built during the reign of Edward I. on the site of an earlier church.
William Caxton was buried in St. Margaret's in 1491. The fact that there
was a chapel in the old Almonry where his printing press had stood led
to the union branches of the printing trades being called "Chapels" even
to this day. Sir Walter Raleigh is also buried here. The interest of St.
Margaret's centres in a stained glass window made in Holland for Henry
VII., setting forth the Crucifixion, which many times narrowly escaped
destruction and was finally in 1758 purchased by the churchwardens and
given its present resting place.
The open space between Westminster Abbey and Westminster Hospital is the
Broad Sanctuary so called because here in the 15th and 16th centuries
was a sacred place of refuge for criminals who took advantage of the
ancient protection of the Church. The Sanctuary was a square Norman
tower containing two chapels. Elizabeth Woodville, widow of Edward IV.,
was seeking refuge here when her two children were taken from her and
afterwards killed in the Tower by order of the Duke of Gloucester.
Westminster Hall, now connected with the Houses of Parliament, was begun
in 1097 by William Rufus, the Conquerer's son, and it was the scene of
the first English parliaments. Richard II. enlarged the building and was
here himself deposed. English kings up to the time of George IV. held
their coronation festivals here. Charles I. was condemned to death in
this Hall, and a tablet set in the floor marks the spot where he
listened to his sentence of death. Cromwell was here hailed as Lord
Protector, and here a few years later his head was exposed for the
satisfaction of his enemies. Guy Fawkes of Gunpowder Plot fame, William
Wallace, Sir Thomas More, Somerset, Essex, Strafford and a host of other
folk, were tried and sentenced to death in Westminster Hall. It was in
this old Hall, in our own days, that the body of King Edward VII. lay in
state.
Between the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey is an open space
called Old Palace Yard, where in 1618 Sir Walter Raleigh was executed,
and where the conspirators of the Gunpowder Plot met death opposite the
very house through which they carried the powder into cellars under the
House of Lords.
In Smith Square just beyond Westminster Abbey is the church of St. John
the Evangelist with its four queer looking towers, one at each corner.
It has been here since 1721. The story is told that it was ordered built
by a lady of wealth who objected to the plans originally drawn, and,
angry with the architect when he explained them to her, she kicked over
a footstool. As it lay upside down she pointed to it and cried
out--"Build it like that." The architect followed her instructions to
the letter, hence the odd appearing towers.
Church Street extending eastward from Smith Square towards the river is
identified with two of the books of Dickens. On the south side midway of
the block lived Jenny Wren, the dolls' dressmaker of "Our Mutual
Friend," whose back was bad and whose legs were queer; and down this
street, Martha, in "David Copperfield," fled to the river bent on
suicide, with Peggoty and Copperfield close at her heels.
What is now St. James's Park was once a marshy tract connected with the
leper hospital afterwards St. James's Palace. It remained uncultivated
until enclosed by Henry VIII., but was not actually laid out as a park
until the time of Charles II. It was this king who had the Mall for the
_palle malle_ game removed from beside St. James's Palace to the long
straight walk that marks the northern boundary of the park. Here the
fashionable game continued to be played by the cavaliers of the court.
For many a year, the Mall was the most fashionable and exclusive of
London's promenades, and it was along it that Charles I. walked to his
execution in 1648. Beau Brummell spent much time on the Mall, whether he
went to show to admiring friends the latest fashions in clothes at the
court of his friend and patron the Prince of Wales afterward George IV.
Birdcage Walk by St. James's Park takes its name from an aviary which
has been here from the time of James I. A continuous line of cages lined
the walk when Charles II. was king, and the "Keeper of the King's Birds"
was an important official.
In York Street to the south of Birdcage Walk, where the Queen Anne
Mansions are to-day was the house to which Milton removed in 1651. The
street was called Petty France then, from the number of French
Protestants residing there. In this house Milton became blind. Here his
wife died leaving three daughters, and later while still living here
Milton married Catherine Woodcock in 1656. A century and a half later
Hazlitt came here to live and set up a stone on the house-side:
Sacred to Milton
Prince of Poets
In the wainscoted room where Milton had often pursued his meditations
Hazlitt visited with Charles and Mary Lamb, Hayden and a host of others.
