This was scanned in from an old document which has caused numerous misreadings of words. As time moves on, this will be improved.
INNS OF OLD LONDON.
OF Olden Inns, up gateways, and consisting of rooms for refection below, and long projecting balustraded galleries above, leading to the chambers—time and change have spared a few interesting specimens.
Angel, Islington (actually in St. James’s, Clerkenwell), once a busy resort of travellers on the Great North Road, is reputed to have been established upwards of 200 years: it was rebuilt in 1819. The old inn-yard was nearly quadrangular, with double galleries, supported by plain columns, and pilasters carved with caryatid and other figures. (See Pugin’s Views in Islington and Pentonville, 1819.) A coloured drawing of this old inn-yard is preserved here. The Peacock, another inn hard by, was of equal if not greater antiquity.
Angel, St. Clement’s, Strand, retained to the last its gables and portions of covered galleries, with an old lattice-fronted attic passage. Data of three centuries since also attest its antiquity: Bishop Hooper, the venerated martyr of the Reformation, upon his second committal to the Fleet Prison in 1553, refusing to recant his opinions, was condemned to be burnt, in January, 1555. It was expected that he would have accompa 18 have anied Rogers, a prebendary of St. Paul’s, to the stake; but Hooper was led back to his cell, to be carried down to Gloucester, to suffer among his own people. Next morning he was roused at four o’clock, and being committed to the care of six of Queen Mary’s Guard, they took him, before it was light, to the Angel Inn, St. Clement’s, then standing in the fields; and thence he was taken to Gloucester, and there burnt with dreadful torments on the 9th of February.
In the Public Advertiser, March 28,1769, is the following advertisement:—
*’ To be sold, a Black Girl, the property of J. B , eleven years of age, who is extremely handy,
works at her needle tolerably, and speaks English perfectly well; is of an excellent temper and willing disposition. Inquire of Mr. Owen, at the Angel Inn, behind St. Clement’s Church, in the Strand.”
The Angel Inn has been taken down; and upon its site is built the cul-de-sac of
Chambers called ” Danes’ Inn.”
Ape, Philip-lane, London Wall: here were formerly two galleried inns, the Ape and the Cock, of great antiquity: the sign of the former is preserved on the house No. 14.
Baptist’s Head public-house, east side of St. John’s-lane, Clerkenwell, just without the Priory-gate, is a fragment of an Elizabethan mansion, and until its renovation had an overhanging front grotesquely carved, and lit by large bay windows, with painted
G G 2
glass : some of the interior scroll-panelling remains. This house was the residence of Sir Thomas Forster, Knt., one of the judges of the Court of Common Pleas; he died in 1612, and his arms, sculptured upon the chimney-piece of the present tap-room, have been collated in Cromwell’s Clerkenwell. The sign may have been chosen in compliment to Sir Baptist Hicks; and the public-house is said to have been frequented by Samuel Johnson and Oliver Goldsmith in connexion with their transactions at Cave’s printing-office over St. John’s Gate.
Bell, Great Carter-lane, Doctors’ Commons: hence, Oct. 25, 1598, Richard Quiney addressed to his ” loveing good ffrend and countryman, Mr. Wm. Schackespere ” (then living in Southwark, near the Bear-garden), for a loan of thirty pounds; which letter we have seen in the possession of Mr. R. Bell Wheler, at Stratford upon-Avon : it is believed to be the only existing letter addressed to Shakspeare. The Bell inn has disappeared, but has given name to Bell-yard.
Bell, Warwick-lane, Newgate-street: here Archbishop Leighton, the steady advocate of peace and forbearance, died 1684; little of the old inn remains.
” He often used to say, that if he were to choose a place to die in, it should be an inn; it lookin g like a pilgrim’s going home, to whom this world was all an inn, and who was weary of the noise and confusion in it And he obtained what he btainedhe desired.”—Burnet’s Ovon Timet.
Bell Savage, or Belle Sauvage, Ludgate-hill, is a specimen of the players’ inn-yard before our regular theatres were built. The landlord’s token, issued between 1648 and 1672, bears an Indian woman holding a bow and arrow. The sign is thus traced:
“As for the Bell Savage, which is the sign of a savage man standing by a bell, I was formerly very much puzzled upon the conceit of it, till I accidentally fell into the reading of an old romance translated out of the French, which gives an account of a very beautiful woman who was found in a wilderness, and is called in the French ‘ la Belle Sauvage,’ and is everywhere translated by our countrymen the Bell Savage.”— Spectator, No. 28.
The sign, however, was originally a bell hung within a hoop, as proved by a grant temp. Henry VI., wherein John French gives to Joan French, widow, his mother, “all that tenement or inn called Savage’s Inn, otherwise called the Bell on the Hoop.” In the London Gazette, 1676, it is termed “an antient inn.” Stow affirms it to have been given to the Cutlers’ Company by one Isabella Savage: but their records state by Mrs. Craythorne. {See Ctttlebs’ Hail, p. 414.) Here Sir Thomas Wyat’s rebellion was stopped.
“And he (Wyet) himself came in at Te(mple Bar, and) soodown alle Flet-strete, and soo un-to the Belle Savage. And then was his trayne (attacked at) the commandment of the erle of Pembroke, and sartayne of hys men slayne. And whau (he saw) that Ludgatte was shutt agayne hym, he departed saynge,’ I have kepte towche,’ and soo went (back) agayne; and by the Tempulle barre he was tane, and soo brought by watter unto the (Tower) of London.”— Chronicle of the Grey Friars of London.
Fuller, in his Church History, states that after Wyat’s adherents had forsaken him, he flung himself on a bench opposite the Bell Savage, and began to repent the rashness of his enterprise, and lament his folly. He was summoned by an herald to submit, which he agreed to do, but would yield only to a gentleman ;— and afterwards surrendered to Sir Maurice Berkeley.
In Bell Savage-yard lived Grinling Gibbons, ” where he carved a pot of flowers which shook surprisingly with the motion of the coaches that passed by.”— Walpole.
This was one of the inns at which Bankes exhibited his wonderful horse, Marocco, whose accomplishment was dancing. One of his exploits was going up to the top of St. Paul’s Church. The horse is first mentioned about 1590. He was exhibited not only in England but abroad, where it became suspected that the horse was a demon, and his exhibitor was a sorcerer; and both were burnt at Eome by the Inquisition. There is an extremely rare tract, Maroccut Extaticus: or, Banlcet’s Say Horse in a Trance, 1595, a fine copy of which at Mr. Daniel’s Canonbury sale, in 1864, fetched 812.
The old inn has been taken down, and upon its site and that of the inn-yard have been erected the extensive printing works of Cassell, Petter, and Galpin. An old house, bearing the crest of the Cutlers’ Company, cut in stone, remains.
Blossoms, Lawrence-lane, Cbeapside, ” corruptly Bosonecorruptoms Inn, hath to sign ‘ St. Laurence the Deacon,’ in a border of blossoms or flowers,” which, says the legend, sprung up ” on the spot of his cruel martyrdom.” This was one of the inns hired for the retinue of Charles V. on his visit to London in 1522, when ” xx. beddes and a stable for ix. horses” were ordered here.
Bolt-in-Tun, Fleet-street, No. 64, in a grant to the White Friars in 1443, is termed ” Hospitium vocatum Le Boltenton.” In Whitefriars-street, No. 10 is the Black Lion, a small inn-yard with exterior wooden balustraded gallery, &c. Among the lands and tenements in St. Dunstan’s occur the Bore’s Rede, rented at 4Z.; le Bolte and Tonne, 4.1.; and le Blake Svoanne, 4,1. ; all in Fleet-street.
Bull, Bishopsgate, in its galleried yard, accommodated audiences for our early actors, before the building of licensed theatres. Richard Tarlton frequently played here.
Bull and Mouth, St. Martin’s-le-Grand, and the Bull and Gate, Holborn, had probably the same origin, the Bullogne Gate, one of the Gates of Bullogne, designed, perhaps, as a compliment to Henry VIII., who took that place in 1544. This G. A. Steevens learned from the title-page of an old play. Tom Jones, it will be recollected, alighted at the Bull and Gate, Holborn, when he first came to London. Strype tells us that the Bull and Mouth was the great resort of those who bring bone-lace for sale; and the house was much frequented by the Quakers before the Great Fire. This continued to be a great coach -office to all parts of England and Scotland, until the railways rose up. About this time the house was rebuilt in handsome style by Mr. Sherman: in the centre between the second-floor windows is a sculptured group of great absurdity : a Bull, and beneath it, a gigantic open mouth ;* above is a bust of Edward VI., the founder of Christ’s Hospital, to which foundation the site belongs.
