[Illustration: ~Peerless Pool.~]
--------The sprightly youth
Speeds to the well-known Pool. Awhile he stands
Gazing th’ inverted landscape, half afraid
To meditate the blue profound below;
Then plunges headlong down the circling flood.
His ebon tresses, and his rosy cheek,
Instant emerge; and thro’ th’ obedient wave,
At each short breathing by his lip repell’d,
With arms and legs according well, he makes,
As humour leads, an easy winding path;
While, from his polish’d sides, a dewy light
Effuses on the pleas’d spectators round.
_Thomson._
Coming from the city, on the left-hand side of the City-road, just
beyond Old-street, and immediately at the back of St. Luke’s hospital,
Peerless Pool
-------- flows unseen,
And wastes its waters in the silver Thames.
It is a pleasure-bath in the open air, a hundred and seventy feet long,
and upwards of a hundred feet wide, nearly surrounded by trees, with an
arcade divided off into boxes for privately dressing and undressing; and
is therefore, both in magnitude and convenience, the greatest
bathing-place in the metropolis. Here the lover of cleanliness, or of a
“cool dip” in a hot day, may at all times, for a shilling, enjoy the
refreshment he desires, without the offensive publicity, and without the
risk of life, attendant on river-bathing; while there is “ample room
and verge enough” for all the sports and delights which “_swimmers_ only
know.” It is no where so deep as five feet, and on one side only three;
the experienced and the inexperienced are alike safe. There is likewise
a capacious cold-bath in an adjacent building, for the use of those who
prefer a temperature below that of the atmosphere.
* * * * *
Peerless Pool is distinguished for having been one of the ancient
springs that supplied the metropolis with water, when our ancestors drew
that essential element from public conduits; that is to say, before the
“old” water-works at London-bridge “commenced to be,” or the “New River”
had been brought to London by sir Hugh Myddelton. The streams of this
“pool” at that time were conveyed, for the convenience of the
inhabitants near Lothbury, through pipes terminating “close to the
south-west corner of the church.”[214] Stow speaks of it as a “cleere
water, called _Perilous Pond_, because,” says our chronicler, “divers
youths, by swimming therein, have been drowned.”[215] “Upon Saterday the
19 of January, 1633, sixe pretty young lads, going to sport themselves
upon the frozen Ducking-pond, neere to Clearkenwell, the ice too weake
to support them, fell into the water, concluding their pastime with the
lamentable losse of their lives: to the great griefe of many that saw
them dying, many more that afterward saw them dead, with the
in-expressible griefe of their parents.”[216] In consequence of such
accidents, and the worthy inhabitants of Lothbury having obtained their
water from other sources, Perilous Pond was entirely filled up, and
rendered useless, till Mr. William Kemp, “an eminent jeweller and
citizen of London,” “after ten years’ experience of the temperature” of
this water, and “the happy success of getting clear of a violent pain of
the head by bathing in it, to which he had for many years been subject,
was generously led for public benefit” to open the spring in the year
1743, and “to form the completest swimming-bath in the whole world;”
and “in reference to the improvements he had made on the ruins of that
once _Perilous Pond_,” and by a very natural transition, he changed that
disagreeable appellation of _Perilous_, “that is,” says Maitland,
“_dangerous_, or _hazardous_, to the more agreeable name of _Peerless
Pool_, that is, _Matchless Bath_, a name which carries its own reason
with it.”
Maitland says, that Kemp “spared no expense nor contrivance to render it
quite private and retired from public inspection, decent in its
regulation, and as genteel in its furniture as such a place could be
made.” He added a cold-bath, “generally allowed,” says Maitland, “to be
the largest in England, being forty feet long, and twenty feet broad;
this bath is supplied by a remarkably cold spring, with a convenient
room for dressing.” The present cold-bath, faced with marble and paved
with stone, was executed by sir William Staines, when he was a
journeyman mason. He was afterwards lord mayor of London, and often
boasted of this, while he smoked his pipe at the Jacob’s-well in
Barbican, as amongst his “best work.”
Kemp’s improvements provided an entrance to it across a bowling-green on
the south side, through a neat marble pavilion or saloon, thirty feet
long, with a large gilt sconce over a marble table. Contiguous to this
saloon were the dressing apartments, some of which were open, others
were private with doors. There was also a green bower on each side of
the bath, divided into other apartments for dressing. At the upper end
was a circus-bench, capable of accommodating forty persons, under the
cover of a wall twelve feet high, surmounted on one side by a lofty bank
with shrubs, and encircled by a terrace-walk planted with lime-trees at
the top. The descent to the bath was by four pair of marble stairs, as
it still is, to a fine gravel-bottom, through which the springs gently
bubbled and supplied, as they do at this time, the entire basin with the
crystal fluid. Hither many a “lover and preserver” of health and long
life, and many an admirer of calm retreat, resorted “ever and anon:”--
And in hyghe sommer eueriche daye I wene,
Scapyng the hot son’s euer bemyng face,
He dyd hym wend unto a pleasaunt place,
Where auncient trees shut owht escorchyng shene;
And in a solempne lyghte, through braunches grene,
In quyet, sytting on a lytel stole,
For hys delection he woulde ther’ unlace,
Wythin an arbre, where bryddes onlie bene
And goe, and bayn hym in the waters cool
That alway wellyd there, and made a peerlesse poole.
