THINGS SEEN IN LONDON THE TOWER It is supposed to stand on the site of a British and a Roman Fort. The present building was erected shortly after the conquest to overawe the citizens of London. The fortifications surrounding it date from the reign of Henry III, 1216. A royal residence was built by Henry I, between the Tower and the river, but was pulled down by Oliver Cromwell, and nothing of it remains. THINGS SEEN IN LONDON BY A. H. BLAKE M.A. (OxoN.),' F.R.HisT.S. WITH MANY ILLUSTRATIONS NEW YORK E. P. BUTTON AND COMPANY 68 1 Fifth Avenue 1920 Gift TO MY FRIENDS AND COMRADES OF THE LONDON AND COUNTY RAMBLING SOCIETY, IN WHOSE COMPANY I HAVE SPENT SO MANY HAPPY HOURS EXPLORING LONDON'S IMMENSE VARIETY, AND TO MY FRIEND, W. S, J. COLLINSON, WHO MOST KINDLY TROUBLED HIMSELF TO LOOK OVER MY MS., I DEDICATE THESE FEW NOTES ON "THINGS SEEN IN LONDON." A. H. BLAKE. CONTENTS HAPTER PAGE T. THE GREATNESS OF LONDON - 17 II. THE HEART OF LONDON - - 30 III. THE CITY AND THE EAST END - 48 IV. THE GREENERY OF LONDON - 66 V. HISTORIC HOUSES - - - 80 VI. HISTORICAL RELICS IN THE STREETS 95 VII. THE LIFE OF THE STREETS - 112 VIII. BY THE RIVER - - - 126 IX. LONDON BY NIGHT - - 143 INDEX - - - - 156 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS HE TOWER FROM THE TOWER BRIDGE Frontispiece PAGE RCHWAY AT THE HEAD OF CONSTITUTION I HILL - - - - 20 RITISH MUSEUM - - - 24 lARBLE ARCH - - - - 28 HARING CROSS - - - - 30 i^HITEHALL AND THE WAR OFFICE - 32 (WESTMINSTER ABBEY - - - 36 V^ESTMINSTER ABBEY, FROM THE EAST - 38 WESTMINSTER CATHEDRAL - - 40 ^EOMEN OF THE GUARD - - 42 xiii List of Illustrations TUDOR ENTRANCE GATE OF ST. JAMEs's PALACE - - - - BUCKINGHAM PALACE - - - BANK OF ENGLAND AND EXCHANGE GUILDHALL . - - - LUDGATE HILL AND ST. PAUl's - HYDE PARK CORNER - - - QUEEN VICTORIA MEMORIAL ROTTEN ROW - - - - HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT THE speaker's CHAIR - - - FLEET STREET - - - - IN THE TEMPLE - - _ THE GEORGE INN, BOROUGH HIGH STREET ALDWYCH _ - - - THE NATIONAL GALLERY ARCHWAY IN LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS xiv List of Illustrations PAGE WHITEHALL - - - - 120 LAMBETH PALACE - - - 128 Cleopatra's needle - . - 134 LONDON bridge - - - 136 rOWER BRIDGE - - - - 144 SOMERSET HOUSE - - - 152 XV Things Seen in London CHAPTER I THE GREATNESS OF LONDON FIGURES give very little idea of the gigantic size of modern London. To say ;hat it has seven millions of inhabitants, so nany thousand streets, and so many hundreds )f thousands of houses, conveys little impres- don to the mind. These are mere figures, and my real conception of its size still eludes us. Perhaps a better idea of size could be gained )y the old Gladstonian method of exploring ;he streets from the top of a bus, say from jolders Green to Croydon and from Ealing to £ast Ham. The two lines drawn across the nap would bisect one another about Charing Jross and mve some idea of the character of o 17 E Things Seen in London London, its size and variety, along those lines, but the maze of streets for miles on either side of them would still remain as unknown and as little realized as before. Perhaps it is some help to travel back in time and see what London was like in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The two cities of London and Westminster — the one small, compact, and included to a great extent within its encircling walls; the other some- what larger and more straggling, but yet small i in extent, with the green fields still close att hand — comprised nearly the whole of London.. Their history is '' a tale of two cities,'' and all ' around these rural districts extended on all sides, pleasant country roads, villages withi their greens and churches, such as Clerkenwell, , by the pleasant banks of the Fleet, Islington, . the abode of the dairy-keepers, St. John's Wood, the hunting-ground of the Prior of St. John's, and Clapham, even in the days of Pepys's old age still able to be truly styled by Evelyn "paradisian Clapham." So London ii remained with a very gradual growth from thet The Greatness of London jentre outwards until the great Victorian exten- lion which set in about 1837. Since then London has been increasing by leaps and rounds, and has already swallowed about ifteen miles of country in all directions. We Ihus learn to regard it, not as one place, but as tn aggregate of places, and the word " London " ,s a geographical expression. To visit any other great town in England is o visit a place with an individuality of its •wn more or less distinct. Liverpool, with its f)ocks, dock traffic all through the streets, and [reat commanding administrative and art entre; Newcastle, with its smoky river and [igh-level bridge and swarms of industrial workers; Canterbury, with its active eccle- iastical and civil life, and a great past that •roods over everything — one and all they have ( single individual life, but not so London, -'he foct that she has twenty-nine mayors tells cs own tale of her aggressive work against her •eaker neighbours. She really is a collection f districts and neighbourhoods, conquered by i-icks and mortar and labelled by one common 19 Things Seen in London cc appellation, but having no true unity coherence. If London acts unitedly, animatee by one common impulse and unity of feeling; it acts for the nation — it is acting and speakiii imperially and ceases to be merely Londom At any rate, London never realizes unity — it never one place. Though no less than elevtt great railway lines have their termini in ii midst, there is no station called " London/' What is true of London is true of Londonei If it is not one place, neither are they oi people. Differences of rank, of occupatio | and suchlike, are characteristic of most plact but few towns have such a tendency as Londc, to localize and centralize their classes arii occupations. In truth there are so many :i each class, such numbers in each trade << profession, that there are enough to mai separate colonies of those of the same positi( or occupation. We speak of Parisian quarte — those of London are quite as distinct. The artistic colony at Chelsea, Clubland Pall Mall and St. James's Street, the Jewi; colony of Bayswater, are all examples in poii 20 I Kodak ARCHWAY AT THE HEAD OF COKSTITI'TIOX HII.L The Greatness of London But it is when we come to speak of the foreigner within our borders that we realize Iiow widely diversified are our peoples. We liarbour representatives of every nation under heaven, and in some cases so many of them that they have gradually taken over and annexed for their own a district which ffains tjuite a distinctive character from their presence. The Italian colony took possession of Little Italy long years ago, and more recently annexed i^oho and started that dining industry which has made Soho the region of cheap catering. The social standing of the habitues of the tv/o Italian centres is, of course, quite different. Little Italy is the abode of the organ-grinder and the icecream man. Any morning early, in Soho, can be seen the proprietors of the ^ various restaurants or their buyers engaged in I laying in stores for the day, in some cases buying from the shops of their confreres, in others, where extreme cheapness is necessary, I from the stalls which line the kerb in certain of their streets, notably in Berwick Street market. Nowadays it seems likely that the Soho district 21 Things Seen in London will become completely changed, partly because a newer Soho is springing up across Oxford Street, the more because the cinema industry is ousting the cafe where "little dinners'' used to be served, and replacing it by the offices and small theatres of the play producer or the film renter. Another typical quarter is the Yiddish district in Whitechapel. Let anyone desirous of exploring this district arrive, say, at Aldgate or Aldgate East Station and set himself to sample the cheap goods, cheap food, cheap amusements, that are offered all around. Nothing need be missed, in spite of the fact that the play will not be understood, the paper cannot be read, and many of the un- accustomed luxuries provided will be strange and weird, if no worse, to the Gentile taste. In this way a knowledge of one strange quarter of London will be gained in a few hours which otherwise it might take years to acquire. It would be an easy matter to point out other distinctive districts, such as Chinatown, the haunts of the poorer Poles, and the Russian 22 The Greatness of London bank, Post Office, and Cafe, where vodka and other national drinks could be obtained before the war. Again, in the matter of industries there is a tendency, daily increasing, to revert to the mediaeval custom of localizing particular trades in certain definite districts. What once were the green slopes of Clerkenwell are now covered with the workshops and factories of those who mend or make our watches, while Long Acre has been for nigh two hundred years devoted to the carriage and harness making, but is now gradually transforming its industry into the allied business of motor-car making and fitting. The Old Booksellers' Row is gone, but Pater- noster Row is still preserved, and the newer Charing Cross Road is devoted to the sale of books, though bargains are rare now and one seldom drops on a "find." The very cheap book industry finds its quarter in the Farring- don Road, and books fill the gutter from Holborn Viaduct onwards until they gradually degenerate into stalls for old iron, clocks, pictures, and so forth. 23 Things Seen in London All this goes to show how varied are the types of Englishmen that London supports, but more varied still the different foreigners that settle in our midst. They gradually draw together into districts, attracted by the ties of blood and sympathy, by the facilities for business gained when the same trades frequent the same localities and form distinctive quarters amidst the wide areas of London, Perhaps the impression that London makes upon the visitor is different from that which she makes upon the Londoner. Both, when London is mentioned, have a mental picture of Charing Cross, the open spaces of Trafalgar Square with the National Gallery looming large, while, in further differentiating, the visitor knows especially well the part where his hotel may be situated, while the other knows two centres more or less intimately, the suburb where he lives and the place where his business house is situated. Probably the Londoner knows little more of the rest of London beyond these limits than the visitor, except that he has a working knowledge of how to get from place to place 24 The Greatness of London and how to do it in the least time and at the cheapest rate. Both the Londoner and the visitor have a bowing acquaintance with the best-known places and sights. They have visited things that are much talked about — St Paul's, the Abbey, the House, the public galleries — and in answer to inquiries say they know them ; but this is not to know London. London still eludes them. The mind recalls the policeman's hand that holds up a mile of traffic, the fire- engine dashing wildly through the crowded street while the traffic draws to either hand and crushes to the pavement to let it pass, the sanded streets waiting for a royal procession, the tide of vehicles along Piccadilly on a summer afternoon when the sunshine streams up it from the west — notes these are, momen- tary impressions, but though phases of London, London itself is still elusive. As it is not a single city, no single impression of it as of other cities can be gained, and yet it is possible to conceive that some clerk, public official, or artist, is doing the same for London to-day 25 Things Seen in London that Pepys did in the seventeenth century by his writing, or Hogarth in the eighteenth by his " pictured morals,"" and putting down day by day that which will make us live again to our successors. Pepys could do his morning work at the Navy Yard in Seething Lane and find time, after learning all the gossip of the city, to go to Whitehall in the afternoon on business with the Duke of York and afterwards pick up all the news of the gallants about the Court. He could practically lay his hand, so to speak, upon the London of his day — know all there was to be known and be known by all in return. Such details as any single man could pick up to-day might be useful and entertain- ing for future reading, but no man could lay his hand upon the whole of London and its daily doings as Pepys could do in his time. One writer says that each Londoner bites off a piece of London big enough for his own chewing, and that is truly about all he can do. Though he may know the taste of a few other pieces, he can never bite, much less chew or digest the whole. 26 The Greatness of London After acquiring some general knowledge of the London of his pleasure or his business, all that anyone can do now is to get a little general information about why London is where it is now, how it has expanded during the centuries, and what its chief characteristics of to-day are in comparison with other capitals. This gained, he must, if he wishes to go on with the study, be more or less of a specialist and concentrate upon one particular subject or on one particular locality. This he can do and do successfully. There are many men who know one such branch thoroughly and usefully well, and their knowledge is both entertaining and of practical utility. One man knows the city churches, another the history of the sacred vessels they contain, another the London statues, and so forth, and by the sum of their knowledge some idea of London and its interest can be gained. Others take the locality where they live or work and concentrate on that — the history, for example, of Clerkenwell, St. John's Wood, Islington, and so forth — treating it for the purposes of study as a separate entity, and 27 Things Seen in London isolating it for the purpose as if it were one single place and distinct from the rest of London. Such studies are the work of a life- time, and never fail to interest. In this way what may be begun as a pleasant pastime may turn into a lifetime pursuit and prove of absorbinginterest. To those whose work lies in London and who are denied all the year round, with the exception of the brief summer respite, the delights of countryside, one can imagine no occupation of more endur- ing interest than the study of a portion of London, some aspect of London life, or some particular antiquarian research. It involves the reading of the special books that deal with it, and long walks to visit the survivals that form the subject-matter of study. It will have something of the sporting interest of search and discovery in a bloodless quest, and keep body and brain alive and keen outside the routine of the daily struggle for bread. Elementary and short as the chapters of this little book naturally are, there is no reason why they should not arouse interest in such studies ^8 \ Kodak THK MARBLE ARCH Designed by Nash, it was originally erected in front of Buckingham l^alace, Ijiit was removed in 1.S50 to its present position. The Greatness of London as these. They indicate certain lines of study which might quite well be elaborated. There is a life-work in photographing, describing, and learning the history of the old houses or the old signs which still abound in our streets. The types of the London streets deserve a book to themselves as much as the types of whole nations which have been already treated of. The night aspect of the streets, the histories enshrined in the open spaces of London and the part they have played in its story, the City — the heart of London — the river, have yet much to offer in history and picture. If no such advantage be gained by the reading of this little work, at any rate it cannot fail to draw attention to much which will give added interest to the most casual walk about the streets and squares of London. The old relics of a bygone time still seen in our streets to-day tell often very vividly of the romance of yester- day. The chapters of this little book may be to those who know little of London signposts pointing the way to further study. 29 T CHAPTER II THE HEART OF LONDON I HE heart of London is situated at that JL curious angle which the river makes at Charing Cross. This great bend, as has been justly said, hopelessly confuses the topography of the centre of London. It makes the bear- ings of certain streets and districts strangely puzzling. To continue in an almost straight line after passing southwards over Westminster Bridge would hardly be thought the best way to pass from south to north over London Bridge, and it is surprising to find, after a walk of con- siderable length has been taken from the Banqueting Hall in Whitehall up to Trafalgar Square and along the Strand to Waterloo Bridge, that in a few minutes the same distance can be covered through Whitehall Place and along the Embankment. 30 The Heart of London Charing Cross has lost much and gained ii little since its name was descriptive of its jjharacteristics — the Eleanor Cross by the village i)f Charing. To realize what it used to look like, .ve have an easy way in the print by Hogarth lialled "Night." Its cross was demolished luring the Commonwealth, and we have to be content with the doubtfully correct replica jin the Charing Cross Stationyard. The statue of the King on horseback on its island at the top of Whitehall, which took cover during the war, marks where it used to stand. This statue is a remarkably fine one ; it was London's first equestrian statue, and is still the best. During^the Commonwealth it was ordered to be broken up, and the work was given to a man of the name of Rivet of Covent Garden, who did a good business by the sale to the Royalists of the replicas which he said he had made from its materials. But he and they were frauds. The statue was never destroyed, but brought out again at the Restoration. After certain regicides had been executed on the site, the statue was put up where it still stands. 