York Street was finally named in honour of the son of George III.,
Frederick, Duke of York.
In St. James's Park, where Buckingham Palace stands to-day, Buckingham
House was built in 1703 by order of John Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham.
Later it was given to Queen Charlotte by George III. to replace
Somerset House as a royal residence. Remodelled in 1825 it became the
present Buckingham Palace, the town residence of the King. The eastern
façade facing St. James's Park was added in 1846.
Separating the private grounds of Buckingham Palace from Green Park is
Constitution Hill, and in this road leading from the Palace to Hyde Park
Corner attempts were made to assassinate Queen Victoria in the years
1840, 1842 and 1849 by lunatics of various degrees.
The first building to the east of Hyde Park Corner is Apsley House,
built in 1785, presented to the Duke of Wellington by the Government;
where he dined the survivors of the Battle of Waterloo every year until
his death.
The much famed Elgin Marbles now in the British Museum when first
brought to London in 1803 from the Acropolis at Athens were placed in
Gloucester House in Piccadilly opposite Green Park. Lord Byron spoke
irreverently of these relics and their home, calling it the:
General mart
For all the mutilated blocks of art.
Aristocratic Park Lane in early days was a narrow path called Tyburn
Lane leading to Tyburn, the place of execution. It is still a narrow
way, but to-day lined with splendid houses and crowded with the
carriages of rich and fashionable Londoners.
Out of Park Lane leads Hertford Street, full of memories of persons of
note who have lived there. A tablet on the house at No. 14 indicates
that it has been the home of Dr. Jenner, the discoverer of vaccination.
Other dwellers in the street were Richard Brinsley Sheridan, dramatist
and politician, who lived several years at No. 10, and Sir Edward Bulwer
Lytton, novelist, whose house was No. 36.
Where Edgware Road now ends at Marble Arch was once an open space taking
its name from the Tyburn brook which flowed from the north to the Thames
River. This was a place of execution and malefactors of all kinds and
conditions were here executed until 1783. Among the many thousands who
met death at Tyburn were Jack Sheppard; Fenton, who killed the Duke of
Buckingham, and the thief Jonathan Wild who even on his way to the
gallows picked the parson's pocket. Oxford Street was then called Tyburn
Street and was the road that led straight from Newgate to the gallows of
Tyburn. The prisoners were carried in a cart, usually sitting on their
coffins, holding in their hands the nosegay presented to them in
accordance with old custom in the church of St. Sepulchre before
starting for their last ride. In each cart was a minister. Arrived at
Tyburn, the cart was stopped beneath the scaffold until the noose was
adjusted, then driven on, leaving the prisoner hanging. Hogarth's
picture of the execution of the "Idle Apprentice" gives a detailed
sketch of the scene and shows the galleries from which the spectators
watched the gruesome sight.
The ancient cemetery of St. George lay near to Hyde Park close by the
Marble Arch. There may still be seen here the Tomb of Laurence Sterne,
author of "Tristram Shandy" and the "Sentimental Journey." Mrs.
Radcliffe, writer of the "Mysteries of Udolpho," is buried in this
graveyard, part of which is now a spot for recreation.
Edgware Road starts northward from the Marble Arch and is the
present-day tracing of an old Roman Road.
The grave of the great actress Sarah Siddons is in St. Mary's
Churchyard, much of which is now a public park in narrow Harrow Road
leading from Edgware Road to the west. Close by is a statue in honour of
the memory of this woman of genius.
Upper Baker Street stretches a short distance from Marylebone Road to
the entrance of Regent's Park. It was in this street that Sherlock
Holmes had his rooms and the house is quite easy to find.
Marylebone got its name from a bourne or rivulet running through a
little hamlet far outside the City of London. As the church of this
village was dedicated to St. Mary it came quite naturally to be known as
St. Mary-on-the-bourne and this in time was shortened to Marylebone.
In Marylebone Road at the end of High Street is Old Mary-le-bone Church
where George Gordon, Lord Byron, was baptised in 1788. Although the
older church on this site which figures often in Hogarth's series of
paintings of "The Rake's Progress," is gone, in the churchyard there is
still the flat tombstone on which the "Idle Apprentice" used to throw
dice of a Sunday.
At No. 1 Devonshire Terrace Charles Dickens lived from 1839 to 1851.
