Streets. One or two of the houses to the north of the latter have still
retained a certain cottage-like appearance, a memory of the bygone
village. Lyon's Place, a straggling mews, preserves the name of the
benefactor who left the estate he had bought here to found Harrow
School; and the names Aberdeen, Cunningham, Northwick, etc., are
associated with the school.
The Regent's Canal runs under Aberdeen Place. Emanuel Church, a curious
little square building with an Ionic portico, was formerly known as
Christ's Chapel. It was largely remodelled in 1891, and seats over 1,000
persons. On the interior walls are several memorial tablets.
Edgware Road forms the western boundary of the parish. It is a very
ancient road. In the 1722 edition of Camden's "Britannia" we read:
"Towards the Northern boundary of Middlesex a military way of the Romans
commonly called Watling Street enters this country, coming straight
along from the older Verulam to London over Hampstead Heath; not the
road which now lies through Highgate, for that, as is before observed,
was opened only about 400 [marginal note, 300] years ago by permission
of the Bishop of London, but that more ancient way (as appears by the
old charters of Edward the Confessor) which ran along near Edgeworth, a
place of no great antiquity."
The difficulty of accounting for the entrance of the road at this
particular point has been solved in various ways. It has been suggested
that a circuit had been made to avoid the great Middlesex forests, but a
more likely theory is that it followed this route to avoid the Hampstead
and Highgate hills. Edgware was the name of the first town it passed
through after the forests of Middlesex.
We have only to deal with the east side of the road at present. This is
lined with shops, varying in quality and increasing in size towards the
Marble Arch. There are no buildings of importance. The road ends in
Oxford Street, the ancient Tyburn Road, a name associated with the
direful history of the gallows.
The Tyburn gallows were originally a huge tripod, subsequently two
uprights and a cross beam. The site was frequently changed, so that both
Marylebone and Paddington can claim the dreadful association. Timbs says
that the gallows were erected on the morning of execution right across
the Edgware Road, opposite the house at the corner of Upper Bryanston
Street. This house has iron galleries from which the Sheriffs watched
the execution, and in it after the ceremony the gallows were deposited.
Galleries were erected for spectators as at a gladiatorial show, and
special prices were charged for special exhibitions. Among the people
who suffered at Tyburn, the best known are: Roger de Mortimer, for
treason, 1330; Perkin Warbeck, 1449; the Holy Maid of Kent and her
confederates, 1534; Robert Southwell, the Elizabethan poet, 1595; Mrs.
Turner, murderess of Sir T. Overbury, 1615.
In 1660-61, on the anniversary of Charles I.'s execution, Cromwell,
Ireton, and Bradshaw were dragged from their graves and hanged at
Tyburn, after which their heads were cut off and exposed on Westminster
Hall, and their bodies buried beneath the gallows.
Jack Sheppard was hanged here in 1724, and the last person to suffer at
Tyburn was John Austin, in 1783. The turnpike gate across the road near
the gallows remained until 1825. It was a double turnpike, with gates on
both the Edgware and Uxbridge Roads.
The Marylebone Road was at first called the New Road, when it was cut in
1757. The Bill for its making had met with strong opposition in
Parliament from the Duke of Bedford. In consequence of his opposition a
clause was introduced prohibiting the erection of any building within 50
feet of the road, and the effect of this prohibition is to be seen in
the gardens which front the houses.
The new road was later subdivided into the Marylebone and Euston Roads.
Beginning at the Edgware Road, the first building on the south side to
attract attention is St. Mark's Church, designed by Blomfield. This
church is of red brick, and is prettily built and surmounted by a high
steeple. The schools form a part of the same building. The consecration
ceremony took place on June 29, 1872. A few doors further on are the
Christian Union Almshouses, founded in John Street, 1832, and extended
to Marylebone Road in 1868. These are supported by voluntary
contributions, and are for the benefit of old women or married couples
of the parishes of Marylebone, Paddington, or part of St. Pancras. The
inmates receive sundry gratuities, coal and lodging, but the eligible
must possess not less than 4s. 6d. per week.
A neatly built Roman Catholic church with high-pitched roof stands at
the corner of Homer Row. This was built about 1860, and is called the
Church of Our Lady of the Rosary. The northern side of the Marylebone
Road, for the distance traversed, consists of huge red brick flats in
the most modern style.