31 Things Seen in London In the Hogarth print the King's Mews is seen behind the statue. This was taken down to make room for Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery, the first Victorian attempt to do something to improve and open up London, a work which is still going slowly on in our own day. The heart of London may be said to include all those streets which, like the spokes of a wheel, find here a common centre. If onq comes to think of it, they are fairly representai tive of London as a whole and most compre^ hensive in their characters and differences. Whitehall is the seat of the nation's business, in both home and foreign affairs, and in a sense! it is worthy of the honour. Wide, impressive, and sweeping with a fine curve to its objective in Parliament Square, it should impress our visitors. It has a'^fine savour of old days, first in the Admiralty buildings, to which the brothers Adam added in the eighteenth century the fine fac^'ade ; in the Horse Guards and its parade ground, where military spectacles like the "trooping of the colours " on the King's birthday are held, with its suggestions of old days of tournament and 32 [Kodak wiiri'EiiAi.r. Axn the wak office The new War Office was completed in 190t5. The Heart of London armoured knights, and later of the cockpit where the Stuart Kings enjoyed the royal sport, and of the house called " The Cockpit," where Princess Anne lived and from which she fled with Compton, Bishop of London, forsaking her father in his decline of fortune. Across the way one never sees the stretches of greensward where the Clive statue has now been placed, and farther west before the houses in Richmond Terrace, without remembering that they are the lineal descendants of the grass of the privy garden where Charles II. and the Duke of York played bowls (and played remarkably well), and pendant from the clothes-lines on which Master Pepys saw the ffiir lingerie of his much admired Lady Castlemaine fluttering in the breeze — "the finest that ever I saw, and it did me good to look upon them.'"* But the pearl |of Whitehall, one of London's treasures, is the Stuart Banqueting Hall, a little to the north. To use an Irishism, it maybe said to be all that remains of a palace that never was built. Inigo Jones was commissioned to draw up the plans, which we can still study, for a magnificent 33 c Things Seen in London palace on the banks of the Thames. The only part that materialized, however, was this Banqueting Hall, and it is a fair sample to show us what the completed work would have been like had the Stuart Kings not been so chronically short of money. Perhaps more history is associated with this building than wdth most of London's survivals. Here or in its predecessor Frederick, the Elector Palatine, was introduced by Prince Henry as the suitor for the hand of the Princess Elizabeth, who, after her marriage, for her charms and her misfortunes earned the double title of " Queen of Hearts '' and '' Queen of Tears."" In front of this building on that 30th January, 1649, Charles I. died with a dignity and kingly bearing that went far to atone for any mistakes he made in life — "nothing in his life became him like the leaving it '" — and to the wind vane on its roof James H. on the eve of his flight must have turned anxious eyes, for the wind in the east meant the sailing of the ships which should bring his son-in-law to wrest his kingdom from him. 34 The Heart of London After various vicissitudes as Banqueting Hall and Chapel Royal it is now a museum of naval and military curiosities, and sums up the humour and pathos of some of England's greatest deeds by land and sea. Here can be seen the foremast of the Victory, with the hole made right through it by a round-shot during the course of the action in which Nelson, whose bust stands close adjacent, lost his life. Here at times only, since it is private property and only lent, is the Cambridge blue silk vest stained with his blood which Charles I. wore on the scaffold hard by. Relics of past campaigns are abundant — such, for example, as the desk of Sir John Moore, used by him in his last campaign, and the prayer-book from which the service for the burial of the dead was read over him before he, "folded close in his soldier's cloke,"' was lowered into his grave on the ramparts of Elvina in the supreme moment of his masterly retreat. In a frame is found also a facsimile of the original lines, learned by and possibly hated by all Victorian schoolboys, which Wolfe wrote to commemorate his exploit. 35 Things Seen in London They were written on half a sheet of writing- paper at a side-table after a breakfast, during which he had been hearing the story of this bold thwarting of Napoleon's plans against Portugal. Whitehall is a fitting passage to the open spaces which set off the Parliament Houses and the Abbey. Here are statues of some of those who have won honour in debate and admini- stration hard by. Beaconsfield, with its yearly adornment of primroses, is well known, but some of the others are so little regarded that many Londoners could not on demand give you the names they owned. Near by is the latest effort of municipal enterprise — the new West- minster Town Hall — which, at any rate, is better in keeping with its surroundings and a more dignified building than many which London has recently erected. Westminster Abbey seeks a book to itself and does not come within the scope of this little work, but it may be urged upon the visitor not to be content with merely seeing the inside of the building — a museum of architectural and archaeological 36 [ Kodak WEST-AIINSTEn AUliEY Occupies the site of an old Benedictine Abbej-. It was begun by Edward the Confessor and dedicated to St. Peter. The Heart of London interest — but to wander round the cloister with its sense of peace in the heart of London's noise, its memories of conventual life and activity, and its curious epitaph to the dead prize-fighter and that other one that always lingers in the memory on account of its simplicity, sincerity, and sadness : " Jane Lister deare child." It is eloquent of hearts crying out for the touch of a vanished little hand. " The little cloister " is an oasis in the midst of hurry and rush, and retains the calm and dignity of bygone days. Seen in autumn with the trails of reddening Virginia creeper drooping from its old buildings, and its fountain's mur- muring splash only accentuating the quiet, it is a " home of ancient peace " not easily to be forgotten. The end of the dark passage-way brings us into Westminster School Yard, with many memories, not the least insistent being that of Dr. Busby, noted for his wig and cane. Old Palace Yard and Westminster Hall belong to the greater sights of London, which do not concern us here ; but the visitor, as he looks at 37 Things Seen in London Henry VII. 's Chapel from Old Palace Yard and at St. Margaret's Church, will recall two things, that on the spot of ground now covered with grass on the western side of the chapel the house occupied by Chaucer probably had its foundations, and that Sam Pepys, the diarist, led to the altar of St. Margaret Elizabeth St. Michel, and afterwards signed the register, and his signature remaineth unto this day, though his diary and the register do not agree as to the actual date. Old maps of London enable us to realize the Hay market when it deserved its name. One can see the wide lane in which the hay was sold, and there are cows grazing in the meadows and a woman spreading out clothes on the sunny greensward to dry. Its great theatre now upholds all the best traditions of the stage, and is unsurpassed for presentments in which realism and truth of impression are carried to heights never imagined possible in Victorian days, while the little theatre across the way has many memories of those same days, of Buckstone and the Kendals, and later 38 n o The Heart of London of Hawtrey and of " The Blue Bird." The Haymarket is really a short straight street joining up London's great centres of western traffic — Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly Circus. The latter is a unique thing — no other Circus, in London or out of it, is quite like it. Seveii streets debouch into it, and all but one are streets of great importance. Perhaps it is the most distinctive at night, and no one who has seen this maelstrom of traffic just as the theatres open to receive, or, better still, to disperse, their clientele, is likely to forget the mad, gay scene, and the blaze of light that glares from a hundred arc lamps upon the festive crowd under the soaring Apollo statue to the memory of an anything but sporting Duke. The good man, had he known the site selected for the fountain which perpetuates his memory, would certainly have thought that the most inappropriate spot in all London had been chosen for his memorial. Leicester Square, which comes within the heart of London, is one of its great play- grounds. Leicester " Fields '' have been the 39 Things Seen in London scene of many endeavours to amuse the public, and hither Loutherberg drew all London to his famous scenas. George II.'s statue had its day, and ignominiously ceased to be when the horse had been painted by the facetious with spots and some of its legs were gone. Now the Square has become most respectable, at any rate by day, with its fountain and Shakespeare statue, and has moreover learned the secret of drawing thousands nightly to its two variety houses. Here we are on the borders of Bohemia, the region of cheap dinners and foreign tongues. This was originally the true Bohemia, but now it is generally the resort of those who are playing at being Bohemians — somewhat of a fashion now — and this has driven the genuine article farther afield, to hide its head and enjoy the eccentricities where the tail-coat and the ball-dress are conspicuous by their absence. Another Soho is springing up to the north across Oxford Street, but the foreigner has not yet got his grip sufficiently strong upon it to give it the distinctive character of the old quarter. 40 \Kodn WESTMINSTER CATIIEDUAI, Finished in 1903, and designed by J. F. Bentley, in early Christian Byzantine style, in red brick and grey stone. The Tower is 284 feet high. The Heart of London Few greater contrasts could be found than be- tween Leicester Square and Pall Mall, between Soho and St. James's Street, though a few minutes will enable one to visit them all. Pall Mall holds its dignified position as the centre of Clubland, and St. James's Street is the men's quarter, if there be one in London, as Regent Street and Oxford Street may be said to be the women's own streets, especially at sale times. The shortest of the many great streets that lead out of Trafalgar Square is Cockspur Street, the centre at one time, as its name implies, of the manufacture or sale of the spurs fastened on the cock's leg for the sport of cock-fighting. It leads to an aimless cul-de-sac, Warwick House Street, down which no one ever seems to want to go. One is inclined to do so just to break the spell. An old street and a new one lead from the east side of Trafalgar Square towards the north. St. Martin's Lane, once a mere country lane at the time that it got its name, has theatres and cheap eating-shops, with some dentists and a vegetarian restaurant thrown in. 41 Things Seen in London Its upper part has a distinctive character of its own, and savours of horse sales and harness, with some new shops and offices of the cinema industry. Charing Cross Road, not very happily named, is one of London's new efforts. Except at the cheap stalls in Farringdon Road, there is no better place to go for second-hand books, though bargains are becoming rarer every day. The most distinctive of all the hubs of the wheel of Charing Cross streets is the Strand. Known in old times by the largeness of its houses and the miriness of its ways, it still is distinguished for the former, as some of the biggest and most consequential of modern multi-millionaire hotels are situated there. It has the quaintest shops, even to the : second-hand trunk dealer, as well as the largest . number of theatres of any street in London. . It has a centre of Civil Service work at Somerset t House, a medical school next door, and the legal business of the country at the Law Courts, . while the Temple, just over the City boundary, J is one of the show-places of London, and would I; require a whole chapter or a larger work to)j 42 I The Heart of London itself. The Strand is really shaped like a trumpet, with its narrow end at Charing Cross and its widest at the point where St. Clement Dane's Church, with Dr. Johnson's seat in the church and his diminutive statue outside, divides the traffic. Its open spaces, left at the opening up of the Kingsway, used to provide the Londoner with his wild-flower garden. Rose bay, the largest of the willow herbs, I showed a mass of pink blossom which, gazed at even through the interstices of the railings, I did one's heart good to look at, but now new [Austraha House covers the site. It is difficult ' to account for the cosmopolitan character of the Strand, but certainly it has a large quota of our foreigners and naturally a strong flavour of I the actor and the artiste. I The fact that one of the roads radiating from Charing Cross leads to St. James's Palace brings the Royal Palaces of London into notice. St. James's, like others, owes its origin to the establishment on the site of a leper hospital dedicated to St. James. It was during Tudor times and in the reign of Henry VIII. that it 43 Things Seen in London first became a royal residence. The union of Henry and Anne Boleyn took place at the same time that Henry converted it for his purpose, and the ' H and A ' will be found in stone on its face woven together in a true lovers'* knot. Queen Mary used it after her desertion by Philip, and James I. gave it to his son Henry, Prince of Wales, as part of his independent establishment, and here he died untimely young. It became a place for accouchement of Queens, and many Royal Princes were born here to the house of Stuart, including the unhappy Edward, son of James H., while William IH. stayed here when his asthma would let him. The monarchs of the House of Hanover also freely used it. It is now chiefly used for the King's levees, and for the reception of those guests whom the nation delights to honour. One of the mosti famous of these was Count Blucher, who, smoking at his window in Ambassadors'* Court, used to hold a kind of reception of the people who came there to take stock of him. The changing of the guard in the Friary Court is one of the sights to which visitors to Londom 44 I TITDOR ENTRANCE GATE OF ST. JA3IES's PALACE The Palace stands on the site of a hospital for 14 leprous maidens, which was acquired by Henry VIII as a hunting lodge. The palace was designed by Ho'bein, but only the Gateway and a few other parts remain. The Heart of London re always taken. It is certainly a puzzle how he mixed crowd so characteristic of London omes together every morning. There appear be hmidreds of able-bodied men of varying anks in life who can afford every morning to )ilow the band from the barracks to St. James's, wait the time — and it is not short — required )r guard-changing, and return with the relieved uard to barracks. Who are they and where they come from, and how, if at all, do they lake a living ? Besides, it must be intolerably ull to do this each day (and some at any rate 1 the crowd are daily visitors) in wet or fine, in 'arm or cold weather. Buckingham Palace, another of London's Dyal residences, is close at hand, and part of le ceremony of guard- changing is carried out lere when the Sovereign is in residence. Originally the piece of ground upon which it is tuated was laid out by James I. as a mulberry arden, when he started his fruitless scheme )r encouraging the silk industry in England. )eserted by the silkworms, it became somewhat lady in character and the resort of such ladies 45 Things Seen in London as loved the cheese-cakes provided there and the company of the gallants. Pepys, of course, records a visit to it. After the death of the Duke of Buckingham, who had built a house there, his widow refused to sell it to George H. under an excessive figure. This being too much for the royal purse, matters stood over until eventually it was acquired by George III. for his Queen's dower-house. It has been the dowdiest royal palace of Europe, put to shame by the royal residences of the tiniest European states, until the present alterations have at any rate given it a clean face, and brought it into line with the wedding-cake ornaments of the. Victoria Memorial, which is all that the modern artistic taste of this great nation could devise i to do honour to the memory of one of our most beloved Sovereigns. Of Kensington Palace there is little to be^ said. It did not take rank as a royal residence till the time of William III., and he only lived there because the air was better for his asthma than nearer to town. It has touching remem- brances of the last sudden illness and death 46 a The Heart of London )f William III/s Queen, to whose worth and iffection he seems to have awoke too late, and )f the unseemly wrangles of Sarah Marlborough A'ith her too indulgent Sovereign, and the sad lays of illness for poor Anne as her end drew lear. Its happiest and dearest associations are vith the beautiful childhood and early promise )f Queen Victoria. The picture which the mind )f every Englishman retains through life is of :he little Virgin Queen roused in that palace iTom her slumbers to take upon her shoulders :hat burden of duty towards a world-wide Empire which she bore so long and so honour- ibly. If only for the sake of Victoria the Good, Kensington Palace, uninteresting as a building ind chiefly associated with a far from lovable King, will never lack visitors. It had additional interest as the repository of a collection of iLondon antiquities, which now has its home jelsewhere. 