CANONBURY TOWER.
The outlying districts of London have each a curiously marked colour and
flavour of their own. Thus “the Borough,” the district about Bishopgate
Street, the City itself--and Islington, all have a distinct and
recognizable air. It would take long to define the elements of each, but
the skilled denizen has no difficulty in distinguishing. Islington has a
bustling, almost foreign air, and in some sense deserves its epithet
“merry.” A little beyond Islington there begins a district of so special
and curious a kind as really to have effect on the mind and spirits of
the traveller. For here he finds a succession of tame, spiritless villas
and terraces, gardens and small squares, not dilapidated, yet all
running to seed as it were. There is a general look of monotonous
hopelessness that cannot be described. No one seems to be about or
doing. There is one compensation--the good, clear, inspiring air. This
is felt as we mount those gently-rising hills which lead out of the main
road, and land us among the still more saddening squares and
abjectly-correct terraces. One of these is Canonbury Road, at the top of
which the atmosphere is positively “bracing,” and here--that is, a
little way on--we come to a most interesting old memorial, well worthy
the long jaunt from the West End.
In strange contrast with its associates rises a grim and gaunt old brick
tower, solid, massive, and lofty, against whose veteran sides lean some
old gabled houses, part of the structure. A thick and friendly coat of
ivy covers a goodly proportion of the old body. An antique rail
surmounts the top, while a meagre weathercock gives point and finish to
the whole. There is a certain majesty and breadth about this venerable
relic, which rises here to a great height, wrapped in the dignity of its
own desolation. There is always, indeed, a sense of sadness in the
spectacle of one of these old brick towers, all scarred and
weather-beaten with the storms and batterings of fortune.
Standing before the low-arched doorway, a genuine portal, the door
itself a bit of oak, framed and duly knobbed, I remind myself that this
picturesque tenement is associated, oddly enough, with some of the
pleasantest literary memories. Like its mediæval neighbour, old “St.
John’s Gate,” it was the refuge and shelter of the destitute “hack” more
than a hundred and twenty years ago. A regular line of _littérateurs_
have had the odd fancy of deserting their busy Grub Street, and of lying
_perdu_ here, either from choice or necessity; and it is easy to call up
the rather ungainly figure of Doctor Goldsmith toiling up Canonbury
Hill, and hiding here from his creditors.
A worthy woman--albeit garrulous--guides us over the old tower. After
saying that “she knew Oliver’s life well,” she added, “Them poets seem
to be always poor and in want.” It was astonishing to see the number and
spaciousness of the chambers in the old place, and their picturesque
rambling disposition. One was struck with admiration at the two spacious
rooms on the second and third floors, finely proportioned and baronial,
each adorned with ebony-toned oak panelling reaching to the ceiling, and
each with an elaborately carved mantelpiece, such as would have rejoiced
Charles Lamb at Blakesware. The delicacy and finish of the work cannot
be surpassed. There are old solid doors, black as ink, hanging on hinges
a yard long; fragments of old oak banisters; while in the upper stories
windows with diamond panes are still seen. The stair mounts in an
irregular way: off which are curious chambers and many odd “crannies.”
About 1766, the bookseller Newbery, as we learn from the pleasant
account of him just published, contracted with a Mr. Fleming, the then
tenant, to board and lodge the poet for £50 a year. According to this
authority, Goldsmith’s room was that on the second floor, and here he is
described as reading to one of the younger Newberys passages from his
MS. George Daniel, the bibliophile, who made a pilgrimage to the
tower--if he did not reside there--and gathered up the traditions, found
that the first-floor room was believed to have been the Doctor’s, and
“an old press bedstead in the corner” was shown in proof. Two families,
the Tappses and the Evanses, had been in care of the place for over 140
years: and Mrs. Tapps used to retail many stories about the poet to her
niece, who was in possession at the time of Mr. Daniel’s visit.
Washington Irving was so much interested by the place that he took up
his abode there for a time. Other tenants have been the eccentric Dr.