Standing back a little from the road, again on the south side, near
Harcourt Street, is Paddington Chapel, for Congregationalists.
Queen Charlotte's Lying-in Hospital and Midwifery Training School comes
soon after. This was founded in 1752, and was the third of its kind to
be established in London. It was at first situated in Bayswater, and
moved to the present site in 1813. In 1809 the Duke of Sussex was
elected president for life, and it was he who induced Queen Charlotte to
give the hospital her patronage, and to allow it to be called by her
name. The Duke was the guiding spirit of the institution until his death
in 1843. In 1857 the present building was erected on the site of the
older one.
No. 183 is the Yorkshire Stingo public-house, which preserves the name
of a celebrated tavern and place of entertainment. From here the first
pair of omnibuses in the Metropolis were started on July 4, 1829. They
ran to the Bank and back, and were drawn by three horses abreast. The
return fare was a shilling, which included the use of a newspaper. A
fair was held at the Yorkshire Stingo on May 1 for many years. Close by
are the St. Marylebone Public Baths and Wash-houses, which claim the
honour of having been the first of the kind in the Metropolis.
The St. Marylebone County Court adjoins. This was erected in 1874-75,
when the need for further accommodation than that afforded by the old
Court House was felt.
Seymour Street was cut through a nest of slums about 1872-73; it partly
replaced the old Stingo Lane, which extended from Marylebone Road to
Crawford Street, and was a most disreputable thoroughfare. The Samaritan
Free Hospital, for diseases peculiar to women, occupies the place of ten
numbers, 161 to 171. This is a fine modern building with fluted
pilasters running up the frontage to an ornamental pediment. The
memorial stone was laid on July 24, 1889, by the King, then Prince of
Wales. The hospital was first established by Dr. Savage in Orchard
Street in 1847. The celebrated engineer James Nasmyth, after whom a
ward is named, left a bequest of L18,000. There is a well staircase in
the building which separates the hospital into two parts, one devoted to
medical, the other to surgical cases. The benefits of the hospital are
extended free to patients from all parts of the world, not even a
subscriber's letter being required. The only requisites are that the
applicant must be poor and respectable and a suitable case, then she is
taken in directly a vacancy occurs.
Almost opposite the hospital is the Great Central Hotel, and behind it
the railway-station, in an elaborate style that forms a contrast to some
of the dismal termini in London. The Western Ophthalmic Hospital, a
gloomy-looking stuccoed building, is near at hand. This was founded in
1856.
The small streets leading from the Marylebone Road into York and
Crawford Streets are poor in character. In the north of Seymour Place is
a small Primitive Methodist chapel, erected in 1875. York Street, in
spite of being a little wider, is not much better than its neighbours.
In Wyndham Place is the Church of St. Mary's, Bryanston Square, in the
style of Grecian architecture so much affected in this parish. The
architect was R. Smirke. Dibdin, the bibliographer, was the first
incumbent of this church, and the poetess L. E. Landon was married here
June 7, 1838.
Bryanston and Montagu Squares are almost duplicates. They are built on
ground known as Ward's Field, where there was formerly a large pond,
which was the cause of many fatal accidents. Near this spot was a little
cluster of cottages called Apple Village. The squares were built about
the beginning of the present century. They are lined by large houses in
a uniform style, and are as fashionable now as in 1833. The Turkish
Embassy is at No. 1, Bryanston Square, at the south-east corner.
Horace Street was once known as Cato Street, and was the scene of the
infamous conspiracy which originated with Thistlewood in 1820. The
conspiracy was to murder the Cabinet Ministers, burst open the prisons,
set fire to the Metropolis, and organize a revolution. Thistlewood and
his fellow-conspirators were caught in a hay-loft in this street, where
they used to hold their meetings, and the five of them, including the
ringleader, suffered the extreme penalty of the law, while the rest were
transported. It is now a poor and squalid thoroughfare, occupied by
general shops, and reached only by a covered entry at each end.
In Nutford Place is St. Luke's Church, built in the Early English style
in 1854. It stands on the site of a cholera hospital, which was not used
during the great epidemic of 1849, as there was not a single case in
the parish. The church was built in memory of this great deliverance.