47 CHAPITER III THE CITY AND THE EAST END IF Charing Cross is the administrative an( geographical heart of London, then the Cit; may be said to be its commercial centre, anc^ the centre of this commercial centre may bo taken to be its most crowded spot where sevei roads meet — at the Mansion House, Exchange and Bank. All day long a vortex of traffic surges through this pass, and, viewing the scenes from above, one is apt to wonder how thij congested web of traffic can ever be unravelled. , An historic road of great importance leaxls from this main junction of City traffic to where,: as a religious centre, St. PauFs commands the Hill. This is Cheapside, known in old days as West Cheap or the Cheap, to distinguish iti from East Cheap, now partly sacrificed to widen the approach to the new London Bridge and to The City and the East End accommodate a very ugly statue of the Sailor King. It is a splendid sample, even in its modernized form, of what an old London business centre was like. The streets which run into it in many cases still retain names indicating that they were the seats of particular industries. Friday Street points to the sale of fish for the Friday fast, while Bread Street, the birthplace of Milton, Wood Street, with its great tree happily protected by the terms of the lease of the property on which it grows, and Milk Street, the birthplace of Sir Thomas More, all tell their own tale, and so does the little street which connects it with the Bank at its eastern end — The Poultry. Through this thoroughfare in old days most of the great processions connected with our history passed : the coronation procession of Edward VI. ; the entry of Mary de' Medici into London on a visit to her son-in law and daughter, Charles I. and his Queen ; the magnificent entry of Charles II. at the Restora- tion — to mention only three. Royalty viewed such spectacles as tournaments, which were then 49 D Things Seen in London held in its wide open spaces, from the seldam attached to the old front of Bow Church. This church is worthy of its place in this historic street. It rests on the same Norman arches as the one which preceded it. These arches give it its name — St. Mary of the Arches — and from them also the old Court held here was named the Court of Arches. Many interesting relics of the old church can be seen in the lobby, while its bells still play a modification of the old refrain, "Turn again, Whittington,"" and are still said to confer on those born within sound of their music the right to the title of " cockney."' A few minutes'* walk from the western end of Cheapside leads to another interesting city centre — Smithfield. The live -cattle market which made it abominable has long been trans- ferred elsewhere. The Church of St. Bartholo- mew the Great on its eastern side will never lack visitors, being the finest Norman church left us in London, though it is but a fragment of the magnificent building of the founder, Rahere. Much has been done to open out and 50 The City and the East End improve the church and to get back into its possession those parts which had been for centuries ahenated from sacred uses. To-day we are able to get a very fair idea of its dignity and importance amongst the ecclesiastical buildings of London. The adjoining Cloth Fair is not so well known as it deserves to be. It is one of the finest and most characteristic bits of old London that remain to us, though already shorn of some of its best houses and soon to lose more. It is built upon one of the old streets of the famous Bartholomew Fair, which kept up its merry life from the days of Henry I. till the year 1855. One of the most notable houses herein was the Dick Whittington Inn, only recently demolished, with the quaint supports of its upper story. A tablet let into the wall of Bartholomew's Hospital near the entrance to the church indi- cates the spot in front of the church gate where no less than 277 persons gave up their lives for their faith, being burnt to death during the reign of Queen Mary. ^Valking by way of Giltspur Street from 51 Things Seen in London Smithfield and its open spaces, once the favourite place for tournaments and the meeting-place of Richard II. with the rebels under Wat Tyler, who lost his life there, we shall notice the yard of the new Post Office on the left. This build- ing is on the sight of the old Grey Friars monastery and later of the Bluecoat School, now luxuriating in country surroundings at West Horsham. In the centre of this yard is a trap- door leading to a chamber below ground level containing a fine bastion of old London Wall. It is well preserved and surrounded by water, which gives it quite the old-time appearance which it had before it retired from active work. Other portions of the old wall of London can be seen in the churchyards of St. Alphege, London Wall, and St. Giles, Cripplegate, in a yard on the east side of Tower Hill, in the base- ment of London Wall House in Jewry Street, and many other places. In fact, by taking a good map and following the line of the old wall and noting its appearances to-day, an excellent idea may be gained of the dimensions of old London within the wall and how small it really 52 The City and the East End was— in fact, easily encompassed in a two houi's' walk. It often happens in the City that an ordinary and prosaic-looking street either contains or leads to objects of great interest. Lying to the east of Liverpool Street Station and entered by an insignificant little street with a big name, Widegate Street, lies the district known as the Dutch Tenters. Here there has been in some half-dozen streets for some 200 years a settle- ment of Dutch Jews, whose well-appointed houses, treasures in china and brass, pei-sonal cleanliness, and good behaviour, all speak well for the adopted country from which they come. Again and quite near at hand another turn- ing opposite the Great Eastern suburban sta- tion, named Cutler Street (which boasts, by the way, an old street sign dated 1734 and indicating in its name again the location of industries in particular streets), leads to a warehouse tall and uninteresting-looking, but full of the produce of far-off lands. Here we can view as we walk from room to room twenty-two miles of wealth beyond the dreams of avarice. Vast chambers 53 Things Seen in London are filled with precious products. Tea, ivory, silk, feathers, carpets from the looms of Persia, fabrics from China — in fact, all the riches and colouring of the gorgeous East blaze in these dull dark rooms. These goods are straight from the hands of those that made them ; they are fresh from shipboard, and the coverings and wrappers and boxes and descrip- tions come straight from the haunts of the native workers. Here are ostrich feathers from all markets arranged in cubicles according to quality and kind. You can see ^60,000 worth of them in a single glance — one sale will fetch perhaps a quarter of a million pounds, and the four annual sales are sometimes productive of con- siderably over a million pounds. The skins of 250,000 parroquets have changed hands at a single sale. Humming-birds blaze in drawers, a rainbow of colours. Raw chemicals fill one department, and you do not forget the nature and use of sarsaparilla when you have seen it in bales by the hundred, nor the smell of some of the more pungent products which will furnish 54 The City and the East End the chemist with our familiar drugs. Rubber is not much to look at in the rough in its four varieties, though you may in a small space see bales which, if they were yours to sell, would enable you to do business as a millionaire for the rest of your life. In another department of the warehouses in Nightingale Lane there are sheds devoted to ivory, and d£^60,000 worth of tusks confront you on a single floor, and you learn that the natives procure more ivory from the shedding of the tusks or by despoiling dead elephants than they do from the wasteful process of killing an animal for each pair of tusks. In the basement of one series of ware- houses is the wine-storing department. It is fortunate that one is not required nor expected to sample the different brands, as the walk between the casks amounts to something like fifteen miles and the casks themselves run into hundreds of thousands. Lombard Street has always been a typical London street, and synonymous with wealth since the Lombard merchants first gave it its name. Its respectable dulness has been relieved 55 Things Seen in London hy the replicas of the old signs of the business houses which were put up for the coronation of Edward VII. and allowed to have something more than an ephemeral existence. It boasts two churches, St. Edmund King and Martyr, and All Hallows, with its fine old gateway (now in dignified retirement). A notice in the church informs us that, having left his written sermon behind him when engaged to preach in this church, John Wesley perforce preached the first of those extempore sermons which were to vitalize religion for thousands of his country- men. Dr. Burney, the father of the authoress of " Evelina," was once organist of this church. Lombard Street leads to Fenchurch Street, with its remote and dejected station, and from thence the descent of a few steps brings us face to face with the Church of St. Olave's, Hart Street, and we are in the district made famous by Samuel Pepys, the diarist. When he served at the Navy Yard across Seething Lane he used the Navy pew in this church, and in a print in the vestry will be noticed the private way by which the members of the Navy Board 56 THE GUILDHALI The date of the original Hall is unknown. That built in 1411-1485 \v allno^t destioyeil by the Great Fire, but was restored by Wren, and agai later on, by Dance and Perks. I The City and the East End then reached their places in the South Gallery. Readers of the Diary will not need to be reminded of the many references to " our clergyman Mr. Mills'' and his sermons, and above all to the record of his flio^ht during the plague and his futile explanation of his deser- tion on the Sunday of his return. "A very lame excuse and a very poor sermon," is the caustic comment in the Diary. In the church- iyard adjacent many hundreds of those who had died of the plague were buried, and the gate erected to commemorate this fact, with its gruesome emblems, earned from the pen of Dickens the title of the " Gate of Ghastly ■ Grim." Pepys's house looked out upon Seeth- j hig Lane, referred to in the Diary as " our I Lane,'" and the space occupied by it and the I other houses of the Navy Yard will be found I indicated in the Survey Map. The church facing its southern end. All Hallows, Barking, , got alight during the Great Fire. " I hear/' j says Pepys, " that the fire has got hold on j Barking Church ;" but fortunately it was i extinguished in time to save the building, and 57 Things Seen in London he was able to ascend the tower, which we see to-day, in order to get a bird's-eye view of that stupendous conflagration. A few steps from this church are Tower Hill and its gardens, where, in peaceful seclusion, is the small paved square which indicates the actual position of the block upon Tower Hill where the lives of so many patriotic and capable Englishmen were shorn away to gratify the whims, advance the theories, or vindicate the authority of tyrant Kings. Here fell the head of More, of Algernon Sidney, of Laud, off Monmouth, sometimes after unspeakable suffer ings and protracted death, and of the lastt victims of the axe — the Lords who suffered fori the Rebellion of the '45. Few probably of thee thousands who visit the Tower itself have timet or inclination to see this historic Golgotha. The Tower does not concern us here except! by way of illustration, as it requires a guidee book to itself, but by the side of it the way) leads to the Tower Bridge, from which it standai,< out clearly. Even without entering its gates,^ much can be seen by descending the Towew S8 The City and the East End Bridge stairs and walking along the river front with its guns and sentries. Here is a fine view of the old Traitors' Gate and the By ward Tower. It may be worth while to linger here while the association's of such an historic spot soak into the mind, waiting for one of the sights of London — the raising of the great bascules of the Tower Bridge for the passage out or in of some sea-going steamer. Few visit the City without going to see the Guildhall, with its traditional figures of the City's gods, Gog and Magog, and the fine hall and library of the City Fathers. Those inter- ested in old London should certainly visit the museum in the Crypt. Many of the relics of old time have found a home there, and many old customs are illustrated, many well-known signs preserved, and the history of London through British, Roman, Saxon, Norman, and mediaeval times fully illustrated by survivals. The Monument is another of the sights that every visitor thinks he ought to see, and, indeed, the view from the top is very fine, enabling one to get a grip of the topography of the City and 59 Things Seen in London to mark the lines of the streets in a way possible but from few City elevations. The Ultima Thule of the City man and the City visitor is generally Aldgate Pump. Here business and investigation generally end. It is customary to think of all beyond that as a dreary waste, a maze of mean streets, the abode of Turks, Jews, infidels, and anarchists, with an occasional Sydney Street episode thrown in. I hold a brief for East London. For vivid life and colour, for hearty good-nature and breezy cheerfulness, for types of humanity from all the nations of the globe, with all their interesting costumes and customs, commend me to the East End. Here there are few conventions : free-and-easy is the word, take-you-for-what-we- find-you kind of estimate, and let's all be happy together if we can, and if not, well then, come on and fight it out ! We have no sooner left our Aldgate Pump, then, than life grows very interesting. The line old-time wide streets and markets of Whitechapel High Street and Mile End Road can still accommodate the itinerant merchaBt 60 The City and the East End and find room for thousands of his customers when the lights flare up on a Saturday . night. Sunday morning, however, is the time for the Lane, by which the East Eixler means I Petticoat Lane, which the authorities call j Middlesex Street. It is not much of a business ! centre on weekdays, but if from seeing it then you think slightly of what it can do, try it at eleven o'clock on Sunday morning. It will be crowded, indeed, and you will only walk through it at all by keeping yourself wedged in your place with the moving mass. It is really a part of a large quadrilateral of streets devoted to Sunday morning shopping. It includes the Lane on the west, Bethnal Green Road on the north, Brick Lane and Osborne Street on the east, and Whitechapel High Street on the south. In this area the Lane, as its name implies, is given up principally to the sale of clothing, articles of all descriptions, remedies for all diseases, ornaments of all kinds, and the dainties loved of the East Ender — the luscious fish which he describes from the stall as " Jeellv, 6i Things Seen in London , jeel — ly, lovely jeelly," which makes, as he view it, the West Ender beat a hurried retreat — an| displayed upon a hundred stalls. The cycl market is in the Bethnal Green Road, and hei2| scores of men are riding or walking their bicycklj on the kerb edge, showing off their points as 4 man in a horse mart might show off the poiniij of his animal. In the neighbouring Cygne] Street all the stalls are devoted to the sale cl cycle accessories. In Sclater Street, otherwise Club Row, is th;: Sunday morning dog sale. This is the rendei vous for London's lost dogs, and here you com : to seek your own again, while if you art desirous of purchasing a pet you can have youi! choice at prices ranging from 5d. to £i\ Farther down the street in its narrower wa\ kittens, rabbits, fowls, canaries, pigeons, guinea;! pigs, even rats devoted to destruction, iii baskets, bags, sacks, reticules, and pockets tog small for them, welter in one common anguisUj It is the animals' purgatory. Death, swift deatil must be the best and happiest way out fo(| many of these poor creatures, as, indeed, in mosi 62 The City and the East End ;ases it is expected to be. That is why they are ihere. Glad indeed is one to turn the corner from ;his gruesome market into Brick Lane, with its varied stalls, the contents of which fortunately ;annot feel and see. Here we find single glove (tails (so many people have only one hand or iiore probably the other one was a waster), remnant stalls with pieces of all textures and ill patterns, whether cloth, silk, matting, brocade, or camptulican, while cheap jewellery, Jews' harps, oilcloth, patent medicines, try- y'our-strengths — all are here. There is literally something of everything and at the bottom price. " Name your own price," say most of the dealers. A man passes you with a barrow- ful of batch loaves with the Kosher mark, guarantee to the Jew of purity for his eating. Dos Mohammed from Peshawur on the far-off Afghan border makes a riot of colour with his silks disposed over his arms and body, and from him you can get bright attractive silk goods from half a crown upwards. But as we walk south the stalls soon begin to fail, and uninter- 63 Things Seen in London esting stretches separate us from Osborne Street, by which we reach Whitechapel again, and which was before the war the centre of Russian activity, with its Russian Post Office and Bank and the Russian Cafe where real Russian drinks and foods were available. Art is not neglected in Whitechapel, for some of the best exhibitions of pictures in London have been held in the Whitechapel Art Gallery, as well as general illustrative exhibi- tions of a most educational character, such as' the Georgian and the Jewish collections, which dealt most exhaustively with their subject- matter both in fact and picture. The exhibi- tions are thronged daily and are free to all, the only luxury for which payment is demanded being a long and most helpful catalogue. Away at Shoreditch we can visit the sites of the earliest London theatres. The Theatre and 1 The Curtain, which were in full activity when Shakespeare came to London ; and at the Theatre, if at all, it was that he organized his band of boy messengers and saw to the holding of the gallants' horses. At any rate, he was 64 'Mfllmk LLDGATi; HIM, AXl) ST. TAILS The niasf^rpiece of Wren is said to be founded on the site of a Roman temple to Diana : but this is doubtful. Old St. Paul's was burnt down in l'it)(i, and rebuilt from Wren's designs. The City and the East End employed at these theatres, first as prompter and afterwards as actor, and went with the Burbages when they pulled down their Shore- ditch house and built the round O at Bankside. Curtain Court, now Hewett Street, marks the site of one of these houses : the site of the other is supposed to have been destroyed by the making of the railway line, but one can stand near the reputed site still. 