Hill, of Garrick’s happy epigram--
For physic and farces
His equal there scarce is:
His farces are physic,
His physic a farce is;
with Smart, the mad poet, who wrote an epic in Bedlam; Humphreys,
another poet; “Junius” Woodfall; Chambers, who wrote an encyclopædia;
and Speaker Onslow. A later resident was Seymour, the artist, associated
with the earlier numbers of “Pickwick,” who shut himself up here with a
fellow student to study “High Art,” a line he fortunately abandoned for
what was his real gift. What rooms in London offer so curious a
succession of tenants? Some time ago a “Young Men’s Association” fixed
itself here, but the young men are fled, and once more “desolate is the
dwelling of Morna.” The view from the platform on the roof was almost
confounding: the vast champaign spreading away below to the wooded hills
of Hampstead and Highgate; while the keen inspiriting air blew from
these heights. It was a surprise even for a fair and _spirituelle_
antiquary of our acquaintance, who was tempted up to the dizzy
elevation, and could scarcely credit that London offered such a
spectacle. St. Paul’s seemed to lie at your feet.
This old brick tower dates from the fourteenth century, and belonged to
the canons of the gloomy Church of St. Bartholomew, another fine but
fast-decaying monument. It belongs to “the Marquis”--that is, to the
Marquis of Northampton--of whose provident care and attention this fine
old relic is well worthy. If such relief be much longer delayed it will
come too late. A few hundred pounds would do much in the way of
restoration. It would make a museum, or even, as a show-place, would
benefit the district, drawing visitors. There is an ominous rumour that
it is intended to pull it down, as cumbering the earth, and to sell the
ground for building.
The West-end Londoner who has never explored the quarter that leads to
the northern heights will be agreeably surprised by the antique,
original flavour of “Merrie Islington.” At night or evening the bustle,
glare of lights, jingling of bells, and converging of tramcars, the
enormous crowds waiting or passing, the fine clear air, the steep hilly
streets, the glimpse of the open country, and the general animation make
up quite a foreign scene. There is even a half-rural air, with the
stunted or “pollarded” trees, the terraces and mouldering gardens in
front, and the little superannuated houses; carriers’ carts are waiting
loaded and ready to set off for villages and towns a few miles away.
Here converge half a dozen streets, two or three steep hills, and
innumerable lines of tramways and omnibuses. Every instant the cars and
’busses are arriving and departing, enormous crowds are waiting to get
in and go their way, and the jingling of the bells, the metallic sound
of the wheels, the chatter of voices, supply a sort of music of an
original kind. The most picturesque effect arises from the trains of
cars perpetually coming up the hills from the town below, and arriving
as it were, unexpectedly--arriving from round the corners, and crossing
each other in bewildering confusion. When all is lighted up the
spectacle for bustle and animation and crowd quite suggests a busy
foreign city, from the glare of innumerable lights, to which Islington
seems highly partial. The Islingtonians, it may be noted, are
healthy-looking folk, for the place is high and the air inspiring, as
any jaded Londoner journeying from the west will find. Close beside us
are two well-known places of amusement, the “Grand Theatre,” some
fifteen years an obscure music hall, suddenly becoming celebrated, owing
to _Geneviève de Brabant_ and Miss Emily Soldene; to say nothing of the
two “_John-Darms_,” as the French comic soldiers were invariably known
at Islington, one of them performed in broken English by a droll
Frenchman. Before us is the Agricultural Hall, where the Mohawk
Minstrels, highly appreciated, perform.
Old Sadler’s Wells Theatre introduces us at once to the New River,
officially constituted and recognized by a large reservoir and offices,
where it “pulls itself together,” as it were, after its long forty
miles’ journey from Amwell in Hertfordshire, before beginning its work
in London. The old theatre, brimful of curious associations, still
struggles on, and presents itself as a very quaint, old-fashioned pile.
