year after
Eleanor's body had rested here Edward erected a memorial cross of Gothic
design--which has since then been called Eleanor's Cross--to mark where
the coffin had rested, one of nine similar monuments commemorating the
various stages of the journey. In successive reigns, for almost four
hundred years, Eleanor's Cross was alternately defaced, reinstated or
repaired, on the occasion of coronations or visits of royalty. Finally
Parliament had it removed in 1647, but a modern copy of it stands to-day
in the courtyard of the Charing Cross railway station.
Across the road from Charing Cross railway station Golden Cross Hotel
preserves the name of a famous place in old stage-coach days. The
original house of this name stood on the site now held by the Nelson
Column. In front of the original tavern, Mr. Pickwick of "Pickwick
Papers" and his friends met Alfred Jingle for the first time and from
here the entire party took the coach for Rochester. At this tavern,
David Copperfield met Steerforth, some years after their school days
together, when Copperfield had been put "into a small bedchamber, which
smelt like a hackney-coach, and was shut up like a family vault."
Where Drummond's Bank is, at Charing Cross, once stood the celebrated
tavern "Locket's Ordinary," where Thackeray in the novel "Henry Esmond,"
placed the dispute between Lord Mohun and Lord Castlewood ending at
Leicester Fields and in the killing of the patron of Esmond.
Just beyond Northumberland is Craven Street one of the lonely ways
leading from the busy Strand to the river. On the house No. 7 is a
tablet reading:
Lived Here
Benjamin Franklin
Printer
Philosopher and Statesman
Born 1706
Died 1790
In this street too, in Craven Buildings, in the time of William and
Mary, dwelt charming Mrs. Bracegirdle who was called the Diana of the
stage, and in the same house lived another actress, Madame Vestris. No.
8 is supposed to be the house in which lived Scrooge, of Scrooge and
Marley, in Dickens' "Christmas Carol." On the door is the knocker
pointed out as the one Scrooge looked at on Christmas Eve, imagining it
looked like the face of Marley.
Where the Grand Hotel stands in Northumberland Avenue by Trafalgar
Square was once Northumberland House. This was one of the Strand palaces
begun by Henry Howard, Earl of Northumberland in 1602. For more than two
hundred years it was the home of the Northumberland family and at the
time of its demolishment it was looked upon as the finest historical
house in London.
Leading from the Strand, close by, is Northumberland Street, called
Hortshorne Lane when Ben Jonson lived here with his mother and his
step-father the bricklayer who wanted Jonson to follow the bricklaying
trade. Here he still lived when he came to be known as the great wit,
poet and scholar and the friend of Shakespeare, Bacon and Raleigh.
[Illustration: Trafalgar Square]
The statue of Lord Nelson and the four British lions guard Trafalgar
Square, where are also statues of Napier, Havelock and Gordon. There is,
too, an equestrian figure of George IV. It is told of this king that
when he was Prince of Wales he would insist that he had taken part in
the Battle of Waterloo, whither he pretended he had gone secretly. He
used often to say to the Duke of Wellington, "I was there, wasn't I,
Arthur?" To which the duke would invariably reply discreetly: "I have
frequently heard Your Royal Highness say so." This statue was to have
been placed on the marble arch at Buckingham Palace but was found to be
too large so was set up in the square instead. The statue of Charles I.
in this square was originally placed close by the church in Covent
Garden in 1633 until the Civil War when Parliament sold it to a brasier
who was told to break it up. The brasier, however, buried it, and when
Charles II. succeeded to the throne at the Restoration it was dug up and
placed on a pedestal designed by Grinling Gibbons and set up where it is
now. Trafalgar Square was, in 1829, an open space at Charing Cross where
St. Martin's Lane, the Strand, Cockspur Street, Pall Mall, Whitehall and
Northumberland Avenue came to a point. The 145 foot pillar crowned with
the statue of Lord Nelson commemorates his death at the Battle of
Trafalgar Bay in 1805.
The columns of the façade of the National Gallery were taken from the
Carlton House when that historic palace was demolished in 1827.
SEVEN
A PASSING GLIMPSE OF MANY WINDOWS
Short and narrow Downing Street is the real centre of the British
Empire, for the building numbered 20, looking very much like a cheap
lodging house, has been the home of the Premier of England these two
hundred years, since Robert Walpole was Prime Minister.
Burial in Westminster Abbey is the highest mark of recognition and
honour that can be bestowed by the English nation. In this grand old
church have been crowned all the sovereigns of England from the time of
Saxon Harold. Where the Abbey stands to-day there was once a church
commenced by Sebert, King of Essex, in the year 610. It was on Thorney
Island, the boundaries of which are not now traceable, for closely
cemented partly by nature partly by artifice, it has become a solid
part of the British Isles. The original church was later destroyed by
the Danes. Another quite as large as the present one was begun in 1050
in the reign of Edward the Confessor and parts of this old edifice can
be traced to-day. In 1220, Henry III. began the rebuilding of the
Confessor's church but it was almost destroyed by fire before its
completion. The damage was repaired by Edward I., and the church was
added to by Edward II., Edward III., Henry VII., and indeed by all other
sovereigns down to the year 1714, when Sir Christopher Wren undertook
its complete restoration, adding the western towers as they are now.
Perhaps no other spot in all the world is so truly holy ground and the
number of the great ones of the earth sleeping here is very large.
[Illustration: Interior of St. Margaret's, Westminster]