65 CHAPTER IV THE GREENERY OF LONDON " fT^HE stony streets of London " was once J- a term of reproach constantly levelled against our city. De Quincey, thinking of his days of poverty and loneliness, writes of Oxford Street as his " stony-hearted mother," and the idea was current with country people that London was one vast waste of bricks and mortar, the ghastly opposite of the countryside, where no blade of grass or lonely tree was allowed? even if it could, to flourish. This was never true, though it had its foundation in a general dirtiness, dulness, and neglect. At any rate the opposite is true now. London rivals Paris in its brightness, gaiety, and green. There is hardly any district where, within the compass of a few streets, we do not find trees, grass, and flowers, and perhaps even some public garden 66 e The Greenery of London in which to breathe clearer air and refresh the eyes with the colours of nature. London has two parks which for size and variety equal, if they do not surpass, those of any provincial town. Even Londoners do not always realize that they can take something approach- ing a seven- mile walk on or near green grass, and only cross a street twice in doing it. Let the walker start from Storey's Gate at the south-east corner of St. James's Park, keeping to the east and north of the water, and reaching the gate which leaves St. James's Park near the Victoria Memorial. The crossing of the Mall will bring him to the eastern side of the Green Park, and so to the gate in Piccadilly opposite to Devon- shire House. The way lies on the north side just inside the Park railings till Hyde Park Corner is reached, when the crossing of the road near Apsley House will lead by the eastern paths up to the Marble Arch. A walk along the north side of the Park and Kensington Gardens will bring the Broad Walk into view, and by way of the south side of the Gardens and the Park, Hyde Park Corner will be 67 Things Seen in London reached. By the western and southern sides of the Green Park and St. James's Park return is made to the starting-point. The man who takes this walk daily need not suffer from the ills which wait upon want of exercise. Of the three royal parks in the centre of London, Hyde Park may be said to excel for fashion and oratory, the Green Park for loafers, and St. James's Park for birds. Hyde Park is London's largest luno^. It is the resort of the idle, and the happy hunting-ground of the stump orator. It is sad or amusing, as you happen to regard it, to hear the raucous voices of the Park orators on a summer Sunday evening. Here is at any rate a man with a spice of humour who advocates " Back to the land "; here a genuine enthusiast for a nostrum who expounds his reasons for holding that the world is flat ; while a quiet and interesting speaker tells thrillingly of the enormities of the kings of the House of Stuart and their unhappy histories. From the area of stump oration a short walk westward brings one to the "Dogs' Cemetery," one of the most touching of 68 The Greenery of London London's graveyards. Miniature gravestones tell the story of animal faithfulness and human affection, often in the most endearing terms, and one is led to hope that those who have suffered from the loss of their " dear beasts " may turn their grief to practical sympathy for the countless stray dogs and cats who roam, in terror, hunger, and danger, the endless streets. For such, each street is fraught with some fresh terror, and they must be convinced, if their little hearts can understand, of the iniquity of those who have drawn them from their wild state and habits of self-preservation and capacity for defence, only to subject them to the hope- lessness of the unfriendly streets, or to send them to the vivisector's knife. Where are the rescue workers for the London strays ? They can be numbered on the fingers of one's hands. Hyde Park is the place for an alfresco tea at the Ring Tea House, which is on the site of the old fashionable circle of the eighteenth century. Kensington Gardens has a larger area devoted to the same entertainment, with a delightful view of the Serpentine and the 69 Things Seen in London fountains at its northern end. Fashion has its definite times and places in Hyde Park, and a Sunday in full season at the time of Church parade will give the stranger within our gates some idea of the dress and customs of London's most fashionable crowd. Here are the best- dressed men and women in London, perhaps in the world. St. James's Park is still the home of "a great varietie of fowle," successors of those who, after the Restoration, were encouraged and fed by the royal hand. Birdcage Walk takes its name from the cages hung along it for the King's birds, while the ornamental water, then a straight canal, witnessed the introduction and enjoyment of skating by the cavaliers who had become proficient in it during their involuntary exile in Holland. The Mall on the north side takes its name from a favourite game of the Stuart Kings, and it was along it on his way from St. James's Palace to the scaffold that Charles I. walked on the morning of his execu- tion. Spring Gardens, once a gay pleasure resort of the merry Court, is now associated, 70 [ Koaak QIIEKN VICTOHIA JIEMOHIAL From tic . .i-e of St. James's Park. Ihe Memorial was unveiled in 1911. The Greenery of London until such time as their new hall be ready, with the labours of the L.C.C. clerks. The wide open space between the Park and the Horse Guards, once the tilting-yard of the Tudor Kings, is now more or less deserted, except when some public function, in which military display forms a great feature, such as the King's Birthday celebration, brings crowds of people to fill its wide spaces. Regent's Park was part of the scheme which gave us Regent Street and Waterloo Place, joining up the Regent's palace, Carlton House, with this new park created for his diversion and named after him. It is not one of the most attractive of the royal parks, and were it not for the Botanical and, above all, the Zoo- logical Gardens it would have few visitors, except the few residents with their dogs, the people who go there for the sake of the boating, and the youngsters who love cricket. Many other parks under the control of the London County Council are scattered about the London area : Battersea Park for cricket, with the river flowing along its northern side, and 71 Things Seen in London rows of imposing flats which have earned from a popular writer the name of " Intellectual Mansions,^' overlooking it upon the south ; Victoria Park for religious debates and air for the East Enders ; Southwark Park as a breath- ing-place for the crowded thousands of South London. Dickens justly complained in his day of the dreariness and danger of the old burial-grounds scattered about London, but a wonderful trans- formation has been effected in this direction as a result, in part, of his continual protest. Now cleared, levelled, with graves filled in, and head- stones reared against the side-walls, bright with flowers and fitted with benches, they afford a resting-place and a refuge to thousands of the tired or homeless ones as well as to the inhabi- tants in their localities. Some of them, as is the case at Christ's Church, Spitalfields, are devoted entirely to children, and one of the dis- tinctive notes of that locality is the finding of the daintily dressed little ones who hardly speak a word of English at play by the old tombs, while the business of the great fruit- 72 [ A cxtak HOI I'KN HOW A fa nous sand track for riders, especially before breakfast. The footpaths are the favourite rendezvous on Sundays for church parade. The Greenery of London market employs their parents across the way. Another notable transformation has been effected at St. Anne's, Soho, where perhaps the only grave that remains unaltered (and even that has had its stone set up afar off) is that of Hazlitt, the essayist, who tried so hard, in death, to persuade Charles Lamb that he had had a good time in life. Many of the churches destroyed in the Great Fire were not rebuilt, but their churchyards remained, an eyesore in times gone by, but now mostly opened up as refuges from the roar and bustle of the city. A notable example of their present uses will be seen in such cases as St. Botolph, Aldersgate, known as the Postman's Park, because, being near to the old St. Martin's-le-Grand, it used to be of service to the employees who had a little time to spare in the dinner-hour. This is worth visiting were it only to see the tablets set up to commemorate the noble deeds of the poor. The frescoes across the water at Redcross Gardens in the Borough fulfil the same purpose. For some years past a consistent endeavour has been made to create boulevards along the 73 Things Seen in London banks of the Thames, while in certain wide and suitable streets such as the Brompton Road and along the highway at Acton and Turnham Green they are quite acclimatized. A stretch of embankment now runs, since the completion of the gardens adjoining the Victoria Tower, except where the wharves in Grosvenor Road break its line, in one continuous sweep from Blackfriars Bridge to beyond Chelsea Church. Trees are planted which flourish in the car- bonized air of liOndon and spread a grateful shade for many miles along the river bank. Adjacent to some of the busiest parts for busi- ness, such as the Strand and Fleet Street, it yet touches all kinds of residential life during its long course. On the south bank of the Thames only a small portion of the river has been embanked, extending from Westminster Bridge to near Vauxhall Bridge and known as thei Albert Embankment. St. Thomas's Hospital^ erected here after the demolition of the old buildings which adorned the Borough, adds dignity and importance to this otherwise dull stretch of Thames — the haunt of trams, traffic-: 74 The Greenery of London carts, and barges with their rich brown sails lying by its walls. A fine view is gained from this embankment, almost the whole way, of the Houses of Parliament, the Tate Gallery, and Westminster Abbey rising behind the trees of the Victoria Tower Gardens. Here also is Lambeth Palace, with the Morton Tower look- ing away towards Doulton's and Vauxhall. Seen in certain lights from the other side as a grey silhouette with its trail of smoke, Doulton"'s is quite Whistlerian in character and one of London's most delightful effects. London has always had its places of alfresco entertainment, whether it be Ranelagh, Vaux- hall, Cremorne, or the White City and EarPs Court of to-day. It may interest the passer-by to know that when he stands on the south end of Vauxhall Bridge and looks towards the South- western Station that the well-populated dis- trict to the east and south of the Station covers the site of the old Vauxhall Gardens. Several of the street names indicate this, such as Tyers Street, taking its title from the family name of the last proprietor of the 1. Things Seen in London Gardens. The place of all others at the present time where we can see London giving; itself over entirely to open-air amusement is, of course, Hampstead Heath. Bank Holiday f on Hampstead Heath never grows out of date; nor the fun less energetic. For three hundred and sixty-two days in the year this quietest oft suburbs is dignified, literary, and artistic, the abode of ladies'* schools and excellent homes fori consumption, but on the remaining days Satur-- nalia spread wide over its borders and good- liumoured fun and revelry hold the field. No sooner is the station left behind than thei fun begins. There is a crescendo of amusement,, but the first notes are chastened and quiet. The ! sightless eyes of the fat cheerful man with the: fat cheerful dog have not the reproach ofi the ordinary blind beggar. This cheerful man smokes a cheerful pipe in front of a cheerful red-brick wall, and his appeal, if any, is ini festive mood. Then follow the opportunities! for having your fortune and your character told before you brave the dangers of the Heath itself. Face, eyes, hands, or handwriting, will 76 The Greenery of London give you away e([ually to these experts. The yellows and reds, in their cheerful gaiety, of the robes which cover the magician's shoulders are worth the modest penny as notes of colour, apart quite from the excellent character with its little compliments in the form of warnings that you receive on the mysterious red paper with blue markings. In a lane where level ground is reached the itinerant photographer, with a camera like a miniature 4'7 gun, places your portrait in your buttonhole in a trice. Thus made self-respecting and expectant, you venture on the Heath itself. Down by the Vale of Health the swings are aswinging with such vigour that the eye will hardly bear even to look at them, while all and sundry at the cocoanut-shies are apparently (certainly only apparently !) taking all the profit from the gipsy owner by skill of marks- manship. By the rows of booths on the hill- side all is animation : try-your-strengths, houp- ia, fancy goods, the Piccadilly eyeglass, the jolly ticklers, pineapple chunks, and tea of the Bank Holiday variety, are offered on all hands. 77 Things Seen in London Away there across the grass you can visit the dwarf and his wife, whose carriage, about ! the size of your footstool, is waiting outside to draw your attention. Here is the newest Bank Holiday cinema, showing films suited to the customers. The wild-beast show, the sparring booth, attract a crowd of spectators, and sq does the lineal descendant of the old English travelling variety show, with the young lady in spangles, the highly painted clown, and the man with the big drum outside. Amidst all the fun of the fair and close to the constant rattle of cocoanut -shies, we are brought back to another side of life by the sight of the ambulance tent, the nurses, andl the waiting stretchers, while across the grass towards Parliament Hill the police tent is waiting to receive lost children, of whom there are no inconsiderable number every Bank Holiday. Out on the roadway at the top of Heath Street or farther east by The Spaniards dancing is the order of the day, and literally for hours at a time the figures in wonderful clothes with 78 The Greenery of London bone buttons and ladies in velvet costumes with stupendous hats and feathers are footing it opposite one another to the strains of the barrel-organ or the gay little band. All is gaiety and gladness, and the grey life of everyday can be for once clean forgotten as though it never existed. Life, really gay glad life is here, and the East End murk and the early rising and the late overtime and the dull streets, thank God, are for a time forgotten. 79 CHAPTER V HISTORIC HOUSES WHILE so much of old London is disap- pearing day by day at the hands of the housebreaker that one is never sure that flats will not spring up in Temple Gardens or villas in Hyde Park, or that the Tower will not come down to accommodate some City bank, it is comforting to remember that a great deal still remains to show us what London used to be like, and that we can point with pride and satisfaction to many old houses, associated with men of light and leading in the past and with the real happenings of London. The nineteenth century witnessed a perfect furor of destruction, which still continues, and which swept away more historic houses and buildings than the city lost in the Great Fire. Still no week, no day even, passes without its 80 P/toto] [L. N. A. FLEET STREET The greatest centre of journalism in the world. Historic Houses work of destruction. Literary and historic interest, association with England's leaders in camp or Court, unique architectural interest, avail not to stop the destroyer bent on acquiring fresh space to build offices for the modern man to grow rich in. Dr. Johnson occupied many different houses during his London life, and they have all been swept away but one, and that has only been saved, after many risks, at the eleventh hour : 17, Gough Square has now been made safe, and has been adapted as a Johnson Museum. In it he completed and sent off the final proofs of the " Dictionary "' with a covering letter to Andrew Millar, saying he thanked God he had done with it, receiving in reply the well-known communication : " Mr. Andrew Millar begs to acknowledge the receipt of Dr. Johnson's letter with the final proofs of the Dictionary. He is pleased to note that Dr. Johnson has the grace to thank God for anything."" The two top rooms — then one large room, and recently made so again — are said to have been occupied by the amanuenses who copied out the extracts selected 8i F Things Seen in London by Johnson as suitable to illustrate the meanings of the different words. It was while living here that he lost his beloved " Tetty,'' ugly and uninteresting to everybody else, but best beloved and beautiful always to him, and whose memory he never ceased to revere andl cherish to the end of his life. j Middle Temple Lane across Fleet Street t recalls Johnson's sojourn there in a house now demolished, and the midnight visit of Tophami Beauclerk to draw the old Doctor from his bed I for an all-night frolic. Other Johnson associa-- tions are to be met with across the river at Bar- clay's Brewery, owned in the eighteenth century\ by Thrale, whose handsome wife was until the Piozzi marriatre a firm friend of Johnsonj After Thrale's untimely death he was executoi for the business, and the Brewery has preserved as relics of this association the chair in whichl he sat and the old knocker from one of his London residences. This knocker is, curiousl} enough, an exact replica of the one on his housfi in Gough Square, so the pattern must have! been a fairly common one. Hoare's Bank hai 82 Historic Houses displaced the Mitre, loved by Johnson and his literary circle. Charles Lamb is more fortunate than Johnson, and many of his old haunts and houses can still be visited. In the Temple can be seen the block of buildings, Crown Office Row, in which he was born and where his father, the Lovell of the Essays, was factotum to Samuel Salt, the Bencher of the Inner Temple. As a child he looked out on and played in the gardens before the windows, and the lovely old gateway erected just before he was born must have been well known to him. The shell of the house at the corner of Russell Street and Drury Lane is still shown to which he removed from the Temple, and where Mary found amusement in watching the passers- by and in seeing the prisoners being conveyed to Bow Street Police Station. Colebrooke Cottage, Islington, still stands, though the New River, which then flowed at the foot of the garden, has ])een covered in since the day that the amiable but absent-minded George Dyer played the almost tragic part described in Elia's essav entitled " Amicus Redivivus." Dver Things Seen in London lodged in Clifford's Inn, Fleet Street, which can still be visited, with its fine old hall, which housed Chief Justice Hale and the special Board of Judges who delimited property and settled disputes arising out of the Great Fire. Dyer was married, whether he desired it or not (he probably had not thought of it), by his opposite neighbour, a widow, who proposed to him, for his good, in the following terms : " I am sure it will be good for you, Mr. Dyer, to have someone to look after you." It is pleasing to be assured that she made him an excellent wife. Lamb's last home, the cottage at Edmonton, can still be visited, and so can the quiet grave in the churchyard where the gentle Elia (as he objected to be called) lies under a flowery bed of old English blossoms of forget- me-not and wallflower. But the grave has a forlorn appearance, and few people, except Americans, seem to visit it. A double memorial has been placed in the adjoining church to Lamb and Cowper — the excuse for dragging in the latter seems a very thin one, that Edmonton Historic Houses was the place to which John Gilpin did not turn up to dinner as previously arranged. The Church of St. Dunstan in the West, close to Clifford's Inn, is new, but the tower of the church is very picturesque as seen from the Inn garden, and is supposed to be the one from which, as feigned by Dickens in " The Chimes," their music rang out over the busy street below. At any rate, in the Temple Garden across the way Ruth Pinch used to wait for her brother Tom, while the " liquid music " of the water of the fountain in Fountain Court, then as now, flowed sweetly on. Reynolds is fortunate, for, though his studio has gone to make way for an auction room, its site is still shown and the house of which it formed part. It occupies the centre of the western side of Leicester Square, and remains much as it was in his day. Reynolds's reception rooms, now empty, used to be in the occupation of the Cambridge University Musical Club. The staircase, with its arched balustrading, the open space before the rounded doorways of the big room, set the stage for the figures of Sir 85. Things Seen in London Joshua and his little sister standing to receive as guests his distinguished friends and sitters — in fact, all the people of light and leading in his time. In the opposite south-east corner of the Square, for some, at least, of Sir Joshua's time, the little man in the sky-blue coat, Hogarth, occupied the Van Dyck Head, and there his widow continued to reside for some time after his death. The busts of Reynolds and Hogarth adorn two of the four corners of the Leicester Square Gardens. Of Goldsmith, another of the circle of eighteenth-century immortals, we have not many visible traces left in London. We should like to find the farmhouse where he was lodging " out Hendon way " when he was writing " She Stoops to Conquer," and came down- stairs to retail his latest jokes to his landlady, who only half understood them or her strange guest, but who was reassured when company from London, perhaps Reynolds and Johnson, found her curious lodger very good company indeed. At any rate, we can see Canonbury Tower in Islington, where " The Deserted 86 rt!