Clerlcenwell. In St. John-street is the Cross Keys, where the carrier of Daintree lodged in 1637; Hatton mentions the Three Cups, near Hicks’s Hall. . Here also are the Golden Lion and the Windmill ; and in Woodbridge-street was the Red Bull inn, the yard once the pit of the Red Bull Theatre. (See Clerkenwell, p. 236.)
Coach and Morses, at the entrance to Bartholomew Close, is a portion of the ancient priory, probably the hospitium, at the end of the north cloister: the first floor has an arched roof and 16th-century cornice; the tap-room has an Early-English window: and the beer-cellar, a crypt, has a 12th-century clustered column. Of St. Bartholomew’s, also, exist the prior’s house, and the hall, with an ancient timbered roof, now used as a tobacco-manufactory. Close by is the monastery kitchen, from which a subterranean passage, in our time, communicated with the church : it has two panelled rooms, one with a vaulted roof and carved mantel-piece. (See Archer’s Vestiges of Old London, part v.)
Cock, in Tothill-street, was probably the most ancient domestic edifice in Westminster : it was built entirely of timber, and at the back was a long inn-yard, with heavy timber sheds. The upper part of the house consisted of one story, in which were several rooms on different levels, one of which remained in its original state, a curious specimen of an early timbered room, being entirely of chestnut-wood. The exterior was very picturesque, although plastered and painted. The. house was entered by a descent of three steps : in the parby : in tlour was a massive oak carving of the Adoration of the Magi, of Flemish work, well executed and painted to the life. Another piece of carved work, more in the High German manner, an alto-relievo of Abraham offering up Isaac, was preserved in an adjoining room. The Cock is said to have been frequented by the builders of Henry VIl.’s Chapel; and there is a further tradition that here was the pay-table of the workmen at the building of the Abbey, temp. Henry III. In 1845, Mr. Archer found in the kitchen the old sign of the Royal Arms, which, with the Flemish carving and ancient bedchamber, are engraved in the Vestiges of Old London, part vi. From this house started the first Oxford coach; and a portrait of its original driver was shown here. The old house has some time disappeared.
Cross Kegs, Gracechurch-street, was one of the old galleried inns at which Bankes exhibited the extraordinary feats of his horse Marocco; the better class of spectators being in the galleries. Richard Tarlton, the clown, kept a tavern here. He was chosen scavenger, ” and often the ward complained of his slacknesse in keeping the streets cleane.” The first stage-coach travelling between Clapham and Gracechurch-street, once daily, was established in the year 1690, by John Day and John Bundy. The Cross Kegs, Wood-street, Cheapside, was taken down in 1865: this sign, and that in Gracechurch-street, taken down in 1866, were derived from adjoining churches being dedicated to St. Peter, whose emblem is two keys crossed.
Elephant and Castle, Newington Butts, was a noted stage-coach house until the railway times ; and was originally a low-built roadside inn, with outer gallery, a drawing of which hangs in the present tavern. Adjoining was a large sectarian chapel, inscribed in gigantic capitals “The House of God!” held by the dupes of Joanna Southcott, whose dreams and visions were painted upon the walls. There is an odd
* This is referred by some to the story of Milo, who, after killing a bullock with a blow of his fist, ate it up in a meal!
notion that this Elephant and Castle sign was founded upon the finding of elephant bones near the inn site; but an elephant and castle is the crest of the Cutlers’ Company. Four Swans, Bishopsgate-street Without, is perhaps the most perfect old London inn, its galleries being entire. Hobson, the noted Cambridge carrier, put up here.
” This memorable man stands drawn in fresco at an inn (which he used) in Bishopsgate-street, with an hundred-pound bag under his arm, with this inscription upon the said bag:
‘ The fruitful mother of a hundred more.'”— Spectator, No. 509. George and Slue Boar, Holborn, was associated with a great event in our history: here is said to have been intercepted Charles I.’s letter, by which Ireton discovered it to be the King’s intention to destroy him and Cromwell, which discovery brought about Charles’s execution; but the story is disbelieved. Nearly opposite the George and Blue Boar was the Bed Lion, the largest inn in Holborn; and where the bodies of Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshawe were carried from Westminster Abbey, and next day dragged on sledges to Tyburn—a retributive coincidence worthy of note. In old St. Giles’s Church was ” a red lyon painted in glasse, given by the inneholder of the Red Lyon.” {Aubrey.)
George, Snowhillif”rge, Sn, is a relic of the time when this hill was the only highway from Holborn-bridge eastward; the house appears to have been an extensive inn for carriers t a very early date, and
” St. George that swiug’d the dragon, And sits on his horseback at mine hoste’s door,”
though much dilapidated, is a good specimen of a carved sign-stone.
Gerard’s Sail, Basing-lane and Bread-street, Cheapside, replaced the ancient Hall of the Gisors, the fine Norman crypt of which remained for a wine-cellar; but, with the superstructure, was removed in 1852, in forming New Cannon-street.
Giles’s, St., was formerly noted for its large inns. (See St. Giles’s, pp. 376-377.) Green Man, on the site of the commencement of the present Osnaburg-street, was originally the Farthing Pye-house, kept by Price, the noted rolling-pin and salt-box player; here were sold bits of mutton, put into a crust, and shaped like a pie, for a farthing !
Half-way Souse, Kensington-road, opposite the site of the building for the Great Exhibition of 1851, and near the Prince of Wales’s Gate, Hyde Park, was removed in 1846 at an expense of 3050?., in addition to the purchase of the fee.
Solborn Sill. The Rose has disappeared within our recollection: from this inn Taylor the Water-poet started in the Southampton coach for the Isle of Wight, 19th October, 1647, while Charles I. was there:
” We took one coach, two coachmen, and four horses, And merrily from London made our courses, We wheel’d the top of the heavy hill call’d Holborn, (Up which hath been full many a sinful soul borne,) And so along we jolted past St. Giles’s, Which place from Brentford six or seven miles is.”
Taylor’s Travel*from London to the Isle of Wight, 1647.
The Old Bell, Holborn, bears the arms of Fowler, of Islington, viz., azure, on a chevron, argent, between three herons, as many crosses formee, gules. These arms also occur on a building supposed to have been the lodge of Fowler’s house in Islington.
King’s Arms, Leadenhall-street, No. 122: in the reign of William III., Sir John Fenwick and others met here to plan the restoration of James II.
Oxford Arms, situate at the end of a narrow street out of the west side of Warwick-lane, and southward of Warwick-square and the old College of Physicians, has a red brick pedimented facade of the period of Charles II. surmounting a gateway leading into the inn-yard, which has on three of its sides two rows of wooden galleries, with exterior staircases leading to the chambers on each floor, the fourth side being occupied by stabling built against part of old London-wall. This house, known as the Oxford Arms before the Great Fire, must have been then consumed, but was rebuilt on the plan of the former inn. The Oxford Arms was not, as supposed, part of the Earl of Warwick’s house; as it belongs, and has belonged of old time, to the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul’s. The houses of the facouses oCanons Residentiary of St. Paul’s adjoin the Oxford Arms on the south, and part of London Wall is still remaining in the court-yard of those houses. There is a door from the old inn leading into one of the back yards of the residentiary houses, which is said to have been found useful during the Riots of 1780, for facilitating the escape of Roman Catholics, who then frequented the Oxford Arms, from the fury of the mob, by enabling them to pass into the residentiary houses; for which reason, as is said, by a clause always inserted in the leases of the inn, that door is forbidden to be closed up. (Communication to the Builder.) The London Gazette, 1762-3, No. 762, has this advertisement:
” These are to give notice that Edward Bartlet, Oxford Carrier, hath removed his inn in London from the Swan at Holborn Bridge to the Oxford Arms in Warwick Lane, where he did Inn before the 1’ire. His coaches and waggons going forth on their usual days, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. He hath also a Hearse with all things convenient to carry a corps to any part of England.”
At the Oxford Arms, in Warwick-lane, lived John Roberts, the bookseller, from whose shop issued the majority of the squibs and libels on Pope.
Paul Pindar’s Head, corner of Half-moon-alley, No. 160, Bishopsgate-street Without, was the mansion of Sir Paul Pindar, the wealthy merchant, contemporary with Sir Thomas Gresham. The house was built towards the end of the 16th century, with a wood-framed front and caryatid brackets, the principal windows bayed, and their lower fronts enriched with panels of carved work. In the first-floor front room is a fine original ceiling in stucco, in which are the arms of Sir Paul Pindar. In the rear of these premises, within a garden, was formerly a lodge, of corresponding date, decorated with four medallions of figures in Italian taste.