*
The most remarkable feature of Peerless Pool, to the public eye, was a
noble fish-pond, constructed by Kemp, due east and west. It was three
hundred and twenty feet long, ninety-three feet broad, and eleven feet
deep, stocked with carp, tench, and a great variety of the finny tribe,
wherein subscribers and frequenters of either the pleasure or the
cold-bath were privileged to angle. On each side was a high slope or
bank, with thousands of variegated shrubs, terminated at the top by a
gravelled walk between stately lime-trees:--
These beautiful plantations shadow’d all;
And flung their beauteous greens so deep and full,
Into the surface of the quiet lake,
That the cool water seem’d an open mirror
Reflecting patterns of all liveries
The gentle seasons give the constant earth
Wherein to wait on man; or rather seem’d
An open portal to the great abyss
Inviting entrance.
*
At the head of the fish-pond, westward, stood the house that
Kemp built for his own residence, with a garden and orchard of
pears and apple-trees, and walled round. It was a handsome
old-country-’squire-like building, very similar to the present
parsonage-house of St. Luke’s in Helmet-row; the back-front looked upon
the water, and had an arch in the embankment on that side, beneath which
two boats, kept for the accommodation of gentlemen of the rod and line,
were drawn in at night.
Mr. Kemp expired before his lease; but he left property to his family,
and his son in possession of the “Pool,” and of his lease. He was not so
successful as his father; and after him the premises were held by a
person named Taylor, and subsequently by one Crewe. At the expiration of
his lease, a new lease upon building terms was obtained of St.
Bartholomew’s hospital, at a rental of 600_l._ per annum, by Mr. Joseph
Watts, the present occupier and proprietor of the baths, who, to
remunerate himself, set about “improving,” by draining the fish-pond,
pulling down Kemp’s house, and felling the trees. He built
Baldwyn-street on the site of the fish-pond; Bath-buildings on the
ground of Kemp’s orchard; and erected other adjoining streets;
preserving the baths as he found them, and in many respects improving
them. The pleasure-bath is still a pleasant spot, and both that and the
cold-bath retain their ancient capabilities. Indeed, the attractions to
the pleasure-bath are undiminished. Its size is the same as in Kemp’s
time, and trees enough remain to shade the visitor from the heat of the
sun while on the brink, irresolute whether to plunge gloriously in, or
ignobly walk down the steps. On a summer evening it is amusing to survey
the conduct of the bathers: some boldly dive; others “timorous stand,”
and then descend step by step, “unwillingly and slow.” Choice swimmers
attract attention by divings and somersets, and the whole sheet of water
sometimes rings with merriment. Every fine Thursday and Saturday
afternoon in the summer, columns of blue-coat boys, more than three
score in each, headed by their respective beadles, arrive, and some
half-strip themselves ere they reach their destination; the rapid
plunges they make into the pool, and their hilarity in the bath, testify
their enjoyment of the tepid fluid.
* * * * *
Mr. John Cleghorn, of Chapman-street, Islington, the architectural
draftsman and engraver, was resident near Peerless Pool many years.
There being no representation of the fish-pond and house, as they
remained within the recollection of himself and the editor of the
_Every-Day Book_, this gentleman, whose taste and knowledge of
perspective have by the pencil and the graver exquisitely and
accurately illustrated Mr. Rutter’s “Description of Fonthill,” has
supplied the drawing from whence the subjoined engraving has been made.
Mr. Cleghorn also made the drawing of the pleasure-bath, as it now is,
for the engraving at the commencement of this article.
[Illustration: ~The old Fish-pond at Peerless Pool.~]
To the Shepherd and Shepherdess then they go
To tea with their wives, for a constant rule;
And next cross the road to the Fountain also,
And there they all sit, so pleasant and cool,
And see, in and out,
The folks walk about,
And gentlemen angling in Peerless Pool.
*
The great earthquake, on the first of November, 1755, which destroyed
seventy thousand human beings at Lisbon, and swallowed up the greatest
part of the city, affected Peerless Pool. Dr. Birch, then secretary to
the Royal Society, authenticated the fact, and records it in the
“Philosophical Transactions.” It appears, that on reports that the
agitation of the waters observed in many parts of England, Ireland,
Scotland, Holland, &c. on that day, had likewise been noticed in
Peerless Pool, Dr. Birch, being desirous of as accurate and
circumstantial an account as possible of a fact which he had not heard
to have been remarked in any other part of London or its suburbs,
himself went thither, on Saturday, December the 6th, 1755, and there
took down the particulars from the mouth of one of the two waiters, who
were eye-witnesses of it. This waiter said, that having been engaged,
between ten and eleven in the morning, with his fellow-waiter, near the
wall which enclosed the ground of the fish-pond, he accidentally cast
his eye on the water, and was surprised to see it greatly moved without
the least apparent cause, as the air was quite calm. He called to his
companion to take notice of it, who at first neglected, but being urged
to attend to so extraordinary an appearance, he was equally struck with
the sight of it. Large waves rolled slowly to and from the bank near
them for some time, and at last left the bed of the pond dry for several
feet, and in their reflux overflowed the bank ten or twelve feet, as
they did the opposite one, which was evident from the wetness of the
ground about it. This motion having continued for five or six minutes,
the two waiters stepped to the cold-bath near the fish-pond, to see what
passed there; but no motion was observed in it by them, or by a
gentleman who had been in it, and was then dressing himself, and who, on
being told of the agitation in the fish-pond, went directly thither with
the waiters, and was a third witness of it. On the ceasing of it, they
all three went to the pleasure-bath, between which and the fish-pond the
cold-bath was situated; they found the pleasure-bath then motionless,
but to have been agitated in the same manner with the fish-pond, the
water having left plain marks of its having overflown the banks, and
risen to the bushes on their sides. The motion in the fish-pond had also
been observed by some persons in Mr. Kemp’s house.
* * * * *