£ Historic Houses Village '' and part of " The Vicar of Wakefield '' were written, and visit the lonely grave in the Temple, hard by his lodgings still remaining, with the simple inscription : " Here lies Oliver Goldsmith/' The epitaph is too emphatic, for no one can be certain, since no official record was at the time kept, of the actual place of interment. Wherever the spot was, it was bedewed with the tears of those poor and lorn friends of his, widows and suchlike, very friend- less ones otherwise, to whom he acted the Good Samaritan when he needed, not only a helping hand, but often the necessaries of life, for himself. Within a minute's walk of this sacred spot, situated over the entrance to the Temple, is the old house, 1 7, Fleet Street, associated with Henry, Prince of Wales, in James I.'s time. The house has been most admirably restored by the united efforts of the L.C.C. and the City Corporation, and is one of the best examples of a seventeenth-century house that we have in London. The principal room used by Prince Henry for transacting the business of the 87 Things Seen in London Duchy of Cornwall has one of the finest ceilings yet left in situ in London, with the Prince of Wales's feathers and the initials P. H. upon it. The walls retain a considerable quantity of their excellent old oak carving. This room is visible gratis during the middle hours of every day in the week except Sundays. Walking up Chancery Lane and passing the famous Tudor Gate of Lincoln's Inn, the celebrated Staple Inn of Holborn will be easily reached. It is a comfort to know that at any rate it has fallen into the hands of those who have both the money and the inclination to keep it as it is, and preserve for London one of its most notable Tudor buildings. Johnson is supposed to have written " Rasselas " here to pay the expenses of his mother's funeral, while Dickens has sent every visitor to gaze at No. 10, which has a stone tablet with initials and date. Here he placed Mr. Grewgious in " Edwin Drood," and of it he writes : " The turning into it from the dashing street imparts to the relieved pedestrian the sensation of having put cotton- wool in his ears and velvet soles on his boots." [Kodak THi; GEOUGK INN, HOKOKiH HIGH STUtLT The only ancient Southwark Inn of which any traces have survived. Historic Houses No one sees Staple Inn without trying to realize what the quaintness and beauty of old London must have been when every house was akin to this one. Probably the Gate was there and newly built when the young Shake- speare was bringing his long walk from Warwickshire to an end, and wondering as he passed it what fate was in store for him in that great London which he was just about to enter. So picturesque and so suitable to play the part it claims is "The Old Curiosity Shop" in Portugal Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, that everyone will regret that it has not a better claim to be regarded as the one which Dickens had in his eye when he fixed on the title for his tale. Few resting-places of literary men are more pathetic than that of Laurence Sterne (Tristram Shandy) in the old disused burial-ground of St. George's, Hanover Square, which is in Bayswater Road facing the Park. It has been laid out as a public garden, but a few special graves have been left in situ, including his. It is near the centre of the west wall ; it has two 89 Things Seen in London stones fully inscribed — one at the head and the other at the foot of the actual grave. Dying in poor lodgings, without a friend near him in his last hours, and with the footman of one of his gay friends waiting for the end in order to be able to go home and report to his master, who had a supper-party, that all was over, he was not allowed to rest even in death, since the body was stolen by the Resurrection men and sold for dissection. Recognized by the man about to demonstrate on the corpse, it was restored to its grave. The Chapel of the Ascen- sion, through which the burial-ground is reached, is decorated with paintings, and is open for rest and quiet at all reasonable times. In the midst of the towering houses which here face the Park will be found a curiosity in the smallest house in London, which consists simply of a small entrance hall and one room above. Its appearance is sufficiently strange hi com- parison with its consequential neighbours. It may not be generally known that quite recently, owing to the energies of Dr. H. E. 90 Historic Houses Sieveking, son of the late Sir E. Sieveking, physician to Queen Victoria, a brass exactly the shape of the original triple tree at Tyburn has been let into the roadway where Oxford Street and Edgware Road meet. It will be found to the south-west of the island at the junction of the two roads. Of the old houses in London used as inns there is one still surviving in the Borough High Street. The George is most interesting on account of having retained at any rate some portion of its old galleries. This is almost a typical " Dickens '' Inn, and the only one still preserving its old characteristics. One can, as one visits the old bedrooms opening on the galleries, imagine Mr. Pickwick emerging from the door of one of them and calling into the yard to Sam Weller, engaged in his amusing soliloquy on the boots from the various numbers. Here, in what still resembles a real old-fashioned coffee room, are high bench seats and a big-faced Parliament clock. Another interesting inn in the Borough is the Half Moon, notable on 91 Things Seen in London account of the passage carried over the yard and the old stone sign let into the wall of the stable. This inn was flourishing in the time of Hogarth and its hanging sign will be noticed on the left- hand side of his picture of " Southwark Fair/' The nineteenth century saw the destruction of a large number of the most interesting and primitive of the old inns of London, of which there were a very large number surviving at the beginning of that century. The Dick Whit- tington in the Cloth Fair claimed to have been built in the fifteenth century, ,and has only recently been destroyed, and the site remains like an empty eye-socket still vacant. Numbers of old houses, especially in Berkeley Square, have the old brackets and extinguishers connected with the oil lighting of the seven- teenth and eighteenth centuries still existing at the front door. A remarkably fine doorway and excellent iron work with brackets and extin- guisher will be found outside the Nurses' Home of the Children's Hospital in Great Ormond Street, and, of course, the old houses in Queen 92 Historic Houses Anne's Gate, perhaps still " a home of ancient peace," are remarkable for their consistency of appearance, the fine row of masks depicting the human face under the influence of various emotions under the first-floor windows, and the excellent series of doorways and hoods, all different, but all worthy of considerable attention. It is characteristic of London that there are in various districts strange survivals of a state of things in happy contrast to the congestion of the present time. We may find, for example, as we do in Glebe Place, Chelsea, a real old whitewashed cottage flanked by huge flats and modern studios — the entrance gate, we are told it was, to a stately country mansion that once occupied a place in the garden at the end of this street. There exists quite a typical Essex cottage, with its brick lower-story woodwork and red-tile upper stories amidst a congested dock area at Limehouse, and in Westminster there used to be another, this time whitewashed and standing quite apart, and it is not so long 93 Things Seen in London ago that one read in the paper of the comi. ^j destruction of London's last surviving West End] farmhouse, which had its place in the heart of: the premises of a great furnishing business ini Tottenham Court Road. 94 CHAPTER VI HISTORICAL RELICS IN THE STREETS "VTOT only does London still abound in J^ 1 houses of historic interest, but has managed in a remarkable degree to preserve from destruction some of the smaller historical relics which tell a tale of times and customs long past away. Most of them are quite unknown to the people who throng the streets, but they must certainly find their place amongst the " things seen in London." The shop signs which have escaped destruc- tion recall the time when the houses had not been numbered, and the dealer relied solely upon some sign which he chose as represen- tative of his firm in order to bring the position of his house in a particular street to the knowledge or remembrance of his customers. 95 Things Seen in London A few of these old emblems are still in common use, such as the civet-cat for children's toys (not so common as it was), the striped pole for the barber, and the arm with a hand grasping a hammer for the gold-beaters, while, of course, almost universally, houses of public entertain- ment keep their signs. Shop signs were of two kinds. In one case the sign was pendant over the pathway, stand- ing out from the house, painted on both sides, and easily seen by the passers-by up and down the street. This was not very convenient, though it persisted as a type for a long time, since it made a gruesome groaning and creaking as it swung in the wind, collected the rain- water and conveyed it on to the heads of the passers-by, and after years of use got rusted and probably fell upon the heads of the passengers. It gave place, especially after the Great Fire, to signs of stone let into the fronts of the houses, which, if not so attractive, at any rate were of a safer and more enduring type. A fine example of the pendant sign is observable in Blackfriars Bridge Road, the 96 \ ALDWYCH US fine crescent as only a^few years ago occupied by a rookery of sordid streets and slums. , Historical Relics in the Streets sign of the dog with his head in the pot. It is boldly and skilfully modelled, and, as it has now been, most inappropriately, gilded, it is a very prominent object. The pot is of iron and the sign that of an ironmonger, though it was by no means in old days con- sidered inappropriate to put it over the house of a bad housewife, during whose gossiping excursions the dog may have succeeded in getting his head into the pot containing his master's dinner. Other excellent examples of the hanging sign are preserved in two old Fleet Street Banks — Child's and Gosling's. Child's sign, pre- served with great care through the years, is the marigold. It is an oak board painted green, and the sun and marigold well executed, with the motto : " Ainsi mon ame.'' It can be seen by application to the manager at the Bank. Gosling's sign is hung in the front office, and can be seen by all who have business there. It is of copper, and the three squirrels are well modelled on it. They also appear chasing each other round the ironwork 97 G Things Seen in London which protects the window of the Bank looking out on Fleet Street. Of stone signs for the fronts of houses there are many excellent examples extant. A specially fine specimen is preserved in the office of Alexander's Bank in Lombard Street (though not originally belonging to that site), and is known as the " Fox and Brush," and dates from 1669. It is a fine piece of modelling and a highly decorative object. A less con- spicuous but highly interesting sign will be found in the front of No. 71, a house next to the George Inn, in High Street, Borough. It is known as the " Hare and Sun." It still occupies its original position, though the house has been gutted by fire. Like most of these signs, it has the initials of the owner of the house or maker of the sign and his wife and the date, in this case '' H and NA, 1676." There is a figure of a boy carved in wood I and gilded, and of very corpulent dimensions,, outside a house in Giltspur Street, at the corner of Cock Lane, where the ghost called " Scratching Fanny " earned so great but 98 Historical Relics in the Streets ephemeral notoriety in the eighteenth century. The angle is known as Pie Corner, and there in this direction the Fire of London is believed to have been arrested. The sign is generally supposed to be intended to mark this fact, for the old saying was that the fire began in Pudding Lane and ended at Pie Corner, and it also gave point to the generally accepted idea that the fire originated through the greediness of a fat boy at the King's baker's in trying to get an apple-tart from the oven, and so releas- ing the flames which started that stupendous conflagration. Another emblem of a similar kind exists in Panyer Alley, which joins Newgate Street with Paternoster Row. It represents a naked boy sitting on a panyer or bread-basket, and beneath are the lines, " When you liave sought the city round This is still the highest ground," and the date August 27, 1688. As the sig^n has been moved, its statement is not now accurate. It had probably some connection with the bread market, which was confined to 99 Things Seen in London one spot in this locality, for the panyers were the receptacles in which the bread was carried. Public-house signs in London are often of considerable antiquity, and bear reference to matters of historical interest. In Hays Mews, at the back of the west side of Berkeley Square, there is a public-house with an old painted sign representing one of the running footmen who, before the advent of the man in blue, were responsible for making a way for their master's carriage through the congested traffic of the narrow streets. He is represented as suitably clad and armed with his staff for enforcing his claims. It is satisfactory to learn that in the enlarged end of the staff there was a cavity protected by a screwed top and con- taining solid and liquid refreshment. In Queen Anne's Gate is a public-house with the sign of " The Two Chairmen." It is most appro- priately situated near those old residences before the doors of which the chairmen of the sedan-chairs used to deposit their passengers, before retiring to this same house for their own entertainment. lOO Historical Relics in the Streets Of the convivial centres of old days two excellent examples remain in Fleet Street. "The Cocke Inn,"' mentioned by Pepys, beloved of Johnson, and visited by Tennyson, used to open its hospitable doors on the north side, but the original building being pulled down to make way for the Law Courts it migrated to the south side and farther east, taking its old sign, its fireplace, and its old oak seats to fresh i|uarters. The latter are put up in the upstairs room, while the rampant old cock disports himself on a bracket in the downstairs dining- room. The insignificant bird that does duty outside in Fleet Street is merely an unworthy replica of the original. Little hesitation need be felt in accepting the suggestion that the old fireplace was well known to Johnson and his circle, and that they warmed themselves at it on many a wintry day. The other notable hostelry in Fleet Street is " The Cheshire Cheese."" It possesses a portrait of Dr. Johnson, and claims to have had him as a constant patron, since it shows his well-worn seat. This may have been so — there is no lOI Things Seen in London evidence to the contrary — but, at any rate the proprietors are doing a good work in keeping up in its old style, and with accurate surround- ings and accessories, one of the genuine old inns of Dr. Johnson's time. The pudding served by the host himself on several days in the week is one of the gargantuan feasts of London. Every visitor and Londoner should have experience of it. It has no rival. Scattered about in various districts will be found examples of the old traffic posts, which, before the introduction of the pavement, endeavoured to retain some small portion of the way for the benefit of pedestrians. Excel- lent examples, some of them genuine, of old cannon remain on Tower Hill ; examples of two different kinds surround the green enclosure of Westminster Abbey, while excellent speci- mens admirably preserved are in Middle Temple Lane. London still possesses a specimen of the old travellers' rests put up by the benevolent, before the days of cabs and carrying agents, as a boon to porters. Few visitors and not I02 Historical Relics in the Streets many Londoners realize how steep are the hills in Piccadilly, but the porters who had to carry loads up towards what was then the turnpike near St. George's Hospital knew well enough, and were glad to rest their loads upon the wooden support which still remains near a cabstand on the south side a little east of Park Lane. A suitable inscription tells something of its history. Near here, and just off Berkeley Street, Lans- downe Passage can be found, a narrow way between high walls which contain the gardens of Lansdowne and Devonshire Houses. At either end an iron bar obstructs the passage, and thereby hangs a tale. It appears that a highwayman was at work in Piccadilly reliev- ing people of their watches and their money, till, happening to get tired of it, they raised the hue-and-cry, at which he jumped on his horse and rode for safety. Dashing up Berkeley Street and seeing this passage, which was not then barred, he put his horse at it, galloped in safety through, and by way of Curzon Street escaped into the open fields. 