Piccadilly Inns. At the east end were formerly the Slack Sear and White Sear (originally the Fleece), nearly opposite each other. The Slack Sear was taken down in 1820. The White Sear occurs in St. Martin’s parish-books in 1685 : here Chatelain and Sullivan, the engravers, died; and Benjamin West, the painter, lodged the first night after his arrival from America. Strype mentions the White Horse Cellar in 1720; and the booking office of the New White Horse Cellar is to this day in ” the cellar.” The Three Kings stables’ gateway, No. 75, had two Corinthian pilasters, stated by D’Israeli to have belonged to Clarendon House: “the stable-yard at the back presents the features of an old galleried inn-yard, and it is noted as the place from which General Palmer started the first Bath mail coach.” (J. W. Archer: Vestiges, part vi.) The Hercules’ Pillars (a sign which meant that no habitation was to be found beyond it) stood a few yards west of Hamilton-place, and is mentioned as one extremity of London by Wycherley, in 1676. Here Squire Western “placed his horses” when he arrived in London with the fair Sophia (see Tom Jonesan,see Tom) ; here ” the horses of many of the quality stood;” and it became the scene of fashionable dinnerparties of the officers of the army, often headed by the Marquis of Granby. The Hercules’ Pillars, and another roadside inn, the Triumphant Car, were standing about 1797, and were mostly frequented by soldiers. Two other Piccadilly inns, the White Horse and Half-moon, have given names to streets.
Pied Bull, Church-row, Islington, traditionally the residence of Sir Walter Raleigh, and in the Elizabethan style, was taken down in 1826-7. The late front was modern; but the parlour (the original dining-room) had an elaborately-carved chimney-piece, with figures of Faith, Hope, and Charity; and a stuccoed ceiling, with personifications of the Five Senses. In a window were painted the arms of Sir John Miller, who lived there in 1634; and a bunch of green leaves above the shield was popularly regarded as the tobacco-plant introduced by Raleigh.
Queen’s Head, Lower-street, Islington, was a still more perfect Elizabethan house than the above. The walls were strong timber framework, filled in with lath and plaster; the three stories projected, and the windows were supported by carved brackets; the entrance porch being ornamented by caryatides and Ionic scrolls. The interior had panelled wainscot, and stuccoed ceilings of rich design. The house has been rebuilt, and portions of the old woodwork are preserved.
Pindar of Wakefield, GrayVinn-road, was a roadside inn in Aubrey’s time, 1685, who mentions the yellow-flowered Neapolitan bank-cresses, the London rocket, growing there, as well as on the ruins of London, after the Great Fire.’
Rose of Normandy, on the east side of High-street, Marylebone, built in the 17th century, was the oldest house in the parish, and had the original exterior, staircase, and balusters. In the rear was a bowling-green, enclosed with walls set with fruit-trees and quickset hedges, ” indented like town-walls.”
il
Saracen’s Head, Snow-hill (actually in Skinner-street), and of old ” without Newgate,” was in Stow’s time ” a fair and large inn for the receipt of travellers.”
Saracen’s Head, Friday-street, Cheapside, adjoined St. Matthew’s Church, and No. 5, said to have heen the dwelling-house of Sir Christopher Wren. The inn consisted of three floors with open galleried fronts, besides the ground-floor: it was taken down in 1844; and upon its site, extending nearly to Old Change, large Manchester warehouses were erected. There was also a Saracen’s Head, No. 5, Aldgate: it was once a common London sign, which Selden thus illustrates:—
” When our countrymen came home from fighting with the Saracens, and were beaten by them, they pictured them with huge, big, terrible faces (as you still sec the sign of the Saracen’s head is), when in truth they were like other men. But this they did to save their own credit.”— Table Talk.
Southwaek Inns. —Stow enumerates here ” many fair inns for receipt of travellers, by these signs: the Spurr, Christopher, Bull, Queene’s Head, Tabard, George, Hart, King’s Head,” &c. Of these the most ancient is the Thesient isabard (now Talbot), No. 75, High-street, opposite the Town-hall site. The tabard is a jacket or sleeveless coat, worn in times past by noblemen, with their arms embroidered on it, but now only by heralds, as their coat of arms in service. ” This was the hostelry where Chaucer and the other pilgrims met together, and with Henry Bailly, their hoste, accorded about the manner of their journey to Canterbury.” {Speght, 1598.) ” Befell that in that season, on a day
At Southwark at the Tabard as I lay,
Beadie to wander on my Pilgrimage
To Canterburie with devout courage,
At night was come into that hostelrie
Well nine-and-twenty in a companie
Of sundrie folke, by adventure yfall
In fellowship, and pilgrimes were they all,
That toward Canterburie wouden ride :
The chambers and the stables weren wide,
And well we weren eased at the best,” &c.— Chaucer.
The Register of Hyde Abbey, and the Escheat Rolls of King Edward I., show the acquisition by the Abbey of Hyde of the Tabard and the Abbot’s House, in Southwark, by purchase from William de Lategareshall, in 1304. Henry Bailly, Chaucer’s host of the Tabard, is identified as one of the representatives of the borough of Southwark in Parliament, in the 50th of Edward III. and 2nd of Richard II. ; and in the 4th of Richard II. ” Henry Bayliff, ostvler, and Christian his wife, were assessed to the subsidy (in Southwark) at 2s.” After the Dissolution of the monasteries, the Tabard and the Abbot’s House were sold by King Henry VIII. to John Master and Thomas Master; and the particulars for the grant in the Augmentation Office afford descriptions of the hostelry called the Tabard, parcel of the possessions of the monastery of Hyde, and the Abbot’s Place, with the [stable and garden belonging thereto. The Tabard is mentioned to have been late in the occupation of one Robert Patty, but the Abbot’s Place, with the garden and stable, were reserved to the late Bishop Com-mendator, John Saltcote, alias Capon, who had been last abbot of Hyde, and who surrendered it to King Henry VIII.; and after being made Bishop of Bangor, in com-mendam with the Abbey of Hyde, subsequent to the Surrender of the abbey he was preferred to the see of Salisbury, in 1539, which he retained till his death in 1557. Upon the brestsummer beam of the gateway facing the street was formerly inscribed: “This is the inne where Sir Jeffry Chaucer and the nine-and-twenty pilgrims lay in their journey to Canterbury, anno 1383.” This was painted out in 1831: this was originally inscribed upon a beam across the road, whence swung the sign, removed in 1763, when the inscription was transferred to the gateway. The sign was changed about 1676, when, says Aubrey, ” the ignorant landlord or tenant, instead of the ancient sign of the Tabard, put up the Talbot, or dog!” The buildings of Chaucer’s time have disappeared, but were standing in 1602 : andng in 1the oldest remaining is of the age of Elizabeth; and the most interesting portion is a stone-coloured wooden gallery, in front of which is a picture of the Canterbury Pilgrimage, said to have been painted by Blake: immediately behind is the Pilgrims’ Room of tradition, but only a portion of the ancient hall. The gallery formerly extended throughout the inn buildings. The inn facing the street was burnt in the Great Fire of Southward : ” this house,” says Aubrey, ” remaining before the fire of 1676, was an old timber house, probably coeval with Chaucer’s time j”
it is shown in the oldest view of the Tabard extant, in Urry’s Chaucer, 1720, reproduced in The Mirror, vol. xxii. 1833. Mr. G. R. Corner, F.S.A., who has left us the fullest and best account of the ancient Inns of Southwark (see Collections of the Surrey Archceological Society, vol. ii. part, ii.), was of opinion, from personal examination of the premises (at some risk), that there was nothing in the existing remains of the Tabard earlier than the Fire of 1676, after which was built the supposed “Pilgrims’ Hall,” the fireplaces in which are of this date. [The date of the Canterbury Pilgrimage is generally supposed to have been the year 1383. The MS., almost perfect, well written, and richly illuminated, was exhibited to the British Association, in 1865, by Archdeacon Moore, at Lichfield Cathedral.] Taylor the Water-poet mentions another Tabard inn, ” neere the Conduit,” in Gracechurch-street.
The George is described by Stow as existing in his time; and it is mentioned at an earlier period, viz., in 1554, 35th Henry VIII., by the name of the St. George, as being situate on the north side of the Tabard. In the seventeenth century, two tokens were issued from The George, which are in the Beaufoy collection at Guildhall, and described in Mr. Burn’s ably compiled Catalogue. The first is a token of ” Anthony Blake, Tapster, y e George in Southwarke •” and on the reverse are three tobacco-pipes; above them, four beer-measures. The other token is inscribed, ” James Gunter 16 . .” ?—St. George and Dragon, in field. Reverse, ” In Southwarke :” in the field, ” i.a.g.” Mr. Burn quotes some lines from the Musarum Delicice, 1656, upon a surfeit by drinking bad sack at The George tavern in Southwark:
” Oh, would I might turne poet for an houre, To satirize with a vindictive power Against the drawer! or I could, desire Old Jonson’s head had scalded in this fire: How would he rage and bring Apollo down To scold with Bacchus, and depose the clown For his ill-government, and so confute Our poet-apes, that do so much impute Unto the grape’s inspirement!”