Here he finished "Barnaby Rudge" and "Dombey and Son," and wrote
"Martin Chuzzlewit," "Old Curiosity Shop," "David Copperfield," "The
Haunted Man," "The Christmas Carol," "The Cricket on the Hearth,"
"American Notes," and "The Battle of Life." Here he spent many happy
hours with Carlyle, Longfellow, Hood, Landseer, Macready and a host of
other good and famous men who visited him.
A tablet on the house No. 2 Blandford Street running out of Baker Street
to the east, tells that it was here that Michael Faraday the
distinguished chemist served his apprenticeship.
Hertford House in Manchester Square is the Gaunt House of "Vanity Fair"
and it was from the fourth Marquis of Hertford that Thackeray drew his
picture of Lord Steyne. The building now contains the Wallace Collection
of paintings, given to the nation by Lady Wallace some years ago.
During the last years of his life Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton lived in
Grosvenor Square in the house numbered 12. This is a three-storied
structure with a high iron fence, and before its door pillars on which
are flambeaux snuffers attest the age of the building. These
extinguishers were used by the footmen to put out the flambeaux that
were carried lighted on the backs of carriages at night. Writing of
these lights the poet Gay says:
Yet who the footman's arrogance can quell
Whose flambeau gilds the sashes of Pall-Mall,
When in long rank a train of torches flame,
To light the midnight visits of the dame.
Many men and many women prominent in the life of London have lived in
houses looking upon this Square during its two hundred years of
existence.
Mayfair, an aristocratic residential section of London, has Bond Street
and Park Lane on the east and west; with Piccadilly and Oxford Street on
the south and north. It is named for a fair held where Shepherd's Market
is now in each May until about the middle of the 18th century.
Through the Mayfair district stretches Curzon Street named for the third
Viscount Howe--George Augustus Curzon; noticeable for having no
thoroughfare for carriages at either end. To the west it ends in the
cul-de-sac Seamore Place; to the east continued as Bolton Row it is
halted against Devonshire Gardens.
In Curzon Street at No. 8 lived the great friends of Horace Walpole the
sisters Mary and Agnes Berry. Walpole was a constant visitor during the
latter years of his life and it is thought that he strongly desired to
marry Mary Berry. Just opposite where Queen Street ends was the Curzon
Street Chapel which was demolished in 1900. It was in this church that,
according to general report, George III. was married to Hannah Lightfoot
in 1759. In the house No. 24 Chantrey the sculptor lived in an attic
during the early years of his struggle for recognition. Thackeray tells
us that Becky Sharp took "a small but elegant house in Curzon Street,"
when as Mrs. Crawley she planned to live on nothing a year. Lord Curzon,
former Viceroy of India, is the most notable member of the Curzon
family to-day.
Where Curzon Street ends Seamore Place juts off at right angles, only a
few yards in length. Here at No. 6 Lady Blessington held her salon in
1830.
Chesterfield House, at the southern end of South Audley Street, was
built for the fourth Earl of Chesterfield who lived and died here. He
wrote the famous Chesterfield letters and their style and eloquence
coined the adjective--Chesterfieldian.
Jostling side by side with the homes of the rich, just to the south of
Curzon Street, is a cluster of ancient shattered buildings and dingy
shops two hundred and odd years old. This district is known as
Shepherd's Market. Here the fair was held that gave the name to
Mayfair.
Many notables have lived in Clarges Street, named for Sir Walter
Clarges, a relative of General Monk's wife--Anne Clarges. Early in the
19th century No. 11 in this street was for two years the home of Lady
Emma Hamilton, the friend of the greatest of British Admirals, Lord
Nelson. At No. 21 lived the celebrated lady scholar, Elizabeth Carter, a
comrade of Dr. Johnson, Sir Joshua Reynolds and Edmund Burke. In this
street, too, lived Edmund Kean the actor, and Thomas Babington Macaulay,
equally famous in their different arts.
Charles Street has changed less in appearance and atmosphere than any
other of the Mayfair streets. It was here, where the house numbered 42
is, that Beau Brummel lived in 1792.
Memories crowd thickly about the old houses around Berkeley Square, laid
out in 1698. On the west side in the house numbered 45 Lord Clive the
founder of the British Empire in India, lived, and where he killed
himself in 1774. At No. 11 Horace Walpole whose letters give the record
of fashionable society of his day died in 1797.