103 Things Seen in London Fearing a repetition of this, the authorities erected the iron bars to close the way to horses, and to this day the passengers in Piccadilly can proceed about their business in complete assur- ance that no highwayman will escape through Berkeley Street and Lansdowne Passage to the open. Old street name-plates are too numerous to deal with, but reference may perhaps be made to one, of unusual interest on account of its position, in James Street, Hay market. It has an elaborate border, is of stone, and let into the wall of a famous building. At any rate, the shell of this house, now in possession of a well-known publisher, enclosed Shavers Hall and the Tennis Court in which Charles II. and his brother James, Duke of York, with now and then the Duke of Monmouth, used to play tennis, and play exceedingly well, according to Pepys, though Charles himself easily surpassed all others in skill. Of all the small relics in the London streets none can perhaps compare in interest and importance with London Stone. It used to I04 00 se CO eo g "-SS. o Historical Relics in the Streets stand by the south side of Cannon Street, but since 1742 has been fixed into the wall of St. Swithin's Church on the north side opposite Cannon Street Station. It is now well protected from injury by an iron grille, and is somewhat hidden in consequence. It is supposed, on the best authority, to have marked the centre of the Roman road system of Britain in the same way that a similar kind of mark, in the Forum at Rome, gave centre for the roads of Italy. From its great age and prominent position it came to have a kind of representative character, and to be held in repute much as the Stone of Scone was in Scotland. Of the large and important nobles' houses which once lined the Strand from Westminster to the City we have hardly any traces remain- ing, except two of the great water-gates which gave from their gardens to the river. It shows how far the river has been thrust back from its former limits that these two gates, up to which in old times the barges used to come to land their passengers, are some considerable distance from the edge of the Embankment. One of 105 Things Seen in London these water-gates, known as the York Gate, is in the Embankment Gardens at Charing Cross. It was built by Inigo Jones, and gave access to the mansion of George VilHers, Duke of Buckingham, the favourite of James I. and Charles I. Every student of history has read of the magnificent entertainments which were there given to the King and Court, and so perhaps this old gate has seen as much of the pageantry and splendour of the early Stuart Kings as any other spot now remaining in London. At the other end of the Strand, at the bottom of Essex Street — in fact, incorpor- ated into the houses which close the end of it — we get the gate of Essex House. It is not so impressive nor so clearly visible as the other, but can be easily made out when looked for. It is really more visible for what it is when looked at from the Embankment near to the Astor Estate office. It was from this house that the favourite of Elizabeth started on his ill-fated expedition to try and rouse the city against the ill-advisers of the Queen who had supplanted him . Hemmed in in the City, he had io6 Historical Relics in the Streets to return by water and reach his house through this gate, only to be taken on surrender through the same gate to Lambeth House, and so to the Tower and his execution. Lord Essex is commemorated near by in Devereux Court, where a bust of him is fixed high up on the walls of what is now an office, but was formerly the Grecian Coffee House. In the days when each Coffee House had its own habitues, and men of one way of thinking or one profession frequented the same house, the " Grecian " (so-called from the founder being a Greek called Constantine) was the rendezvous of the wits and beaux of the Temple, and Steele tells us in the first number of the Tatler, when he is humorously describing from what centres the different articles in his paper will be dictated, that "all accounts of learning shall be under the title of ' The Grecian/ '' It would hardly be expected that we should have scattered about London several interesting relics of old London Bridge, yet such is the case. One of the alcoves is in the gardens of 107 Things Seen in London Guy's Hospital, and may be seen any day affording shelter for the convalescent patients who are taking the air there, while an excellent carved medallion of the Royal Arms, which used to adorn the front of the southern side of the Bridge, will be found used as the sign, or at any rate let into the wall, of a public-house in Newcomen Street, off High Street, Borough. Parts of the stone window tracery of the Chapel of St. Thomas a Becket are used as the coping of a garden in front of the caretaker's house in a builder's yard in Islington. The City still boasts two famous wells. The one by the Royal Exchange is now used as a place of call for thirsty horses. The iron standard is foursquare, and has an inscription to the effect that on this spot a well was made and a house of correction built in 1282; further- more that it was enlarged and the pump erected in 1799. It seems to have required, according to the inscription, the united efforts of the Bank of England, the East India Company, the neighbouring fire offices, and the bankers io8 Historical Relics in the Streets and traders of the Ward of Cornhill, to erect this somewhat meagre edifice. Aldgate Pump is known to everyone, and is about the limit of the City man's walks eastward as of the East Ender's walk westward. Stow mentions it and the prison adjacent called the Aldgate Tun, because it had a resemblance to a large wine- cask set on end. It was primarily intended for the purification of the streets of the city. Close to it there existed an underground room, at times exposed, and on the last occasion visited by Mr. Philip Norman, who speaks of it as a fine chamber, though to what uses it was put no one seems to know. Charles Lamb states that he was moved to tears when he returned on one occasion to Fleet Street and found that the celebrated clock and figures of St. Dunstan's Church had been removed. It may not be known to every- one that this clock was not destroyed, but removed to St. Dunstan's Lodge in Regent's Park. Though it is in a private garden, the owner, and probably his tenants the blind 109 Things Seen in London soldiers, courteously allow visitors to see it, so at least one landmark of old Fleet Street is preserved to bring back to mind its former appearance. Few people would expect to find in the heart of London any relic of trusty Dick Penderel, who saved Charles II. during the flight from Worcester by secreting him in the Boscobel Oak, much less to come across in the churchyard of a London slum his gravestone : yet those who will turn off Oxford Street where it joins Tottenham Court Road, and walk along High Street, St. Giles, will come to the old parish church by which for many generations the carts rumbled, bearing the unfortunate condemned on their way to Tyburn Tree ; and in the churchyard now laid out as a public garden will see an altar tomb inscribed to " Trusty Dick Penderel, the Saviour of Charles II.'' It is said that he had come up to London to press for due recognition of his services, and for once to find the Merry Monarch not ungrateful, for he got his pension, no Historical Relics in the Streets when death most untimely overtook him. At any rate, here he rests among the worn-out wayfarers from the adjacent Soho w^ho make this church garden their place of quiet retreat from the noise and heat of their streets. Ill CHAPTER VII THE LIFE OF THE STREETS THERE is probably more to interest and fascinate the mind in a square mile of London than in fifty or a hundred square miles of average countryside. Not only are there houses of historic interest, the old signs and quaint relics of bygone days, people of note in every branch of human activity that we may rub shoulders with, but the motley tribe of those who see life from the gutter and get their living by those who never use it. Here we have the tradesmen who have no shop-fronts and the dealers who do not pay rent for their business premises. What queer trades some of them follow, and in what surprising ways they make a living ! The pavement does not know the gutter as it should, or it would be filled with surprise to find what good fellows there 112 L A odak ARCHWAY LEADING FROM CAREY STREET INTO NEW SQUARE, Lincoln's inn fields The square is on; of the largest in London, and laid out by Inigo Tones. Kefore being enclosed the fields were a favourite place for duelling, and a haunt of thieves. Lord John Russell was executed there in 16S3. The Life of the Streets are there and how clever they have to be if they are to exist at all. To see a man selling goods or performing in the gutter and getting in the coppers does not perhaps much impress the well-dressed man who passes a foot away on the pavement. Let that same man, however, go home, empty his pockets, put on his oldest clothes, with a little extra dirt and a few fresh holes for the occasion, and step out with empty pockets from his comfortable home to consider himself for twenty-four hours a penniless and homeless gutter-man. Food, lodging, fire, the most primitive requirements of man, have all to be won from the hard, busy, preoccupied, unheeding crowd that is passing the new gutter recruit each minute. How is he going to begin ? Has he the assurance to make himself heard above the din of traffic ? Can he persuade the callous passer-by that he is in need of the poor little thing he has to sell, or can he perform so as to hold his attention ? The chances are few that he will have the wit or cleverness to make even a start, and at the end of the experiment he will return supperless and penniless, ashamed 113 H I Things Seen in London of his former indifference to the man whose place he cannot take, seeing he lacks his clever adaptability. The most familiar of street trades is that of the pavement artist. It has its tricks, like all other trades. Have little to do with the man of woebegone countenance who, with an old golf- cap upside down on the pavement at his side, sits by a row of boards — his (supposed) artistic efforts — for all to see. He is probably only a warming-pan for a financier round the corner who owns half a dozen such pitches, as they are called, and supplies the boards each morning (you can see them being brought wrapped up in American cloth) and hires the woebegone one — the sadder he looks the better, and the colder it is the more business, while an east wind means wealth — for the day, to whom he gives his doss and a few pence over, while he himself takes the earnings. See the man do his own drawings and see that they are up to date, and not merely the fish, or sunset, or banana he learned to draw when he was at school. Current events and people at the moment in the 114 The Life of the Streets public eye should be put on the pavement if a man really knows his business. The talent of some of these men is far beyond the average, and they can earn their living by black-and-white work and by taking portraits on cards when the weather does not favour the pavement. Pavement pictures in fine summer weather on a good pitch pay well, and from five shillings to one pound can be earned easily on busy days ; but the pinch comes in the winter, when the east wind drives people along the pavement in a hurry, and they are little inclined to wait even to draw the humble " brown " from the pocket and toss it to the artist. One man on the Embankment is at least original, for he will take your picture in black and white on a postcard " while you wait,*" and the waiting is generally rather less than three minutes. He m ast do these drawings rather skil- fully, for he has sitters, or rather standers, all day long when the Embankment is well filled on a bright warm day. He is a bit of an idealist, and will make you look your best. Pavement artists — at least, so one of them told our leading 115 Things Seen in London humorist — cannot paint things too realistically on the stones. " Why don't you paint things more life-like ? That is not like an apple or that like milk." "Well, guv'nor, ifs like this," was the reply. '' I used to make 'em life-like, but one day when I had some real- looking milk on the pavement a nasty cat came and drank it up, and since then I've been a bit impressionist like." The toy yacht clubs on the Serpentine and the Round Pond are much patronized by Londoners, and any day the little vessels may be seen skimming across these waters, waited upon by their patient owners. They sometimes get into difficulties, too, like larger craft, and they often founder, so there is one man at least who makes part of his living by salving them. Almost any day in different parts of the W^est End you may meet him wheeling a perambulator fenced round with American cloth, upon which a most startling announcement, generally on the drink question, arrests your attention. In the illustration the emphatic motto of the day is : " Woe to her ii6 The Life of the Streets who sells poison for drink r He is a temper- ance enthusiast, and sells tracts on the subject. But at time he hies him to the parks, and either by fastening a long line furnished with hooks to his little vessel, which he calls the Magnifi- cat, or by trailing it from one bank while a companion works from the other, he sweeps the water so that his hooks foul any derelict vessels and bring them to land, and for this he is suitably rewarded. A curious way, truly, of getting a living. The Champion Walker should be known to most frequenters of the streets. His magnifi- cent head of white hair and his stall covered with the literature of his successes attract much attention. Sometimes without his stall he walks the streets with a card, on which his achievements have been written, pendant from his neck. He is naturally a strong enthusiast about walking exercise, and a chat with him on the subject is worth while waiting for. Who is the man with a head like an apostle and a most benign countenance ? A one-armed street singer to be seen almost anywhere from 117 Things Seen in London Hampstead to Clapham, slowly pacing the never- ending streets to the accompaniment of his accustomed ditties. Now and then he acts as an artist's model, and no wonder. The " Buskers " are a large family, and add greatly to the gaiety of the London gutter; and if it be asked who a busker is — well, he is a man who entertains you in the street in some way or another. The ways are endless, and new kinds of talent are continually coming to the front when the old tricks grow stale and fail to attract. Some little time ago a busker concert was organized in a London suburb. Some hundred of the fraternity got their names down, but less than half of them were invited to perform. The concert was a surprising success. The audience was delighted with the variety of the talent. Here is a busker who is clever enough to play any air you please on one string, which has practically a cigar-box as its sounding-board aided by a megaphone. If you should hear him play you will be surprised at the ability of the performer and the capacity of the instrument. ii8 The Life of the Streets A distinct branch of this business in London is concerned with the queues that line up nightly at our theatres. The man who devotes himself to this work wanders from theatre to theatre, visiting the waiting queues. Some of them are not very amusing, while others depend upon some physical infirmity and do practically nothing but beg on the strength of it. There are, however, some clever and really amusing fellows amongst them. The chapographer, whose sole stock-in-trade consists of the brim of a hat, has an extensive repertoire, and can, by a dexterous twist of the brim and an appropriate facial expression, give characters as distinct as a nun and a suffragette, a Roman Catholic priest and a cavalier. "Talking Hand," who paints up the back of his hand to represent a face, clothes it in appropriate raiment, and begins a ventriloquial conversation with his own hand, only suffers because the business is too old to compete with more modern devices of drawing coppers. It is clever enough in its way, and deserves support. A man of considerable skill on his instrument 119 Things Seen in London — the dulcimer — was Will Belasco, only recently dead. He always modestly boasted that he had performed before King Edward and Queen Alexandra. He was a fine executant, and one wondered that he should think it worth his while to seek the coppers of the queues. Not only must the busker have considerable skill of a kind to gain and keep attention amidst the crowds, traffic, and noise of the London streets, but he must also have studied his audience. lliese men tell me that a beginner is sure to go wrong and fail of success unless he knows the varying moods of the queues at the different theatres and plays. One man falls quite flat and goes away copper- less ; another fills his bag. To people waiting outside '• The Follies " the same performance does not appeal that succeeds with those who are prepared to be saddened and shed tears over "The Passing of the Third Floor Back/'' The genial crowd that will soon be laughing at Hawtrey or George Graves are for the time at any rate in the mood for quite a different queue entertainment from that which will please the 120 The Life of the Streets idealists who are waiting to see "The Blue Bird/'' The queue entertainer only wastes his time and jars on the feelings of his audience if he does not know sufficient about the performance soon to take place inside a theatre and the kind of people who are likely to patronize it. Many other artists are found in the streets as well as those who use the pavement as their canvas. Many men with some gift for pencil or brush work make drawings of particular places on paper or card, and sell them to those who come to visit where they sketch. One of the oldest and most interesting relics of London is the Roman Bath in Strand Lane, reached by a narrow entrance and a lane turn- ing southwards just opposite the eastern end of St. Mary-le-Strand Church. This is a survival from Roman times, in excellent preservation, and can be seen by visitors every Saturday morning from twelve to one. Outside will usually be found a street artist who, having sketched the inside, does replicas at half a crown each, which he sells to those, principally Americans, who come to visit the Bath. 121 Things Seen in London The toyman in the gutter is one of our London institutions. Some fresh figure to amuse is constantly on sale. The dying pig, the little vanman who goes with such frantic haste across the pavement and comes to such an abrupt halt, or the woolly bear put on the hand like a glove and extending its arms invitingly to grasp the passer-by — we know them all. There is an innumerable family of hoppers who jump, jump, jump, down the inclined board so nimbly, and the snake who wriggles so naturally across his black board, but who refuses to act his part so well as soon as you get him home. Two tradesmen in London at least are remarkable for the pets they have adopted, and with which they may be seen at times in the streets — the butcher who owned a pet lamb, and the poulterer with his pet goose. This goose is appropriately named " Michael," and accompanies his master to lunch, walking the streets with complete assurance close to his master's heels, who will turn to him from time to time with words of encouragement. 