In the year 1670 The George was, in great part, burnt and demolished by fire; and it was totally burnt down in the Great Fire of Southwark, in 1676. The following is from the Diary of the Rev. John Ward, written a few years later :—
“Goverandhis Irish ruffians burnt Southwark, and had 1000 pounds for their pains, said the Narrative of Bedloe. Gifford, a Jesuit, had the management of thelire. The 26th of May, 1676, was the dismal fire of Southwark. The fire begunne at one Mr. Welsh, an oilman, near St. Margaret’s Hill, betwixt the ‘ George’ and ‘ Talbot’ innes, as Bedloe in his Narration relates.”— Diary of the Rev. John Ward, p. 155.
The Fire was stopped by the substantial building of St. Thomas’s Hospital, then recently erected; and, in commemoration of the event, there was a tSouthere wablet placed on the staircase, over the door of the hall or court-room, with an inscription. Although the present building of The George Inn is not older than the end of the seventeenth century, it seems to have been rebuilt, after the Fire, upon the old plan; and it still preserves the character of the ancient English inns, having open wooden galleries leading to the chambers on each side of the inn-yard.
The White Hart, the head-quarters of Jack Cade and his rebel rout in 1450 (and a dozen doors nearer London Bridge than the Tabard), has been demolished. The back part of this inn was burnt in 1699, and the remainder was destroyed in the great Fire in Southwark in 1676; it was rebuilt upon the plan of the older edifice, and is well engraved from a drawing by Mr. Fairholt, in the Archaeological Collections just quoted. Shakspeare makes Cade say, ” Hath my sword therefore broke through London gates, that you should leave me at the White Hart in Southwark.” At the Mart lodged Jack Cade on his arrival in Southwark, July 1,1450 ; ” for,” says Fabyan,” he might not be suffered to enter the Citie.” Again, of Cade’s rebels, ” at the Whyi Harte in Southwarke one Hawaydine of Sent Martyns was beheddyd.” {Chronicles of the Grey Friars of London.) Hatton (1708) describes the White Hart as “the largest size about London, except the Castle Tavern, in Fleet-street.” Mr. Corner brought together some curious notices of this inn from the Paston Letters, vol. i. p. 61. The White Hart of our time is well described in the Picktcick Papers, by Charles Dickens.
The other Southwark inns named by Stow remain, except the Christopher; but they
have mostly lost their galleries and other olden features. The King’s Head sign was within our recollection a well-painted half-length of Henry VIII. The Catherine Wheel remains; hut we miss the Dog and Bear, which sign, as well as Maypole-alley, hard by, points to olden sport and pastime.
The White Lion, formerly a prison for the county of Surrey, as w r ell as an inn, is mentioned in records in the reign of King Henry VIII., having belonged to the Priory of St. Mary Overey. It is also mentioned by Stow, and it continued to be the county prison till 1695. The rabble apprentices of the year 1640, as Laud relates in his Troubles, released the whole of the prisoners in The White Lion. It has been supposed that the White Lion was the same house that, before the building of New London Bridge, was called Baxter’s Chophouse, No, 19, High-street; and in old deeds, The Crown, or The Crown and Chequers, an old plaster-fronted house. The bouse which stood in the court beside it, and was formerly called The Three Brushes, or ” Holy Water Sprinklers,” was of the time of Elizabeth; and some drawings exist of the interior, as a panelled room, with an ornamental plaster ceiling, having in the centre the arms of Queen Elizabeth, with E. R. in support of this opinion. This room is supposed to have been the court or justice-room in which her Majesty’s justices sat and held their sessions. The house was pulled down about 1832, for making the new street to London Bridge.
Bear at the Bridge-foot was a noted house during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and it remained until the houses on the old bridge were pulled down, in or about the year 1760. This house was situate in the parish of St. Olave, on the west side of High-street, between Pepper-alley and the foot of London Bridge. It is mentioned in a deed of conveyance (dated Dec. 12, 1554, in the first and second years of or,ond yeaPhilip and Mary); and in the parish-books, of the same date, there is still earlier mention of this house, for among the entries of the disbursements of Sir John Howard, in his steward’s accounts, are recorded:—” March 6th, 1463-4. Item payd for the red wyn at the Bere in Southewerke, \\\d.” And again, ” March 14th (same year). Item payd at dinner at the Bere in Southewerke, in Costys, iiis. md. Item, that my mastyr lost at shotynge, xxd.”
Cornelius Cooke, mentioned in the parish accounts of St. Olave’s as overseer of the land side as early as 1630, became a soldier, and ultimately was made captain of the Trained Bands. He rose to the rank of colonel in Cromwell’s time, and was appointed one of the Commissioners for the sale of the king’s lands. After the Restoration, he settled down as landlord of this inn. Gerrard, in a letter to Lord Strafford, dated January, 1633, intimates that all back doors to taverns on the Thames were commanded to be shut up, excepting only the Bear at the Bridge-foot, exempted by reason of the passage to Greenwich. The ” Cavaliers’ Ballad” on the magnificent funeral honours rendered to Admiral Dean (killed June 2,1653) has the following allusion:—
” From Greenwich towards the Bear at Bridge foot, He was wafted with wind that had water to’t; But I think they brought the devil to boot, Which nobody can deny.”
There is also another allusion in the following lines from a ballad ” On banishing the Ladies out of Town :”—
” Farewell Bridge foot and Bear thereby,
And those bald pates that stand so high;
We wish it from our very souls
That other heads were on those poles,
Pepys, on the 24th February, 1666-7, mentions the mistress of the Bear drowning herself, and again alludes to the inn on the 3rd of April following.
In. the year 1761 the Bear was pulled down, on the bridge being widened. In the Public Advertiser, of Saturday, Dec. 26, 1761, is the following announcement:— ” Thursday last, the workmen employed in pulling down the Bear tavern, at the foot of London Bridge, found several pieces of gold and silver coin of Queen Elizabeth, and other monies to a considerable extent.”
Boar’s Head. —Southwark had its Boar’s Head, as well as the City of London its Boar’s Head in East Cheap, immortalized by Shakspeare; and while the one is celebrated as the resort of Jack Falstaff, the other was the property of another of Shakspere’s characters, who has often been erroneously confounded with lean Jack. Sir John Fastolf, of Caistor, Norfolk, and of Southwark, where (in Stoney-lane) he had his town house, was a man of military renown, having been in the French wars of Henry VI.; and was governor of Normandy: he was also a man of letters and learning, and the Boar’s Head formed part of the endowment of Magdalen College, Oxford, founded by his
friend, William Waynfleet, Bishop of Winchester, at whose instance Sir John Fasew Sir Jotolf gave large possessions in Southwark and elsewhere towards the foundation. In the Reliquice HearniancB, edited by Dr. Bliss, is the following entry relative to this bequest:—
1721. June 2.—The reason why they cannot give so good an account of the benefaction of Sir John Fastolf to Magd. Coll. is, because he gave it to the founder, and left it to his management, so that ’tis suppos’d ’twas swallow’d up in his own estate that he settled upon the college. However, the college knows this, that the Soar’s Head, in Southwark, which was then an inn, and still retains the name, tho’ divided into several tenements (which brings the college 1501. per annum), was part of Sir John’s gift.
The property above-mentioned was, for many years, leased to the father of the author of the present work, and was by him principally sub-let to weekly tenants. The premises were named ” Boar’s Head-court,” and consisted of two rows of tenements, vis-a-vis, and two houses at the east-end, with a gallery outside the first floors: the tenements were fronted with strong weather-board, and the balusters of the staircases were of great age. The Court entrance was between the houses Nos. 25 and 26, east side of High-street, and that number of houses from old London Bridge; and beneath the whole extent of the Court was a finely-vaulted cellar, doubtless the wine-cellar of the Boar’s Head. The property was cleared away in making the approach to the new bridge. (See Notes and Queries, 2nd s., No. 109.) In the Beaufoy Collection, at Guildhall, is a token of the Boar’s Mead (a boar’s head, lemon in mouth, 1649). There were at St. Margaret’s-hill, a Boar’s Head-alley, and Boar’s Head Livery Stables.
Spread Eagle, Gracechurch-street, was rebuilt after the Great Fire. Of this inn we find Taylor, the Water-poet, in his Carrier’s Cosmographie, 4to, 1637, mentioning ” The Tabard near the Conduit,” and ” the Spread Eagle,” both in ” Gracious-street.” The latter was taken down in 1865, but remained to the last nearly entire, with its outer galleries to the two floors. The plot of ground which it occupied contained in all 12,600 feet, 5600 feet of which were leasehold for a long term, and the rest freehold. It was sold for 95,OOOZ. The ground is surrounded on three sides by Leadenhall Market. There is a good view of the old inn in the Illustrated London News, Dec. 23, 1865.