In prints of old Sadler’s Wells--and very pretty they are--we are shown
this rural playhouse on the bank of the New River itself, with a row of
trees between, and a man in a cocked hat fishing. As is well known, this
position by the river used to be turned to dramatic uses, the waters
being let in for aquatic spectacles. The shade of Grimaldi must haunt
the place. The track of the New River can still be made out, running
beside the theatre, but it is now covered in.
The old mansion in Clerkenwell which serves as the head office of the
New River Company is worthy of the energetic, gallant, and beruffled Sir
Hugh Myddelton, the Lesseps of his time. His statue is to be seen in
Islington; and in all the annals of English pluck and perseverance there
is nothing better or more encouraging than the indomitable pluck of this
intrepid water purveyor--himself “a company.” The board room of the
building is a fine, picturesque apartment in a good old style; its
ceiling, a good piece of florid decoration, laid out in carpet pattern,
or like a flowerbed, with rich stucco borders--a circle within a square,
and a border round that again. Panelling runs all round, and there is an
elaborately-wrought mantel, with carvings and other decorations.
Corinthian pillars flank it, one on each side, and the whole chamber has
a lightsome, spacious look and general air of state.
Among Lamb’s quaint and interesting recollections of his time at
Christ’s Hospital, one, of a little boy’s scheme which was never carried
out, seemed always highly original. He once, he tells us, planned an
expedition to discover the source of the New River; that is, to follow
its course to the original spring in Hertfordshire. But, as may be
conceived, this was far too arduous an undertaking for a schoolboy. The
New River seems to have been always associated with Lamb’s course in a
mysterious way. In his school-days the summit of holiday enjoyment was
to be taken to it to bathe: an extraordinary proceeding, which nowadays
would be a high crime against manners. At one time he fixed his
residence on its very bank, at Colebrooke Row, and his letters have
constant allusions to his “old New River.” He was proud of his little
house. “You enter without passage into a cheerful dining-room, etc.” It
was from this mansion, as readers of “Elia” know, that George Dyer, the
blear-eyed pundit, walked straight into the river, and was fished out,
having had a narrow escape indeed. He lived to marry his charwoman in
his old age, to his great comfort.
It is impossible to pass this house without being affected with dismal
associations. It stands in a most desolate stretch of houses, and the
buried river in front seems to add to the forlornness. Since Lamb’s day
the river has been covered in, and is, as it were, lost to view. But as
we come to Canonbury it suddenly shows itself in a rather cheerful
fashion between green banks and trees. Following it diligently, we see
it rippling away between its banks--very pellucid on the whole, and not
too broad for an active jumper to clear at a bound. It does not seem
more than two or three feet deep. Here there are abundance of shady
trees; and the houses have their little gardens coming down to the edge,
with cosy seats, a stray Japanese umbrella spread--all exactly as if it
were some real river and not an unpretending make-believe runnel. But
has it not come all the way from “pleasant Hertfordshire,” and recreated
many a cit’s heart, who of a summer’s evening has his afternoon tea at
the river’s edge? Presently our old New River dives underground once
more, and seems hopelessly lost. Here I was completely puzzled to find
it again. With much difficulty and many inquiries, and many false scents
too, I caught it up; when I saw it strike out across the country,
meandering over a rich green pasture in diligent fashion, with a pretty
open walk beside it. Thence it passed under the road, by some
old-fashioned houses with gardens and overgrown with creepers. Here is
the prettily-named region of the Green Lanes, and an old-fashioned line
of houses called Paradise Row, which looks out on spreading “park-like
meadows,” to use the auctioneers’ term; and here our river seems to have
regularly got free and started off across the grass, never stopping till
it reaches Stoke Newington. Here, however, it meets with rough usage;
for the company have erected large buildings, pumping-engines, and
reservoirs, and, as it arrives from Hertfordshire, it is detained
prisoner until it accumulates in volume. In short, the amount of
agreeable twirling and general aquatic vagaries pursued by the pleasant
little stream during its course must be extraordinary. It brings
pleasure and rurality wherever it goes. I was sorry to part company with
it, and would gladly have pursued it further on its rural course.