The Marylebone Presbyterian church stands between Upper George Street
and Little Queen Street.
Upper Berkeley Street contains a Jewish Synagogue, built in 1870 for
Jewish dissenters. Brunswick Chapel was built in 1684 by Evelyn Cosway
for Lady Berkeley.
In Bryanston Street there is a synagogue which was built for the Spanish
and Portuguese Jews resident at the West End. This has been recently
superseded by a much larger building in Lauderdale Road, Sutherland
Avenue. Quebec Chapel was built in 1788, and is now called the Church of
the Annunciation. It has numbered among its incumbents Dr. Alford and
Dr. Goulburn, later Deans of Canterbury and Norwich respectively, and
Dr. Magee. The number of chapels of every denomination thus shown to
cluster in this district is curious.
Great Cumberland Place is fashionable still. This was formerly Great
Cumberland Street, and was called after the Duke whose name is
associated with Culloden. It leads us out nearly opposite to the Marble
Arch.
OXFORD STREET.--Lysons says the north side of the street was completed
in 1729, and then called Oxford Street. But against this statement
there is the fact that a stone built into a house at the corner of
Rathbone Place was dated "Rathbone Place in Oxford Street, 1718."
Pennant remembers Oxford Street "a deep hollow road and full of sloughs,
with here and there a ragged house, the lurking place of cut-throats."
Its chief association will always be that of the many dismal processions
going to Tyburn, when some poor wretch, tied upright in a jolting cart
with his coffin in front of him, was taken in face of all the world from
Newgate to the gallows to "make a public holiday." The slow grinding of
the wheels, the jeers and shouts, the scuffling of those who would be
foremost not to miss one tremor of agony, must have combined to form a
torture felt even by the most hardened criminal. The scene must have
been more degrading still when the punishment was that the victim should
be flogged at the cart-tail.
The terrible procession is familiar to all from Hogarth's illustration
"On the way to Tyburn," one of the series of Idle and Industrious
Apprentices. Here he shows people among the crowd sinking up to their
knees in mire, thus proclaiming the state of the principal highways in
the eighteenth century.
The present Oxford Street is a wide and handsome thoroughfare, with many
splendid shops lining either side. There are no buildings of any public
importance. The Princess's Theatre occupies the site of a large bazaar
known as Queen's Bazaar. It has been many times remodelled and rebuilt.
The latest rebuilding was in 1879. Its chief claim to notice is that
here took place Kean's famous Shakespearian revivals.
The part of the borough lying to the north of Oxford Street includes
both the oldest and the most aristocratic quarters. Bryanston and
Montagu Squares have been already noticed.
Portman Square was begun about 1764, but not completed for nearly twenty
years. The centre was at first a shrubbery or wilderness, and here the
Turkish Ambassador placed a summer-house or kiosk, where he used to sit
when the Turkish Embassy was in this Square. Thornbury says he was then
occupying Montagu House, but Smith says the Embassy was in No. 78, and
Montagu House is now numbered 22. However, it is possible that the
numbers have been altered. The list of the names of the present
inhabitants reads like a page from the Court Guide. Among the most
important are those of the Duke and Duchess of Fife at No. 15, and
Viscount Portman at Montagu House.
This house was built for Mrs. Montagu, a celebrated blue-stocking of the
eighteenth century. She was born at York in 1720, and came to Montagu
House in 1781. Here she founded the "Blue-Stocking" Club, and gathered
round her many famous men and women. On May 1 every year she gave a
feast to all the chimney-sweeps of London, "so that they might enjoy one
happy day in the year," an expression hardly appreciated now when the
lot of chimney-sweeps is so very different from what it was then. Timbs
remarks of the house: "Here Miss Burney was welcomed and Dr. Johnson
grew tame." The lease reverted to the Portman family in 1874.
York Place, Baker Street, and Orchard Street form a long line cutting
straight through from Marylebone Road to Oxford Street. Baker Street was
named after a friend of W. H. Portman's. The combined thoroughfare is
uniformly ugly, with stiff, flat houses and some shops. Nos. 8 and 9,
York Place were once occupied by Cardinal Wiseman, and later by Cardinal
Manning. They are now Bedford College for Ladies. The Baker Street
Bazaar was originally designed for the sale of horses, and behind it,
until 1861, was held the Smithfield Cattle Club Show. Later, the bazaar
was the scene of Madame Tussaud's well-known waxworks.