The Spread Eagle, besides being an early carriers’ inn, became famous as a coaching-house; the mails and principal stage-coaches tor Kent and other southern counties arriving and departing from here. It was long the property of John Chaplin, cousin of William Chaplin (Chaplin and Home), who began life as a coachman at Rochester, served as Sheriff of London and Middlesex, and sat in Parliament for Salisbury. He died chairman of the London and South-Western Railway, and worth a quarter of a million of money. He was occupier, at one period, of five inn-yards in London, possessed 2400 horses, and his receipts for booking parcels amounted to 8000Z. a year.
The Grasse-street of old was a memorable place. To this market for grass or herbs, in the reign of Edward III., it was customary for every cart (not belonging to a citizen) laden with corn or malt going there to be sold, to pay one] halfpenny; if laden with cheese, twopence. The cart of the franchise of the Temple and St. Martin*s-le-Grand paid a farthing; the cart of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem paid nothing for their proper goods. In Aggas’s plan is shown an open place upon which “White Hart-court sbue Hart-was built after the Great Fire. Ben Jonson, in one of his masques, alludes to the poulterer’s wife in Grace’s-street. Pepys calls the street ” Gracious-street.” Nov. 28,1662, he records the death of “a poulterer in Gracious-street, which was thought rich ;” and, on the 24th of the same month, Pepys speaks of the conduit in the quarre four at the end of Gracious-street; “the spouts whereof running very near me upon all the people that were under it.” And on Sept. 14,1665 (the time of the Plague), he was horrified “to see a person sick of the sores carried close by me by G-racechurch, in a hackney-coach.” He afterwards calls the street ” Gracious-street;” for he says, Nov. 25,1668, ” So home, buying a barrel of oysters, at my old oysterwoman’s in Gracious-street, but over the way to where she kept her shop before (the Fire).” Sir John Fielding, in his Description of London and West-minster, 1776, calls the street ” Grasschurch-street, Cornhill.”
Swan with Two NecJcs, Lad-lane, now Gresham-street, was long the head coach-inn and booking-office for the North. The sign has been referred to a corruption of two nicks, or the Vintners’ Company’s swan-marks on the bill; but this popular notion is discountenanced by Mr. Kempe, F.S.A.: are the two necks an heraldic monstrosity ?
“The carriers of Manchester doe lodge at the Two-Neck’d Swan in Lad-lane” (Taylor’s Carrier’* Cosmographie, 1637), originally Lady*s-lane.
Three Cups, Aldersgate-street, is.mentioned by Hatton; with the same sign in St. John-street, near Hicks’s Hall; and in Bread-street, near the middle. Beaumont and Fletcher have ” the Three Cups in St. Giles’s ;” and Winstanley mentions Richard Head at the same sign in Holborn, making verses over a glass of Rhenish.
White Hart, Bishopsgate-street, taken down in 1829, bore on the front the date 1480 : it was three-storied, with overhanging upper floor, and occupied the site of ” a
faire inne for receipt of travellours, next unto the parish church of St. Buttolph,” thus described by Stow.
White Hart, Covent-garden, gave name to Hart-street, and is mentioned in a lease to Sir William Cecil (Lord Burghley) of Sept. 7th, 1570. Weever has preserved this epitaph in the Savoy Church on an old vintner of the White Hart, who died 1586:—
“Here lieth Humphrey Gosling, of London, vintner,
Of the Whyt Hart of this parish a neghbor,
Of vertuous behaviour, a very good archer,
And of honest mirth, a very good company keeper.
So well inclyned to poore and rich,
God send more Goslings to be sich.”
White Hart, corner of Welbeck-street, was long a detached public-house, where travellers customarily stopped for refreshment, and to exHarnt, andamine their fire-arms, before crossing the fields to Lisson-green. The land westward of the bourn (whence the parish, now Marylebone, was named) was a deep marshy valley : here was Fenning’s Folly, upon the top of which was built a fishmonger’s; the shop, level with the street, having been the Folly upper story.
White Horse, Fetter-lane, was formerly the great Oxford house, as already mentioned under Fetter-lane, p. 336.
Yorkshire Stingo, New-road, was celebrated for a century and a quarter, and appears in a plan dated 1757 : here was held annually, on May 1, a Fair, until suppressed as a nuisance.
INNS OF COURT AND CHANCFET.
THE hostels or abodes of the practisers and students of the law before the reign of Edward II. were called Inns of Court, because their inhabitants belonged to the King’s Court, first noticed on the Placita Rolls, 10th Richard I. One of these, Johnson’s Inn, is said to have been at Dowgate; another in Fewter’s (Fetter) lane; and a third in Paternoster-row. The Serjeants and Apprentices (of the Law) then each had his pillar in St. Paul’s Church, where he heard his client’s case:
“A Serjeant of the law both ware and wise, That often had yben at the Perwyie,” —Chaucer’s Canterbury Tale*.
And in the reign of Charles I., upon the making of Serjeants, they went to St. Paul’s in their formalities, and chose their pillars.
Sir John Fortescue, Chief Justice to Henry VI., enumerates four Inns of Court— the Inner Temple, the Middle Temple, Lincoln’s Inn, and Gray’s Inn—and ten Inns of Chancery: the former frequented by the sons of nobility and wealthy gentry; and the latter by merchants and others, who had not the means of paying the greater expenses (about 20 marks per annum) of the Inns of Court. The first were called apprenticii nobiliores, the latter apprenticii only. On the working days they applied themselves to the study of law; on the holydays to holy Scripture. They also learned singing and all kinds of harmony, dancing, and other noblemen’s pastimes. The only punishment for misdeeds was expulsion (as is the case now), which was greatly dreaded. They were famous for their revels and other gaieties.
In 1635, the four Inns of Court gave a grand masque to Charles I. and Queen Henrietta-Maria at Whitehall.
The Court of Star Chamber, however, took care of their morals by desiring the principals of the Inns of Court and Chancery not to suffer the students to be out of their houses after six o’clock at night, ” without very great and necessary -causes, nor to wear any kind of weapon ;” and the Court records prove the Star Chamber to have committed to the Tower the Earl of Surrey, Sir Thomas Wyat, and young Pickering, for breaking windows, and eating flesh in Lent.
In the reign of Philip and Mary it was ordained by all the four Inns of Court, “that none except knights and benchers should wear in their doublets or hose any light colours, 6ave scarlet and crimson; nor wear any upper velvet cap, or any scarf or wings in their gowns, alatheir gwhite jerkins, buskins, or velvet shoos, double cutis in their shirts, feathers or ribbons in their caps; and that none should wear their study gowns in the City any farther than Fleet-bridge or Holborn-bridge; nor, while in Commons, wear Spanish cloak, sword and buckler, or rapier, or gowns and hats, or gowns girded with a dagger on the baek.”—Dugdale’s Origines Juridicialeg.
The students in the reign of Henry VI. were: 4 Inns of Court, each 200 = 800; 10 Inns of Chancery, each 100 = 1000; total, 1800. In 1850 there were in the four Inns of Court upwards of 4000.
On Ascension-day, or Holy Thursday, when the custom of beating the bounds of most of the City and other parishes takes place by the children of the parish schools, headed by the clergy, parochial officers, and many inhabitants, the Temple and other Inns of Court and extra-parochial places are shut up and guarded, to prevent the processions passing through, which might possibly affect the privileges of the different places. The two Temples and Gray’s Inn are extra-parochial, i.e., pay no poor-rates and maintain their own poor; but Lincoln’s Inn has not entirely that exemption.
The Inns of Court are interesting to others besides lawyers, for they are the last working institutions in the nature of the old trade guilds. It is no longer necessary that a shoemaker should be approved by the company of the craft before he can apply himself to making shoes for his customers, and a man may keep an oyster-stall without being forced to serve an apprenticeship and be admitted to the Livery of the great Whig Company; but the lawyers’ guilds guard the entrance to the law, and prescribe the rules under which it shall be practised. There are obvious advantages in having some authority to govern sueli a profession aa the Bar, but it is sufficiently remarkable that voluntary societies of barristers themselves should have managed to engross and preserve it.— Times journal.