122 The Life of the Streets Street trades were in the past very numerous, but in the hurry and bustle of to-day are rapidly dying out. These men actually did their work and delivered it, having no workshop but the pavement. Of course, the knife-grinder is one of the oldest, and he is still to be met with. Another survival is the basket and chair mender. He, finding some spot less frequented than others and affording room for work and a few steps to sit down on, will reseat a chair or rebottom a basket and bring it back while you wait. The icecream man, who is generally an Italian from Hatton Garden district, does a lively trade in summer, while in winter he turns his attention to hot chestnuts. He is thrifty, patient, polite, acquainted with the ways even of the London kiddies, and he retires in due time from business and ends peaceful days in the warm Italian sunshine without a care. Organ-grinders are often from the same colony, though many English out- of-works and ne'er-do-wells have their half-a- crown organ from the man who lets them out on hire for the day. The business is not 123 Things Seen in London what it was in old days, even when Calverly wrote of the charm of the '^ Grinder, who serenely grindest At my door the Hundredth Psalm, Till thou ultimately findest Pence in thine unvvashen palm.'^ The monkey, old-time companion of the organ, is hopelessly out of fashion. The modern substitute for these childish delights, which even now would be a note of gaiety in the street, is the piano upon a raised wheeled platform and an itinerant singer, male or female, with no little power of lung, trolling out to the delight of several streets at once, so far-reaching is the melody, " Oh, my beautiful doll !" Altogether the streets of London can never be really dull, unless we are too preoccupied in ourselves to see what is ffoinoj on around us. There is music of a sort, sometimes of a really good sort, and foreign authorities have said that our street music is the best in the world ; queer things for sale as well as humdrum articles 124 The Life of the Streets such as laces, collar-studs, and hat-guards ; per- formances of all kinds from the writhing contor- tionist to "Talking Hand"; books, crockery, old iron, ices, roasted chestnuts and sweets — the tale of them all is endless ; and behind each stall or tray or instrument a human personality, clever often, needy generally, but able in the midst of all the hurly-burly of the streets to make us stop, listen, or buy, in spite of our preoccupation in business or in pleasure. 125 CHAPTER VIII BY THE RIVER THE River Thames has had many vicissitudes during its long connection with London, It was the cause of London's birth and deter- mined its situation. It has made for ages a highway for the coming and going of Londoners and for bringing in the produce of the world for her use or distributing her goods to the ends of the earth . It has had its days of popularity and, as at the present time, of neglect. The authorities of to-day are enclosing it with long lines of embankment, and hoping, by doing away with its foreshore, to make it more useful for themselves and those who come after. The sinuous river is to be curbed, its picturesque foreshore is to be swept away, and stone walls are to check its wilfulness. Perhaps it may be made more useful, but it 126 By the River must lose much of its old charm. It has long ceased to be a highway of the town, as in the old days when the people, from the King to the poorest, made it their busy street for pleasure or for business. To go to the Palace, the theatre, the shop, or the church, they used the river. To embark on the river in a public boat was like taking a bus ; to hail a private boat was like hiring a taxi. The man of those days knew what London was like from the river; to-day we only know the river as seen from its banks, and day by day its banks get more same and uniform, and one part differs less in essentials from another. As good a way as any to realize the interest of the river and what it has on its banks is to take a real or an imaginary steamer and travel, say, from Chelsea to London Bridge, noting on the way any special features of the river itself and the interesting survivals on its banks. Even in that short distance the river passes widely different districts. Residential, business, manufacturing, administrative areas are passed. To some parts thousands flock by day to work, 127 Things Seen in London to others in the evening for home and rest. Some are as deserted as the grave by nightfall, and others are only beginning to light up and become attractive when the day's work is done and the time for feeding and amusement has come. Chelsea has been a notable suburb of London from quite early times, and on account of the number of great houses and their noble owners to be found there came to be known as "the village of palaces." Here, by the clear, bright river, gay with flowers and gardens and fields like the countryside, peace and good air could be got after the activities of the capital. Few traces of these old houses remain, though the old church in their midst on the bank of the stream is still with us and shelters under costly monuments many of its former parishioners. Perhaps the most distinguished of all the crreat men who have made a home in Chelsea was Sir Thomas More, and there still exist as the boundary walls of the old Moravian bury- ing-ground the walls of his stable and the paddock in which he played with his children. 128 I By the River He built the More Chapel as an appendage to the parish church in which he loved to worship, hoping for peaceful days in the Manor House and rest in the church at last for himself and his family. The King who professed to love him denied him both. He was commanded away from Chelsea to the dangers and cares of office, as his friend Erasmus had prophesied that he would be. He fell a victim to a tyrant whose opinions he could not honestly embrace, and after a cruel captivity paid for his honesty on the scaffold on Tower Hill. His body was buried in St. Peter's ad Vincula in the Tower, and his head put upon London Bridge. The head came into the possession of his daughter, Margaret Roper, who guarded it as her priceless treasure for life, and it was buried with her in the Roper Tomb in St. Dunstan's, Canterbury. The Moravian burying-ground is in itself interesting, not only on account of the separa- tion of the sexes in burial, the lack of epitaphs on the stones, the fact that all the gravestones lie flat on the ground, but also from the 129 I Things Seen in London connection of Count Zinzendorf with the Mission, and his making his headquarters and that of the Moravian Mission generally in England, at Lindsay House on the adjacent river bank. A poor little waif has a lonely resting-place in one corner of the cemetery — one Nuniak, an Eskimo boy, brought back by Captain Cook from one of his voyages. On the bank of the river near Lindsay House will be noticed a small cottage with a flat roof and its coping crowned by a rail. Always a wanderer and a Bohemian, the painter Turner called one day at this house and took lodgings, his friends not knowing his whereabouts. He had the railing fixed on the top of the house, so that he might study the fine cloud effects west or east visible from the spot, and it was here that he was taken with his last illness. When near death he used to be wheeled to the window that he might look his last upon the gorgeous sky effects for which London is remarkable and which the dying man had incorporated into so many of his immortal pictures of light. 130 By the River Chelsea Church is a sort of suburban West- minster Abbey. It has tombs of many interest- ing people who have played a part in history, and until lately could boast of being the only church in the inner London radius that had kept itself free from the ubiquitous church restorer. The Chelsea Pensioners, whose home lies here by the river, add by the scarlet of their quaint old uniforms to the gaiety of the London streets. Wren erected the present Hospital for Charles II. at, we are often told, the suggestion of Nell Gwynn, and it remains a typical speci- men of the great master's domestic manner. It contains many objects of great interest in its old Hall and Chapel. Adjoining it are stretches of greensward and formal paths, the happy playground of the charges who are brought by white-clad nursemaids, where were once the waterways, gardens, and Rotunda of the celebrated Ranelagh Gardens, the most select and aristocratic of London's eighteenth- century alfresco playgrounds. Peace, even to-day, still reigns supreme in 131 Things Seen in London the Herb Garden near at hand. It is the oldest of its kind in this country, and is the only one remaining of the three celebrated gardens that we once had in our midst in London. There was Gerard's in Hoi born and the garden of the Tradescants at Lambeth, but they have both disappeared. A statue of Sir Hans Sloane by Rysbrach will be found in the garden, and justly, since at a crisis in its history he came in and saved it from the builder. No one should miss this old-world place, which still carries on its useful work as a place of study for L.C.C. students, who can gather in the garden the specimens which they require to examine in the laboratory built here for their use. Another London playground of old days was on the site of the Vauxhall Station of the South- Western Railway and the streets adjoin- ing it on the south-east, several of which by their names indicate their connection with old days, such as Tyers Street. Tyers was the family name of the last proprietors of the Gardens. The Jonathan Tyers of Hogarth's; day was a great friend of his, for whom h 1^2 "I By the River painted several pictures and was presented in return with a golden souvenir giving free admission to the Gardens for ever to himself and a coachload of his friends. The fathers of the present generation can no doubt remember these Gardens, for they lingered on into the mid-nineteenth century, being famous for the slices of ham which were cut so thin that it was said that a skilful carver could cover all the acres of the Gardens with the slices from a single ham. Lambeth Church and churchyard are both of interest. In the church will be found a window of insignificant dimensions, known as the Pedlar's Window. A bargain was struck with the parish by this old wanderer on behalf of himself and his favourite dog, and it was agreed that he would leave to the people of Lambeth his little savings if they on their part would agree to put up a window, showing the man and his dog, in their church, and to bury them as near together as circumstances allowed. So the parish got the savings and spent them in buying an acre of land, which used to bring 133 I Things Seen in London in a few shillings in old times for the good of the poor. To show how land has increased in value in London, it may be added that a year or so ago, in laying the foundations of their new County Hall on the south-eastern end of Westminster Bridge, the London County Council disturbed the Pedlar s acre, and com- pensation was sought for that disturbance and the claim made was for ^30,000. In the churchyard will be found a curious old altar tomb with very quaint adornments such as shells, an armadillo, ruins of buildings, and suchlike. This is where the brothers Tradescant, who owned the Herb Garden at Lambeth, are buried, and these emblems are put upon their tomb to commemorate the fact that they were great collectors of curiosities. Their extensive collection came into the posses- sion of Elias Ashmole, and formed the major part of the contents of the Ashmolean Museum still existing at Oxford. The view of the Houses of Parliament from this point is probably one of the finest to be had. Lambeth Palace is one of those places re- 134 P art^-idge' s Yfictorial Press CLEOPATRA S NEEDLE This monolith had no connection whatever with Cleopatra and dates back to B.C. 1500. By the River quiring many chapters to itself, and therefore not coming within the scope of this little book, but suffice it to say that the Palace itself, as well as the Library, is filled with historical treasures, and formed the setting^ of manv events which have made history, and should by all means be visited by those who desire to know something of London. The Tower, through which entrance is obtained at the present time, was built by Cardinal Morton, in whose household as a youth Sir Thomas More served, and who had the wit to predict the future greatness of his pupil. It was in the Chapel that Laud communed with himself before his trial, and it was from the Palace steps, which then were the natural way of embarking, that he started on his last journey to the Tower. The banks of the river on the north side from here to Blackfriars are lined with a pleasant boulevard, backed by many large and noble buildings, such as the New Scotland Yard, Whitehall Court, and such places of historical interest and import as the Temple. The noble sweep of Adelphi Terrace, which 135 Things Seen in London can be seen from the river, has Garrick's house near its centre, and has behind it all that little nucleus of streets built by the brothers Adam in the eighteenth century, and acquired from the builders mainly by the lottery system. It will be noticed that the brothers Adam have called the streets in the Adelphi by their own Christian names. A group of streets which abuts on Villiers Street and backs upon the York Gate already described was built just before Pepys came to live in Buckingham Street, upon ground which had belonged to the first Duke of Buckingham. His son in selling it (he was the Duke who was so severely handled by Dryden in " Absalom and Achitophel ") made the stipulation that the streets there built should be named after himself. So even to-day we get the following street names : George Street, Villiers Street, Duke Street, Buckingham Street, and there used to be " Of Alley ,'"* but the name has been altered. Pepys's house occupied the same ground as the one looking out on the gardens at the south-western corner of Buckingham Street. 136 [ Kodak LONDON IJKIDGE Tbe present Bridge was begun in IS-Jo near the site of the old bridge, and widened in 1903. By the River Two great hotels, the Savoy and the Cecil, the dining-places of multi-millionaires, now come into view where of old the private houses of the nobles had place, while the old Chapel of the Savoy is in one of those peaceful backwaters of which London has so many and used to have more. It is not the chapel of the old Palace of John of Gaunt— this was burnt by the rebels under Wat Tyler — but the chapel of the Leper Hospital which was built upon its site. Waterloo Bridge, which here spans the river, is one of the most satisfactory of our modern bridges, built by Rennie. It indicates its approximate date by its own name, Waterloo Bridge, and the name of the street constructed to give access to it, Wellington Street. From Blackfriars Bridge (where under the first arch on the north side the old Fleet River can still be seen issuing from a culvert) right on to the Tower there are a series of private docks and quays, which close this part of the river to the public save where, as at Dowgate, there is an open space and a public right-of- way. ^o7 Things Seen in London One of the early theatres with which Shake- speare was associated is commemorated in Playhouse Yard, and in the churchyard of St. Anne's will be seen quite a goodly fragment of the Church of the Blackfriars Monastery, while one of the pillars is in possession of the monks of a Benedictine House in the north of London. Two facts about Shakespeare, amongst the few we have, are connected with this locality. Ireland Yard takes its name from a man of that name who made conveyance of a house hereabout to Shakespeare, while on a tablet under an archway in Carter Lane it is recorded that the only letter known to have been addressed to Shakespeare was written from the tavern formerly on that site. Perhaps here the opposite side of the river is the more interesting since, if Blackfriars Bridge be crossed and advantage be taken of a subway on the east side of the south approach to the Bridge, it will conduct us at once into Bankside, near to the site of Holland's Leaguer. Opposite is Falcon Draw Dock, where the Falcon Tavern, the haunt of Raleigh, Southampton, and the 138 By the River actors of the Bankside, formerly stood. To understand the ancient appearance of this district and the way in which the old lanes have persisted, and to fix the positions of the theatres in the memory, an old map is essential. Suffice it to say that the site of the Globe Theatre, the Round O, is indicated by a medallion let into the wall of Barclay's Brewery in Park Street, that the field paths leading from the river to the theatres, bear and bull- baiting rings, and to the stews, in direction, width, and windings, follow exactly their old courses. Rose Alley, which led to the Rose Theatre ; Love Lane leading to the stews ; Bear Gardens, where an open space indicates the position of the old pit — all can be followed. To look at Holland Street on a modern survey map and again on one of the old maps is to realize one of the most interesting bits of London topography, for Holland Street to-day follows the course of the millstream which encircled an old mill and the Falcon Inn. Bankside is now on weekdays a busy centre of industry and manufacture, but on Sundays 139 Things Seen in London it goes back to its one-time peacefulness, and there is no one to be seen but a few mudlarks, an inhabitant or two, and the peripatetic policeman. Here one of the best views of St. PauPs from the river is obtainable, and its dominating position on its hill above the city is realized. The hinterland of Bankside is not very interesting as soon as the theatre district is passed, but Redcross Gardens and Hall are important, for here, as well as in the Postman's Park near the old St. Martin's- le-Grand, an effort has been made to record for future generations the noble