Portman Chapel, near Adam Street, was built in 1779. Between King and
George Streets is Little George Street, in which is a French chapel,
built in the reign of George III. by _emigres_ from the French
Revolution. It is a Catholic chapel, and is called "Chapelle de St.
Louis de France."
Orchard Street was named after W. H. Portman, of Orchard Portman in
Somerset, who bought the estate of the manor. St. Thomas's Church is the
only object of note in the street; it was built by Hardwick, and
consecrated July 1, 1858.
In Lower Seymour Street is the Steinway Hall, used for concerts and
various entertainments. In Nos. 9, 11, 13 is the home of the Sisters of
St. Vincent de Paul. Two of these houses were formerly occupied by the
Samaritan Eye Hospital. A statue of our Lord stands over the central
doorway, and at His feet an inscription on stone announces that a
night-home for girls of good character was originally started here, and
was founded by public subscription in honour of the Sacred Heart of
Jesus, and in memory of the pilgrimage made to Paray-le-Monial on
September 4, 1873, by the Catholics of Great Britain and Ireland. The
Home is now for destitute children, and is on the same lines as the
sister institution at Westminster. The noticeable feature of the Home is
that girls who have been placed out as dressmakers, teachers, etc., and
are earning their own living, may still return every evening. The
Sisters are also engaged in many other charitable works.
Manchester Square was begun in 1776 by the building of Manchester House
on the north side, but the house was not finished until 1788. It was
built for the Duke of Manchester, but was afterwards the residence of
the Spanish Ambassador. The Roman Catholic chapel in Spanish Place was
built during the Embassy from designs by Bonomi. It was restored in
1832, but has been replaced by a large church in the next street, and
its site is now covered by high red-brick flats. The French Embassy
succeeded the Spanish, but was withdrawn at the time of the last
Revolution. The Marquis of Hertford afterwards occupied the house, and
called it after himself. He was succeeded by Sir Richard Wallace, who
built immense picture galleries round the garden at the back, enclosing
it in a quadrangle. He almost rebuilt the house, and at his death left
his famous collection of pictures and curios, which were brought here
from the Bethnal Green Museum, to be eventually bequeathed to the
nation, which was done on the death of Lady Wallace.
North Street leads us into a network of small slums, and Paradise Street
opens into a public recreation ground, laid out with trees and shrubs,
where the children play among sombre altar-tombs of a past generation.
This was formerly a cemetery, consecrated in 1733, and the Marylebone
historian, Smith, says that more than 80,000 persons have been interred
in it. Of the names he gives--country gentlemen, baronets, captains,
etc.--none are now remembered. George III.'s master-cook and Princess
Amelia's bedchamber woman are of little interest to us of the twentieth
century. The only men here buried who can claim a faint degree of
posthumous fame are Canning, father of the great statesman, and Bonomi
the architect.
The cemetery on the north side of Paddington Street was consecrated much
later, in 1772. In this also there is little of present interest.
Stephen Riou, one of Nelson's captains, killed in action at Copenhagen,
deserves mention, but the others have no public memory. The Mortuary and
Coroner's Court stand near the ground, of which the greater part is
attached to the workhouse for the benefit of the inmates.
Paddington Street was built about the time of the consecration of the
northern graveyard. It is in the centre of a poor district, and has
nothing to commend it. There is a mission-house and an Industrial Home
for Destitute Boys.
In Northumberland Street stands the workhouse, built about 1775, and
adjoining is a solid, well-built stone edifice containing the offices of
the Guardians of the Poor. At the north-east corner of the street is the
Cripples' Home and Industrial School for Girls. The inmates are taught
sewing, basket-making, and are educated, clothed, and boarded.