The Temple lies between Fleet-street and the Thames, north and south; and Whitefriars and Essex-street, east and west; divided by Middle Temple-lane into the Inner and Middle Temple, each having its hall, library, and garden, quadrangles, courts, &c. Originally there was also the Outer Temple, comprising Essex House and gardens : a portion of the old Water-gate remains at the foot of Essex-street,
The ancient hostels existed until 1346 (20th Edward III.), when the Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem (to whom the forfeited estates of the rival brotherhood of the Templars had been granted by the Pope) demised the magnificent buildings, church, gardens, ” and all the appurtenances that belonged to the Templars in London,” to certain students said to have removed thither from Thavies Inn, Hol-born, in which part of the town the Knights Templars themselves had resided before the erection of their superb palaces on the Thames. In this New Temple, “out of the City and the noise thereof, and in the suburbs,” between the King’s Court at Westminster and the City of London, the studious lawyers lived in quiet, increasing iA number and importance; so that, although the mob of Wat Tyler’s rebellion plundered the students, and destroyed almost all their books and records (” To the Inns of Court! down with them all!”— Jack Cade), it became necessary to divide the Inn into two separate bodies, the Hon. Societies of the Inner and Middle Temple; having separate halls, but using the same church, and holding their houses as tenants of the Knights Hospitallers until the Died until ssolution by Henry VIII., and thenceforth of the Crown by lease. In the sixth year of James I. the two Temples were granted by letters patent to the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Recorder of London, and others, the bankers and treasurers of the Inner and Middle Temple, which, by virtue of this grant, are held to this day by an incorporated society of the ” students and practisers of the laws of England.”
The Inner Temple is entered from Fleet-street by a gateway, built 5th James I., beneath No, 17, Fleet-street, through Inner Temple-lane: at No. 1 lived Dr. Johnson from 1760 to 1765. Upon the east side of the lane, the old chambers of Churchyard-court have been taken down, and a noble stone-fronted structure erected in their place; to this and the opposite new hues have been given the honoured names of Johnson’s and Goldsmith’s Buildings. At the foot of the lane is the magnificent western doorway of the church (described at pp. 205-207); and westward are the cloisters, which were built by Wren after the fire of 1678, which fire Titus Oates pretended to the Council was “a contrivance.” Crown Office-row, facing the garden, has also been rebuilt with a handsome stone facade. In the former row was the birthplace of Charles Lamb.
¦ Some gentlemen of the Inner Temple would not endeavour to preserve the goods which were in the lodgings of absent persons, nor suffer others to do it, ‘ because,’ they said, ‘ it was against the law to break up any man’s chamber!’ “—Lord Clarendon’s Own Life, p. 355.
Upon the broad terrace facing the garden are the Library (containing Bacon’s Mstori/ of the Alienation Office, in MS.), and the Parliament Chamber in the Tudor
style, completed by Smirke, E.A. in 1835; adjoining is the Hall, built upon the site of a structure of the age of Edward III. Here are full-length portraits of Coke and Littleton; and an emblematic Pegasus, by Sir James Thornhill. Here dinner is served to the members of the Inn daily during term-time ; the masters of the bench dining on the state or dais, and the barristers and students at long tables extending down the hall to the carved screen at the western end. On grand days are present the judges, who dine in succession with each of the four Inns of Court.
” At the Inner Temple, on certain grand occasions, it is customary to pass huge silver goblets (loving cups) down the table, filled with a delicious composition, immemorially termed ‘ sack,’ consisting of sweetened and exquisitely flavoured white wine: the butler attends its progress to replenish it, and each student is restricted to a tip. Yet it chanced not long since at the Temple, that, though the number present fell short of seventy, thirty-six quarts of the liquid were consumed!”— Quarterly ‘Review, 1836, No. 110.
The gentlemen of the Inner Temple were of old famed for their plays, masques, revels, and other sumptuous entertainments. Christmas, Halloween, Candlemas, and Ascension-day, were anciently kept with great splendour in the Hall. In 1661 Charles II. dined here, and was received with twenty violins, dinner being served by fifty gentlemen of the society in their gowns. Next year, the Duke of York and Prince Rupert were admitted members. For these feasts, the master of the revels arranged the dancing and music; after the play, a barrister sang a song to the judges and Serjeants; and dancing was commenced by the judges and benchers round the sehe round a-coal fire. This dance is satirized in Buckingham’s witty play of the Rehearsal; and the revels have been ridiculed by Dr. Donne in his Satires, and Prior in his Alma. Pope in the Dunciad has:
” The judge to dance, his brother seijeant calls.”
Sir Christopher Hatton, with four other students of the Inner Temple, wrote the play of Tancred and Gismund, which, in 1568, was acted by that Society before the Queen. Sir Christopher wrote the fourth act, signed ” Composuit Chr. Hatton:” it was first printed in 1592, and there is a copy among the Garrick Plays in the British Museum.
The last revel in any of the Inns of Court was that held Feb. 2,1733, in the Inner Temple Hall, in honour of Mr. Talbot, a bencher, having the Great Seal delivered to him. A large gallery built over the screen was filled with ladies; and music in the little gallery at the upper end of the Hall played all dinner-time. After dinner, began the play Love for Love, and the farce of The Devil to Pay, by actors from the Haymarket. After the play, the Lord Chancellor, the Masters, Judges, and Benchers retired into their Parliament Chamber; in half an hour they returned to the Hall, and led by the Master of the Bevels, formed a ring, and danced, or rather walked, round the fire-place, according to the old ceremony, three times; the ancient song, accompanied with music, being sung by one Tony Aston, dressed in a bar-gown. This was followed by dancing, in which the ladies from the gallery joined; then a collation was served, and the company returned to dancing. The Prince of Wales was present.
Among the eminent members were Audley, Lord Chancellor to Henry VIII.; Nicholas Hare (who built Hare-court), Master of the Rolls to Queen Mary; Littleton and Coke (in the reign of James I. the Temple was nicknamed “my Lord Coke’s shop”); Sir Christopher Hatton, Selden, Heneage Finch, Judge Jeffreys, and Sir William Follett; and the poets Beaumont and Cowper. Speght’s statement that Chaucer studied here is much disputed. Among the Readers was ” the judicious Hooker,” of whom, in 1851, a memorial bust was placed at the south-west angle of the choir of the Temple Church.
” The view from the Temple Gardens, when, on the opposite side of the river, the eye ranged over the green marshes and gradually rising ground to the Surrey hills, and the rich oak and beech woods that clothed them, must have been beautiful.” (Pearce’s Inns of Court.) The public are admitted to the Inner Temple Garden, about three acres, on summer evenings from 6 to 9: it is already described at p. 365. Towards its south-eastern corner are the New Paper Buildings, of red brick and stone, erected 1848, by Sydney Smirke, A.R.A., with overhanging oriels and angle turrets, assimilating to Continental examples of the Tudor style.
The Middle Temple, west of the lane, is entered from Fleet-street by a red-brick and stone-fronted gate-house, built by Wren, in 1684, ” in the style of Inigo Jones, and very far from inelegant” {Ralph). It occupies the site of the gate-house erected by Sir Amias Paulet, as a fine imposed by Wolsey, whose prisoner he was; and which he garnished with cardinal’s hats and arms to appease “his old unkind displeasure.” Abutting on the garden is Middle Temple Hall, built 1562-72, in the treasurership of Plowden, the jurist. This Grand Hall is 100 feet long, 40 feet wide, and upwards of
60 feet in height, and has a fine open timber roof, which omits the principal arched rib, and multiplies the pendants and smaller curves; it is very scientifically constructed, and contains a vast quantity of timber. There is also a Renaissance carved screen and music-gallery, dight with Elizabethan armour and weapons ; on the side windows are emblazoned the arms of eminent members, as also on the great bay-windows, on the dais or state j ” besides the Queen’s and the 3 Lyons of England.”
The fine collection of State pictures embraces the sovereigns from Charles I. to George I. inclusive. The most striking of these is the noble equestrian portrait of Charles I. by Vandyck (one of the three known to be by his hand), which has hung in the Middle Temple hall since 1684, when it was acquired by the Society. Charles II.’s portrait is reputed to be the work of Sir Godfrey Kneller: it represents the King in coronation robes, wearing the Garter; it is a grandly studied work, though the flesh tints have deepened; the draperies are unrivalled, so finely are they cast and so brilliantly coloured. The portrait of Queen Anne was painted from life for the Society. It appears from their records that on the 27th of November, 1702, the benchers directed the treasurer ” to put up her Majesty’s picture at the west end of the hall over the bench, and to have it drawn by Mr. Dahl, unless the treasurer thinks fit to make use of another hand.” Dahl was a native of Sweden, and a rival of Kneller. But the treasurer of the day selected a Scottish artist, Thomas Murray, for the work, who also painted the portrait of King William III. Cunningham says: “the portraits are chiefly copies, and not good.” Around the HaU are imitative bronze busts of the twelve Caesars; and on the dais, marble busts of Lords Eldon and Stowell, by Behnes.
The oaken tables extend from end to end : ” they cut their meat on wooden trenchers, and drink out of green earthen pots.” (Hatton, 1708.) Dugdale tells us that ” until tbe second year of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, this Society did use to drink in cups of as p e n-wood (such as are still in use in the King’s Court), but then those were laid aside, and green earthen pots introduced, which have ever since been continued.” Specimens of these green cups have been found in the Inner Temple, in Gray’s Inn, and Lincoln’s Inn; they hold half a pint, are tall, have a lip, and are surmised to have held the portions assigned to each student, who was also supplied with a drinking-horn.