Below the level of the Lansdowne Gardens, off Berkeley Street, is the
Lansdowne Passage. The curious iron bar that blocks the entrance is a
reminder of the act of a bold highwayman in the last days of the 18th
century. After robbing a man in nearby Piccadilly, and mounting his
horse, he dashed through Bolton Street, then through this passage and up
the stone steps at full gallop. The bars were put up to prevent a
recurrence of this. Anthony Trollope in his book "Phineas Redux" makes
this dark uncanny looking passage the scene of a murder, and the place
where a body was found.
Opposite Lansdowne Passage is Hay Hill, once a favourite resort of
highwaymen. Here the Prince of Wales, afterwards George IV., and the
Duke of York were halted one night by a man, revolver in hand, who fared
ill, however, as the two nobleman had only three shillings between them.
It was a custom to exhibit on Hay Hill the heads of executed persons as
an example to evildoers. Here was exposed the head of Thomas Wyatt the
younger, in the rebellion of 1554 when he was captured after his attack
on Ludgate Hill.
In Berkeley Street a few doors south of Berkeley Square lived Alexander
Pope, the poet, on the east side of the street opposite Lansdowne House.
Dover Street, named for a very early resident, Henry Jermyn, Lord Dover,
was long a thoroughfare noted for the homes of statesmen. John Evelyn,
the diarist, lived here, near Piccadilly, and in 1705 died here. To-day
it is wholly given over to trade.
Albemarle Street was a dignified thoroughfare, and here lived at
different times James and Robert Adam, two of the famous brothers who
laid out the Adelphi district; Zoffany, who painted the portrait of John
Wilkes; Lord Butte, and Charles and James Fox. Now it is as much of a
business section as it was once residential.
In quiet Savile Row the place of high-priced tailors, on No. 12, a
yellow brick house with link snuffers before the door, is a tablet
telling that here Grote the historian died, and reading:
George Grote
1794-1871
Historian
Died Here
Close by in Savile Row No. 14 is a house now quite conventional in
appearance where Sheridan the dramatist lived and died, as is set forth
on the tablet of the house-front:
[Illustration]
Shunned by his friends Sheridan was arrested for debt on his deathbed
and but for his physician who declared that his removal would be fatal
would have been moved away. In contrast to his lonely deathbed, his
burial in Westminster Abbey was attended by a great concourse of people
of the highest rank who gathered to do homage to the genius of the man
whom living they forgot.
Queer Albany Courtyard lies close by Sackville Street and is entered
from bustling Piccadilly, passing from a thoroughfare of busy shops to a
courtyard of asphalt, quiet and dignified. After a few yards the space
widens and a moderate sized square brick building looms up. This is the
"Albany," with no external suggestion of the many memories within. Byron
lived here, and Lord Lytton, Monk Lewis, Canning and other great folk.
In St. James's Church in Piccadilly almost opposite the "Albany," is
buried the eccentric Duke of Queensberry, better known as "Old Q," and
Charles Cotton, the friend of Izaak Walton, fisherman. A tablet on the
outer wall reads:
Tom D'Urfey
Dyed February 26
1723
This was the poet who wrote "Pills to Purge Melancholy," and whose name
crept into history more because of his friendship for Charles II. and of
the king's for him than for the actual merit of his verse. Addison wrote
of him: "Many an honest gentleman has got a reputation in his country,
by pretending to have been in company with Tom D'Urfey." Lord
Chesterfield, the letter writer, was baptised here.
St. James's Street off Piccadilly and terminating at the gateway of St.
James's Palace is the street in which Lord Byron lived, at No. 8, when
the world acclaimed him a poet. Of St. James's Street Frederick Locker
Lampson wrote:
Why that's where Sacharissa sigh'd
When Waller read his ditty;
Where Byron lived and Gibbon died
And Alvanley was witty.