MARYLEBONE CHURCH.--William de Sancta Maria, who was Bishop of London in
the reign of King John, appropriated the church at Tybourn to the Priory
of St. Lawrence de Blakemore in Essex, but with the reservation of a
maintenance for a vicar. In 1525 the Priory suffered the fate of its
fellows, and the King seized the control of Tybourn Church. He passed it
on to Wolsey, with license to appropriate it to the Dean and Canons of
Christ Church. At Wolsey's request they granted it to the master and
scholars of his old college at Ipswich. When the Cardinal was disgraced
the King resumed the Rectory, and in 1552 granted it to Thomas Reve and
George Cotton. Before 1650 it came into the possession of the Forset
family, from which time its history has been identified with that of the
manor.
The ancient church stood at what is now the Oxford Street end of
Marylebone Lane, and on account of "its lonely situation" was repeatedly
robbed and despoiled. In 1400 the inhabitants made a petition to the
then Bishop of London, Robert Braybrooke, to remove it to a more
advantageous situation. This was granted, and license given them to
erect a new church of "stones or flints" at the place where they had
recently built a chapel. The former church had been dedicated to St.
John the Evangelist; the new one was dedicated to St. Mary. The spot on
which it was built is the same on which the old parish church now
stands, near the top of High Street.
This church is described as having been a "mean edifice." It was the
original of the church delineated by Hogarth in the marriage of the
rake, in his famous "Rake's Progress." This series was published in
1735, and the church was then in a ruinous condition. It was
subsequently pulled down and rebuilt (1741) in the form in which it now
stands, with the exception of some slight alterations. In a curious
diary in the Harleian MSS. collection it is stated that the Rev.
Randolph Ford, curate of Marylebone between 1711 and 1724, on one Sunday
"married six couples, then read the whole of the prayers and preached;
after that churched six women; in the afternoon read prayers and
preached; christened thirty-two children, six at home, the rest at the
font; buried thirteen corpses, read the distinct service over each of
them separately--and all this done by nine o'clock at night."
The only ancient charity connected with the church is a bread bequest
left by Thomas Verley in 1692. He left L50, the interest to be spent in
bread, twelve penny loaves to be given to the poor every Sunday. This
ceremony is still observed, but the value of the money has increased, so
that 5s. worth of bread is distributed every Sunday after service. The
mural tablets and monuments on the walls of the church are of some
interest and of great variety. The earliest dates back to 1644. The
Viscountess Ossington about ten or twelve years ago had them all
restored at her own expense.
Among the entries in the register are: J. Michael Rysbach, buried
January 11, 1770; Allan Ramsay, buried August 18, 1784; Rev. Charles
Wesley, buried April 5, 1788. Horatia, daughter of Lord Nelson and Lady
Hamilton, was baptized here, and also Lord Byron.
About 1770 the necessity for providing increased church accommodation
became apparent, and it was first proposed to erect the new building on
the north side of Paddington Street, where Mr. Portman offered a site.
This land was afterwards used for a burial-ground. The next suggestion
was for a site to the north of Portland Place, but this was also
abandoned. Finally, the present site to the north of the old church was
secured after many delays. Mr. Thomas Hardwicke (a pupil of Sir W.
Chambers) was the architect of the new church, which was designed at
first to be merely a chapel of ease. The first stone was laid July 5,
1813; when the building was finished it was resolved to make it the
parish church, and the old church the chapel of ease. Accordingly, this
was done by Act of Parliament, and the new church consecrated on
February 4, 1817. In this church Robert Browning was married in 1846.
The building is of great size, seating over 1,400 people. The front is
ornamented by an immense portico with six Corinthian columns, and the
building is surmounted by a high belfry tower. In 1883-84 a thorough
investigation of the church took place. The interior was restored in the
Italian Renaissance style, the architect employed being T. Harris. An
apse was added and other alterations made. The necessary funds were
raised by a bazaar held in the Portman Rooms, Baker Street, in which all
the features of the old Marylebone Gardens were reproduced. Close beside
the church are the Central National Schools of St. Marylebone, with a
higher grade Technical School for boys and girls opening on to the High
Street. The latter building overlooks the graveyard filled with hoary
tombstones.
At the top of High Street, in the Marylebone Road, formerly stood a
turnpike, otherwise there is little to remark on in High Street. It has
fallen from its former importance, and is a dingy, uninteresting
thoroughfare with poor shops. This, being one of the older streets,
follows a tortuous course, in contrast with more modern streets
westward. We are now at the nucleus of the old village of Marylebone.