The item ” To Calves’-head, &c.” in the old ” battles” of thhe Middle Temple, refers to ancient times, when the chief cook of the Society gave every Easter Term a calves’-head breakfast to the whole fraternity, for which every gentleman paid at least one shilling. In the eleventh year of James I., however, this breakfast was turned into a dinner, and appointed to be on the first and second Monday in every Easter Term. The price per head was regularly fixed, and to be paid by the whole Society, as well absent as present—a fact which will account for the appearance of the item in the Trinity bills. The sum thus collected, instead of belonging solely to the cooks, was divided among all the domestics of the house (see Herbert’s Antiquities of the Inns of Court and Chancery). — B. Blundell, F.S.A.
In this noble Hall was performed Shakspeare’s Twelfth Night, as recorded in the table-book of John Manningham, a student of the Middle Temple: ” Feb. 2, 1601(2). At our feast we had a play called ‘Twelfth Night, or What you will.'”—”It is yet pleasant to know that there is ohisat therne locality remaining where a play of Shakspeare was listened to by his contemporaries, and that play Twelfth Night.” (Charles Knight: Pictorial Edit. Shakspeare) The Middle Temple feasts were sumptuous: Evelyn describes that of 1688 ” so very extravagant and great, as the like had not been seen at any time j” he condemns the revels as ” an old but riotous custom.” Aubrey was admitted 1646; here and at Trinity College, Oxford, he “enjoyed the greatest felicity” of his life. Among his ” Accidents” we find:—” St. John’s Night, 1673 : In danger of being run through with a sword by a young templar, at Burges’ chamber in the Middle Temple.” (Britton’s Memoir of Aubrey, pp. 14, 19.) Elias Ashmole was called to the bar at the Middle Temple, in 1660: he had chambers in Middle Temple Lane.
The Reader at the Middle Temple appointed for the Lent Season, 1861 (Dr. Philli-more), inaugurated his election to the office by reading, in the ancient hall of the Inn, a paper on “Minority and Majority in England and Abroad.” The Readers are elected in rotation from the Benchers, and in the olden time their duty was to read law twice in the year—viz., in Hilary and Trinity Terms : but since the year 1680, these public readings had been discontinued.
The New Library, built at the river end of Garden-court, and upon additional ground purchased at the cost of 13,000Z., was commenced in August, 1858; H. R. Abraham, architect. It is a beautiful edifice, in the collegiate style of the fifteenth century. The lower portion is occupied by chambers; the material is Bath stone. The Library, which is a room of handsome proportions, 96 feet long, 42 wide, and 70 feet high, occupies the upper portion, and is approached by a winding staircase in an octagonal tower at the side. The roof, which reminds one of Westminster Hall, except that it is two-centred, is of American pitch-pine—the first time this wood has heen used for the purpose in England. The floor is of Portland stone, in panels, with Portland cement in the centre compartments. There is a stained glass window at each end : the oriel at the south is illuminated with the arms of the Royal Princes, from the time of Richard Coeur de Lion down to the present Prince of Wales; and the window at the north represents the shields of all who have heen Benchers during the time of its erection. There are five windows at each side, which cast a dim studious light through silvered glass. Over the door is fitly hung the portrait of the founder of the Library, Robert Ashley. The Library was opened with due ceremony, October 30, 1861, by the Prince of Wales, his Royal Highness having previously heen enrolled a Member of the Middle Temple, in form as follows:
The Master Treasurer moved, and the Lord Chancellor seconded, first, “that his Royal Highness be admitted a member of the Middle Temple j” and next, ” that his Eoyal Highness be called to the degree of the outer Bar, and that the oath, on publication of the Call, be dispensed with.” There being no opposition, both motions were carried unanimously, and the Prince was invested with the Bar gown and subscribed the Call-book. The next motion, also by the Treasurer, and seconded by the Lord Chancellor, was ” that his Royal Highness be invited to the Bench.” This motion was also agreed to, and the Prince assumed the Bencher’s gown, and took his seat as a Master of the Bench, at the right hand of the Treasurer. The new Master next moved “that the Parliament do adjourn, and proceed to open the Library.”
The event was commemdednt was orated by a sumptuous dejeuner and an evening fete to nearly 1000 guests. The portrait of the Prince of Wales has been painted for the Society; and His Royal Highness’s bust has been placed in the Library.
There formerly stood in a plot of ground which has since been purchased by the Society of the Middle Temple, a Turkish (turban) tombstone, which was placed in the earth near a slab in the wall which marked’the boundary of the Duchy of Lancaster. The stone is thought to have been abstracted from some Turkish cemetery, brought to England, perhaps as ballast, and thus placed as a curiosity in the little garden. A paper was written concerning this stone by W. H. Marley: it has disappeared.— Holes and Queries, 3rd s. ix. 109.
Among the eminent members of the Middle Temple were Plowden, the jurist; Sir Walter Raleigh; Sir Thomas Overbury; John Ford, the dramatist; Sir Edward Bramston, who had for his chamber-fellow Mr. Edward Hyde (afterwards Lord Chancellor Clarendon); Bulstrode Wbitelocke; Lord Keeper Guildford; Lord Chancellor Somers; Wycherley and Congreve; Shadwell and Southerne; Sir William Blackstone; Dunning, Lord Ashburton j Lord Chancellor Eldon and Lord Stowell; Edmund Burke; Richard Brinsley Sheridan ; and the poets Cowper and Moore. Oliver Goldsmith had chambers in Brick-court, at the window of which he loved to sib and watch the rooks in Middle Temple Garden; Goldsmith died hereon the 4th of April, 1774, in his 46th year; his rooms were at No. 2, second floor, over the chambers of Blackstone, who was then finishing the fourth volume of his Commentaries.
Middle Temple Garden is well kept, and has an air of seclusion; here is a catalpa syringifolia, related to have been planted by Sir Matthew Hale. The Fountain in the adjoining Court is described at pp. 356-7.
Sun-dials. —There remain three dials, with mottoes : Temple-lane, “Pereuntet imputantur:” Essex-court, “Vestigia nulla retrorsum;” Brick-court, ” Time and tide tarry for no man:” in Pump-court and Garden-court are two dials without mottoes; and in each Temple Garden is a pillar dial, dated 1770; that in Middle Temple is elaborately gilt. Upon the old brick house at the east end of Inner Temple-terrace, removed in 1828, was another dial, with this quaint inscription: ” Begone about your business.”
In Middle Temple-lane are some of the oldest chambers in the Temple, and within the gate are shops. It was between the Temple Gate and the Bar that, in 1583, Francis Bacon stood among his brother barristers to welcome Queen Elizabeth into the City. And in one of the shops within the Gate lived Benj. Motte, the publisher of the works of Pope and Swift; his imprint being ” at the Middle Temple Gate.”
Lincoln’s Inn, on the west side of Chancery-lane, occupies the site of the palace of Ralph Neville, Bishop of Chichester, and Lord High Chancellor to Henry III. j and of the ancient monastery of Black Friars in Holborn, granted to Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, who built thereon his town-house or inn : soon after whose death, in 1312, it became an Inn of Court, named from him Lincoln’s Inn; when also the greater part of the estate of the see of Chichester was leased to students of the law. The Earl of Lincoln’s garden, with a pond or vivary for pike, is noticed at p. 365.
The precincts of Lincoln’s Inn comprise the old buildings, ahout 500 feet frontage in Chancery-lane, erected between the reigns of Henry VII. and James I. The Gatehouse, a fine specimen of Tudor brickwork, was built mostly at the expense of Sir Thomas Lovell, ” double reader” and treasurer of the Society. The entrance is an obtusely-pointed arch, originally vaulted, between two four-storied square towers. The bricks and tiles used in the Gatehouse and Hall were made from clay dug from a piece of ground on the west side of the Inn, and called the Coneygarth, ” well stocked with rabbits and game.”