Sir Christopher Wren died at his home in this street in 1723. Close by
the Pall Mall end the Conservative Club stands on the site of the house
where Gibbon, the historian of the Roman Empire, died in 1794. Next door
to Gibbon's home, set well back from the street, stood the Thatched
House Tavern, for two centuries a meeting place for littérateurs, and
such famous clubs as the Dilettanti and the Literary. The Brothers Club,
of which Dean Swift was one of the organisers, also met in the Thatched
House Tavern and concerning this club Swift wrote to Stella: "The end of
our Club is to advance conversation and friendship, and to reward
learning without interest or recommendation. We take in none but men of
wit, or men of interest; and if we go on as we began, no other Club in
this town will be worth talking of." But the time came before long when
he wrote again to Stella that there was much drinking and little
thinking at the Brothers and that the business the members met to
consider was usually deferred to a more convenient season. In one of the
shops beneath the wall of this tavern was the hair-dressing
establishment of the great Rowland who made a fortune with his Macassar
Oil--a fortune doubtless largely contributed to by his regular
business, since he charged five shillings for cutting hair.
St. James's Street ends at the gateway to St. James's Palace. This
gateway designed by Holbein is one of the few survivals of the original
palace where in the open fields was once a hospital for lepers founded
in 1190. The royal palace took the place of the hospital buildings under
Henry VIII., who had Holbein design the structure. It was a royal abode
until the time of George IV. Here Queen Mary died; here Charles I. slept
the night before he walked through St. James's Park to Whitehall and to
death, and here Charles II. and James II. were born. This, too, was the
refuge for Marie de Medici in some of her unhappy wanderings.
In Bury Street beyond St. James's Street, Steele lived after his
marriage. Horace Walpole also had lodgings here and so had Crabbe and
Tom Moore. Dean Swift lived in this thoroughfare for a time, and it was
from his Bury Street quarters that he wrote to the unfortunate Stella:
"I have the first floor, a dining room, and a bed chamber, at eight
shillings a week, plaguy dear."
Willis's restaurant in King Street stands on the site of Almack's the
famous club opened in 1765, of which strange stories have been
recounted. It is told that when a man dropped ill before the door and
was carried inside club members made bets on his chances of life or
death. When a doctor arrived his ministrations were interfered with
because the members said that any medical aid would affect the fairness
of the bets. So this must have been a great gaming place indeed.
Pall Mall now the thoroughfare of fashionable clubs got its name from
the Italian game of _palle-malle_ played with a palla and
maglia--otherwise ball and mallet--which Charles I. introduced into
England about 1635. Pall Mall was a suburban promenade until 1689 when
it was laid out as it is to-day. At first it was called Catherine Street
in honour of Catherine of Braganza Queen of Charles II. Nell Gwynne
lived in this street from 1671 until her death in 1687 where No. 79 now
is, and it was over the wall of the surrounding garden that she used to
talk with Charles II. Here gas was first experimented with as a street
illuminative, when in 1807 a row of lamps were set up before the
colonnade of Carlton House.
The Smyrna Coffee House celebrated in the days of Queen Anne for the
group of writers who gathered here to talk politics in the evenings was
in Pall Mall close to Waterloo Place on the south side. Prior and Swift
came here much together. Thomson the poet was a regular visitor and put
up a notice announcing that subscriptions would be taken by the author
for "The Four Seasons."
St. James's Square is a reminder of the times of Charles II. who had it
laid out. In a house on the east side, now London House, Lord
Chesterfield was born in 1694. Next door at the south-east corner now
part of Norfolk House, is where George III. was born in 1738. It was
around this square that Savage and Johnson brimful of much patriotism
but having little money used to walk together.
Where now stands the York Column in Waterloo Place leading to Waterloo
Steps and The Mall was the main entrance to Carlton House, built for
Henry Boyle, Lord Carlton, in 1709, and afterwards occupied by the
Prince Regent who became George IV. When the old building was demolished
in 1827 the columns of the entrance were saved and used in 1832 to form
the façade of the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square.
The name of the Haymarket has clung to it since the reign of Elizabeth
when it was a mart for the sale of hay and straw and which existed until
1829.
The short and crooked street called Suffolk, off Pall Mall East, began
its existence in the middle of the 17th century and marks the site of
one of the homes of the Earl of Suffolk. It was in this street that
Esther Vanhomrige lived for several years--Vanessa, the story of whose
life is inseparable from that of Dean Swift. It was here also that Moll
Davis lived in a house fitted up for her by King Charles II.
EIGHT
FROM REGENT STREET TO THE SHADOWS OF SOHO