deeds of the poor and the unknown. Redcross Hall has illustra- tions by Walter Crane of some of these notable heroisms in humble life. High Street, Borough, is only a few minutes"' walk from the Bank End, and keeps in remem- brance the numerous old galleried inns of which only one, the George, has survived to our day, and it may be the actual inn intended by Dickens as the scene of the first meeting of Sam Weller with his future master. Here was the cruel prison of the Marshalsea, which is 140 By the River mentioned often in the pages of Dickens ; and, of course, it was at St. George's Church, at the southern end of the High Street, that " Little Dorrit," the magic creature of the great story- teller's brain, underwent some of her more notable experiences. Here she rested in the vestry, and her baptism and her marriage in the old church seem more real than all the actual happenings. The imprisonment and death of Bonner in the Marshalsea, the great fire that swept the district and just spared the George and burned the Half Moon, which is figured in Hogarth's " Southwark Fair," are matters of history. We seek in vain now for any trace of the Old Tabard, in order that the creations of brain of another great story- teller in the early spring days of English history may live before us. It has been superseded by a building of so hideous a modernity, with the same old title, that one can only wish that the name had been allowed to drop out altogether. Cocker, the drawing and writing master whose fine specimen writing and flourishes Samuel Pepys preserved with so much care in his 141 Things Seen in London library at Magdalene College, Cambridge, is buried in St. George's Church, and he still fixes the standard of elegance by the persistence of the expression which made him the rule of all exactness — " according to Cocker." Bankside ends near London Bridge, and the open public way along the river ceases with it. Dickens has his associations with the Bridge, since it was on its steps that Nancy met Mr. Brownlow, and was followed by Sykes and afterwards done to death. Those who would realize the position of old London Bridge should stand on the steps on the south-eastern side and look across to St. Magnus's Church, under the archway of the tower of which foot- passengers emerged from the old Bridge into the traffic of the Citv. 142 CHAPTER IX LONDON BY NIGHT LONDON'S night is a short one. Two or three hours at most suffice, and even then only a portion of London sleeps. If you arrive in London at any late hour and drive to your destination, unless you are cm fait with its night aspects, you cannot fail to be surprised at the amount of traffic in the streets, the numbers of people seen, and the shops that stand open. Rows of taxi-cabs wait at Charing Cross on the hill opposite Morley's, as by day. Early breakfast shops are opening, with a queue waiting to be served. Hundreds of men in the picturesque dress and high boots of the road- cleaner are handling the hoses by which the roads are cleansed, while the light from arc- lamps is reflected in the dripping roadways and the water spurting from the nozzle of the hose Ho Things Seen in London as it strikes in a cataract on the pavement. Tired M.P.'s are hurrying to a belated bed after a late sitting in the House, and Covent Garden carts are moving steadily to their destination. There is but a dribble of traffic so early, but it will become a torrent later on as the light of day begins to glow over the city. There is more life in London in the dead of night than in many small country towns in the busy midday. If Dr. Johnson, in days when but feeble oil- lamps made the darkness of the streets visible, or a candle in every window seemed a jubilee decoration, thought that Vauxhall Gardens, lit up with its thousands of oil-lamps, was one of the most glorious sights in creation, what would he think of the brilliant illumination of Ix)ndon with its thousands of arc-lamps on every evening of the year ? The central thoroughfares of London seem as light as day, and, as those know who are accustomed to photograph the streets by their own lights, are getting steadily brighter. Every winter some improvement gives a still more brilliant power to the lamps. 144 I A oaak THE TOWER BRIDGE Was built in lSSG-04. The carnage way is formed of two bascules ( drawbridges worked by hydraulic power to enable vessels of large tonnaj to pass at high tide. London by Night For the artistic eye the night pageant of London begins as soon as the great hghts flare out by street and square and boulevard. Giant patterns, the shadows of the trees and buildings, are flung by their radiance across the roadway, picturesque and mysterious, while trees in shadow are silhouetted against those in brilliant light when the arc- light glows between. In autumn the night pageant is increased, for the fallen leaves are scattered on the pavement, and through the half- bare branches the light effects are better seen. When viewed from the centre of some bridge or from some dominant height the lamps that ring the Embankment make fairy patterns with light reflected in the mud or the water below. Later, when half London, leaving thought of work, turns to feeding and enjoying itself, the theatre fronts are ablaze and their lights and shadows are reflected in the wet or greasy pavements at their base or in the waters of some adjacent fountain. Whistler was the first to see, and to try and make others see, the beauty of the great city by night. Many will 145 K Things Seen in London remember the now well-known passage in which he tells of the impression that it makes upon the artist : " When the evening mist clothes the riverside with poetry as with a veil, and the poor buildings lose themselves in the sky, and the tall chimneys become campanili, and the warehouses are palaces in the night, and the whole city hangs in the heavens, and fairyland is before him, Nature sings her exquisite song to the artist.'' No one with any feeling for beauty has, on one of London's misty evenings, leaned on the Embankment wall and seen the fairy- lights across on the Surrey side reflected in the still water, along with the mysterious stains which are the reflections of the wharves and warehouses, without feeling that at times at night London can be a second Venice. These moods of hers are rare, but when they are seen they can never be forgotten. The blue hour at night, or, better still, in the early morning hours, once seen, will ever be remembered. These effects are for the painter, but it is some satisfaction to the photographer that at least a few of them are, in these days of 146 London by Night fast plates, large-aperture lenses, and skilful development, made possible for him. So rapidly can these more blatant effects be secured where the great arc- lights are shining that people looking into shop- windows, the goods displayed, the fronts of theatres, can be snapshotted almost as by day. Nowadays the fine effects which the modern stagecraft provides are pressed into the service of the photographer, and it is possible to register them by their own light, without the aid of the unnatural lighting produced by a flashlight under such circumstances. Perhaps the best way to emphasize the things to be seen in London at night, as far as the ordinary person can look into that strange world of labour, pleasure, sin, and crime, will be to feign a walk " while London sleeps," and describe what can quite easily be seen by almost anyone who can stand the fatigue of an all-night tramp. About 11 o'clock a start may be made, say from Trafalgar Square, where beautiful effects of light on buildings, reflections in the 147 Things Seen in London fountains, now mirrors of still water, the commanding figures of the great lions in light and shade, may be noticed before the walk begins. Here, too, is a good place from which to observe how the crowds assemble and disperse many times as the night-hours pass. At 7 p.m., or before, queues are hurriedly forming at the theatre doors ; by 7.45 the queues have melted into individuals seated in their places in the pit or gallery of the theatre or music-hall, and carriages are setting down those who have reserved seats. Between 8.30 and 10.30 is the dullest time of the London night. A few taxis are taking up points of vantage to catch fares when the theatres are over, a few diners not going to the theatre are passing by, but the newsvendors, with the latest editions, take little trouble to cry their wares on such empty streets. Before 11 o'clock things are getting brisker again. One or two entertainment houses are emptying and the crowd is rapidly increasing The vehicles are soon streaming from the theatre doors. This great flow of traffic is over by about 148 London by Night 1 1 .30 or 1 1 .40. Then there is a lesser but quite apparent stream ; the entertainers follow the entertained either to supper or home, and actors, artistes, performers of all kinds, take the pavement. At midnight fresh streams are spreading outwards from the rapidly closing houses of entertainment, and later a small dribble of waiters and hands from the same houses mingle with the few loiterers from the late supper-rooms. A few years ago the festive crowds were allowed greater licence. They made pandemonium in the Haymarket and Piccadilly Circus and round the purlieus of the old Argyll Rooms, and hardly noticed the vigorous " Pass on !" of the posse of police. These orgies are not allowed to-day, and, except on armistice nights and at suchlike times, no scenes of that kind are tolerated. Before starting on a night ramble, permission should have been obtained to visit the printing works of some great daily newspaper to view the last correcting of proofs, the final setting of type, the casting of the cylinders, and finally the production at so many thousands a minute of 149 Things Seen in London the printed and folded copies. As the printing office is left, copies of the day's issue are given to the visitor many hours in advance of public sales. By this time it is between 1 and 2 o'clock, and a cup of coffee does not come amiss. Coffee-stalls are to be found at most crucial points in the streets, and many of them are well known and have their regular customers all the year through. Victoria, Hyde Park Corner, the Mansion House, and many other places, have their stalls, where one is always sure to get a sight of some real night-birds and the usual types that play the same part in the streets as the owls and the bats of the country- side. It may happen that, should your pity move you to offer some food to a poor, hungry, down-at-heel loafer near by, he will modestly tell you to give it to " the chap over there," who is really hungry, or, if he takes it, he will probably give it away to some mate near by, and join you after you have got a few streets away and explain that he really meant no discourtesy, but that he is a detective in private clothes just 150 London by Night walking about the streets in the dead of night to see what the undesirables are about, or to nab some " wanted " man who has thought it safe to break cover thus, once in the twenty-four hours. Through the silent, almost empty streets, before the flush of dawn begins to appear over the city and pales the street-lamps, we can slip down to the Embankment, where sleepers in every attitude of discomfort and unrest are snatching a brief slumber before being " called early " by the peripatetic policeman. Some, if the night be very bitter, will have to be taken off to the nearest hospital on a stretcher, and their old haunts will know them no more, while the happy, or perhaps unhappy, survivors will seek a wash on the river stairs, or go off to get such a breakfast as the bins placed upon the edge of the pavements may afford them before the rag-and-bone merchant pays his early call. Philanthropists had been busy doing what they could for the Embankment sleeper. They were lined up night by night in severe weather 151 Things Seen in London in order to march down between about 3 and 4 a.m. to get hot soup at the Salvation Army Shelter, while individuals, often themselves working late at theatre or music-hall, would buy up the remains on a coffee-stall and serve them out, as long as they last, to all and sundry. But this kindly sympathy and help only attracted a fresh crowd the next night from other parts of London, and the problem was still unsolved as to how the richest city in the world was to relieve first and give permanent betterment afterwards to the starving, hope- less, homeless crowd within its gate, when war practically solved the position in a few months, and the Embankment is now practi- cally deserted and only a few stragglers are to be seen. One who was for many months one of that unfortunate band who have no food and no shelter, but who, by the cleverness of his pencil, has made London provide him with both, has sketched the amusing side of the nightly life on the Embankment, and offers this advice to those who have no " doss " — namely, to go round early and collect all the newspapers i52 SO.MKltSET lIorSK FUOJI THE K.AU^ANKMENT On the site of the Palace begun by the Lord Protector Somerset in 1547, It is now occupied by various Government offices, the east wing by King's College. London by Night that are available. The political opinions of the papers are not of so much account as their substance, and so perhaps a copy of the Times will come in more handy than the Daily Mail. Then, when night comes on and bed- time approaches, some of the papers spread beneath make the mattress, and the others, wj-apped round the person, form the coverlet. Joking apart, many men and women had no better covering than this from the biting cold of a winter's night, and in many cases it did not suffice for the sick or the aged, and the night's cold sleep passed into the longer and colder sleep of death, and the ambulance came to fetch them away in the morning. Any of the streets leading up from the Embankment in fche neighbourhood of Water- loo Bridge bring one in a few minutes across the Strand to Covent Garden. Carts of all sorts laden with produce or gay with flowers have been slowly accumulating for hours in King's Street and Henrietta Street and all the neighbouring throughfares, while Long Acre is so blocked that traffic only advances, if it does 153 Things Seen in London at all, at an occasional footpace. Trays of flowers have been arriving at Floral Hall from midnight onwards, and by daylight it is a gorgeous flower garden waiting for the arrival of the auctioneer and his buyers. Fruit is piled high in boxes and baskets on a hundred carts, and the famous Covent Garden porters shouting the names of their firm are carrying loads, varying from six to twenty baskets, on their heads, with a fine balance, to their destination. For these porters the day begins in the middle of the night and ends when other people are sitting down to breakfast. By eleven in the morning they are spruced up, if they trouble to do it, in a change of suit and taking their early or for them late drink at the public-house near their homes. By the time the porters have nearly done their work the road-cleaners take possession of the Garden, and their hoses are swilling water in a glistening stream on road and pavement, and washing away mud and the waste of flowers and fruit and making things tidy for the business man who will soon be arriving at his office. 154 London by Night Long after others have departed little groups of women can be found in odd corners shelling peas and doing other little jobs of similar nature. A few extra cheap bunches of flowers and baskets of fruit having been secured at wholesale prices from some friendly dealer soon after the early arrival at the Garden, a start may be made for home, and there will be time for a hot bath and a few hours' sleep before joining the rest of the household at a late breakfast. Few people will regret having seen this night aspect of London. Not only has it the charm of novelty, but it is a unique experience which most people enjoy. Day in London has its own attractions, but in variety and interest they can hardly compare wdth "things seen" between the dai'k and the dawn. 155 INDEX A PAGES Abbey Cloisters - - 37 Adelphi Terrace - 135, 136 Aklgate Pump - - 60 Alfresco Entertainment 75, 76, 77, 78, 79 B Bankside - - - -13c ), 140, 141 Borough Inns _ - 91 Boulevards in London ,. - 75 Burial Grounds or Gardens _ 72, 73 Buskers in London - - 118 C Cecil Hotel - 137 Champion Walker - - - 117 Charles I. on Horseback . 31 Cheapside - - - 48 Chelsea - - 128 Chelsea Herb Garden » - 132 Chelsea Hospital - . - 131 156 Index " Cheshire Cheese " . . PAGES - 101 City Wells - - 108, 109 Clerk enwell — Cheap Books - 23 Cocke Inn - - - - 101 Cock Lane Ghost - - _ - 98 Cockspur Street - - 41 Coffee Stalls - - 150, 151 Covent Garden Market D 15 3, 154, 155 Destruction in London - - 80 Dock Warehouses - - - 53, 54, 55 Dunstan's Church • - - 85 Dunstan's Clock . - 109, 110 Dutch Tenters G " 53 George Villiers^ Duke of Bu [;kingham - 136 Ghetto, The - - - 61 Goldsmith's House . . 86, 87 Gough Square - - 81, 82 Greenery of London - - - 66 Gutter Merchants - H " - 122 Haymarket - - 38 Heart of London, The - - - 22-30 Historic Houses - - 80 Hogarth's House - - - 86 Home of Prince Henry 157 - - 87 Index I— J Iron Lamp Brackets Italian Colony Johnson's House PAGES - 92 21 81, 82 Lamb, Charles Lambeth Church - Lambeth Palace Lansdowne Passage Leicester Square Lindsay House Local Trading Lombard Street London Bridge Survival London by Night - London's River 83, 84 - 133 134^, 135 - 103 39,40 - 130 - 49 55 - 108 143-155 126, 127 M Martin's Lane Martyrs' Memorial - Moravian Burial Ground More, Sir Thomas - Municipal Parks N Newspaper Offices, A Visit to Night in London - 158 41, 42 51 - 129 128, 129 - 71 149, 150 - 143 Index o Organ-Grinders - PAGES - 123 Palaces of London - P 43, 47 Panyer Alley Pavement Artists - - - 99 114, 116 Pedlar's Acre _ 133, 134 Penderel, Richard - - - 110 Pepys and his District Pets in Streets - 56, 51 - 122 Petticoat Lane . 6i, 62, 6S Processions through City - - 49 Q Queue Entertainers - - 119, 120 R Reynolds's House - - - 85, 86 Roman Bath - - - - 21 Running Footmen - - - - 100 S Savoy Hotel - - - - 137 Shop Signs - - • 95, 98 Shoreditch - - . 64, 65 Sleepers on the Embankment - 151, 153 Smithfield - - - - 50, 51 Southwark - - - - 140, 141 Staple Inn - - - - 88, 89 159 Ind ex Sterne's Home Strand Strange Survivals - Street Name- Plates Street Trades Ten-Mile Walk, A - Tower Hill Tradescants' Tomb Traffic Posts Travellers' Rest Tyburn Tree U— V- United Service Museum Vauxhall Gardens - Water-Gates in Strand Whitechapel Art Gallery Whitehall - -W BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTKES, GUILDFORD, ENGLAND. .,F fe33 .1 ill A. i'iHltft ill! :'l'!iiiil!i ill! 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