Over the Gatehouse arch are painted and gilt the royal arms of King Henry VIII. within the garter and crowned, having on the dexter side the arms of Henry Lacy, Earl of Lincoln; and on the sinister side the arms and quarterings of Sir Thomas Lovell, K.G.; beneath, on a riband, ^nno DoiVt. 1518. Lower down is a tablet denoting an early repair, inscribed: ” Insignia hsc refecta et decorata Johanne Hawles Armig. Solicitat. General. Thesaurario 1695.” The original doors of oak, put up 6 Eliz. 1564, still remain. In the court on the west is the ancient Hall (the oldest structure in the Inn), and the old kitchen, now chambers; on the north is the Chapel (described at p. 213); and in the centre are the two Vice-Chancellors’ Courts, built 1841.—Spilsbury’s Lincoln’s Inn. fon. This and the three other courts of chambers were chiefly built temp. James I. At
No. 13, from 1645 to 1650, lived John Thurloe, Secretary of Oliver Cromwell. In these chambers, it is said, was discussed early in 1649, by Cromwell and Thurloe, Sir Richard Willis’s plot for seizing Charles II.; in the same room sat Thurloe’s assistant, young Morland, at his desk, apparently asleep, and whom Cromwell would have dispatched with his sword, had not Thurloe assured him that Morland had sat up two nights, and was certainly fast asleep : he, however, divulged the plot to the king, and thus saved Charles’s life. This narrative is given by Birch in his Life of Thurloe, but rests upon questionable evidence. Here was discovered in the reign of, William III. a collection of papers, concealed in a false ceiling of the apartment: they form the principal part of Dr. Birch’s Thurloe State Papers. There is a tradition that Cromwell had chambers in or near the Gatehouse, but his name is not in the registers of the Society: his son Richard was admitted a student 23 Charles I.
Sun-dials. —On two of the old gables are, 1. A southern dial, restored in 1840, which shows the hours by its gnomon from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m., and is inscribed ” Ex hoc momento pendet seternitas.” 2. A western dial, restored in 1794, the Eight Hon. William Pitt, Treasurer, and again restored in 1848, from the different situation of its plane, only shows the hours from noon till night: inscription, ” Qua redit, nescitis horam.”
The Old Hall, rebuilt 22 Henry VII., 1506, occupies the site of the original Hall, and has a louvre on the roof, date 1552, and an embattled parapet; opposite the entrance, at the south end, is the old kitchen. The ” goodly hall” is about 71 feet in length and 32 in breadth ; height about equal to the breadth. It has on each side three large three-light windows, with arched and cusped heads; and a great oriel, transomed, with arched head and cusps: at each end the room was lengthened ten feet in 1819, when the open oak roof was removed, and the present incongruous coved plaster ceiling substituted. At the lower end is a massive screen, erected in 1565, grotesquely carved, and emblazoned with the full achievements of King Charles II., James Duke of York, Prince Rupert, the Earl of Manchester, Lord Henry Howard, and Lord Newport, date Feb. 29,1671: at the end of the Hall, in panels, are the arms of distinguished members of the Society, including ally, inclLords Mansfield, Loughborough, Ellen-borough, Brougham, &c. On the dais is the seat of the Lord Chancellor. The commons of the Society were held here until the building of the New Hall.
Among the earliest distinguished members of Lincoln’s Inn were, Sir John Fortescue, temp. Henry “VI.; Sir Thomas More, who removed here from New Inn;* Lambard and Spelman, the antiquaries; the learned John Selden; Noy, Attorney-General to Charles I.; Lenthall, the Cromwellian Speaker; and the great Lord Chancellor Egerton.
In this ancient Hall were held all the revels of the Society, their masques and Christmasings; when the benchers laid aside their dignity, and dancing was enjoined for the students, as conducive ” to the
* ” After a careful comparison of the facts and dates connected with both John Mores, the only reasonable conclusion that can be formed seems to be that John More, first the butler, afterwards the steward, and finally the reader, of Lincoln’s Inn, was the Chancellor’s grandfather; and that John More, junior, who was also at one time the butler there, was the Chancellor’s father and afterwards the Judge. Not only does this descent suit precisely the’ non celebri sed honestanatus’ in Sir Thomas More’a epitaph, but it explains the silence of his biographers, and accounts for the Judge and the Chancellor attending the readings of a society with which their family had been so closely connected.”— Edward Foss, F.SA.: Archceologia, vol. xxxv. p. 33.
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making of gentlemen more fit for their books at other times” (Dugdale’s Originee); and by an order 7th of James I. ” the under-barristers were, by decimation, put out of commons, for example’s sake, because they had not danced on the Candlemas-day preceding, when the judges were present.” Of Christmas, 1661, Pepys writes: ” The King (Charles II.) visited Lincoln’s Inn to see the revels there; there being, according to an old custome, a prince and all his nobles, and other matters of sport and charge.” Here were present, Clarendon, Ormond, and Shaftesbury, at the revels of Hale; Ley, and Denham the poet; and the gloomy Prynne standing, by. At these entertainments the Hall cupboard was set out with the Society’s olden plate, which includes silver basins and ewers, silver cups and covers, a silver college-pot for festivals, and a large silver punch-bowl with two handles.
In 1671 Charles II. made a second visit, with his brother the Duke of York, Prince Eupert, and the Duke of Monmouth, who were entertained in the Hall, and admitted members of the Society, and entered their names in the admittance-book, which contains also the signatures of all members from the reign of Elizabeth to the present time. Sir Matthew Hale entered here student in 1639: he bequeathed a large collection of MSS. to the Library.
Not many years ago it was the custom at Lincoln’s Inn for one of the servants, attired in his usual robes, to go to the threshold of the outer door about twelve or one o’clock, and exclaim three times, ” Venez manger I” when neither bread nor salt was upon the table.
New Square, southward of the ancient buildings, was completed in 1697, by Mr. Henry Serle, a bencher of the Inn: in the centre was formerly a Corentormerlyinthian column, with a vertical sun-dial; and at the base were four Triton jets d’eau: the ai’ea was enclosed and planted in 1845. In the reign of Charles II. this was open ground, known as Little Lincoln’s Inn Fields, or Fickett’s Fields : it is not part of the Inn.
The Stone Buildings, at the north-east extremity of the Inn, were designed by Sir Eobert Taylor, and completed by Hardwick, in 1845: the architecture is beautiful Corinthian. This is only part of a design, in 1780, for rebuilding the whole Inn.
” The working drawings were made by a young man of the name of Leech, then a clerk in Taylor’s office, who afterwards became a student of Lincoln’s Inn, and died filling the high and lucrative office in the law of Master of the Bolls. Leech’s drawings are preserved in the library of Lincoln’s Inn.— Cunningham’s Handbook, p. 473.
The garden was enlarged, and the terrace-walk on the west was made, in 1663 :—
“To Lincoln’s Inn, to see the new garden which they are making, which will be very pretty,—and to the walk under the chapel by agreement.”—Pepys’s Diary.
Into Lincoln’s Inn walks Isaac Bickerstaff sometimes went instead of the tavern (Tatler, No. 13); and a solitary walk in the garden of Lincoln’s Inn was a favour indulged in by several of the benchers, Isaac’s intimate friends, and grown old with him in this neighbourhood (Tatter, No. 100).
The ruined gamester (Tatler, No. 13) in the morning borrows half-a-crown of the maid who cleans his shoes, ” and is now gaming in Lincoln’s-inn Fields among the boys for farthings and oranges, until he has made up three pieces; and then he returns to White’s, into the best company in town.”
The Gardens were much curtailed by the building of the New Hall and Library; when disappeared ” the walks under the elms,” celebrated by Ben Jonson. Among the officers of the Society is a ” Master of the Walks.” (See Gaedens, p. 365.) And, in 1662, was revived the ancient custom of electing a Lord-Lieutenant, and Prince of the Grange.
On the western side of the garden, almost on the site of the Coneygarth, are the New Hall and Library, a picturesque group, finely situated for architectural effect, in the late Tudor style (temp. Henry VIII.), having a corresponding entrance-gate from Lincoln’s-inn-fields; architect, Philip Hardwick, R.A. The foundation-stone was laid April 20, 1843: the hall is arranged north and south, and the library east and west j the two buildings being connected by a vestibule, flanked by a drawing-room and council-room. The materials are red bricks, intersected with black bricks in patterns, and stone dressings. The south end has a lofty gable,inscribed, in dark bricks, “P. H.” (Philip Hardwick), and the date 1843; flanked on each side by a square tower, battle-mented; beneath are shields, charged with lions and milrines, the badges of the Society: between the towers is the great window of the Hall, of seven lights, transomed, and the four-central arch filled with beautiful tracery. On the apex of the gable, beneath a canopied pinnacle, is a statue of Queen Victoria; Thomas, sculptor. The side buttresses are surmounted by octagonal pinnacles. The roof is leaded, and in its centre is an elegant louvre, surroAprlouvre,unded by slender pinnacles bearing vanes; the capping has crockets and gurgoyles, and is surmounted by a vane with direction-points in gilded metal-work— the whole very tasteful. The entrance to the Hall is at the south-east tower, by a double flight of steps to the porch, above which are the arms of the Inn. Above is the clock, of novel and beautiful design, with an enriched pedimental canopy in metal-work.
The central building, the entrance to the Library and Great Hall, has end oriels, and an octagonal embattled crown or lantern, filled with painted glass, and reminding
one of the octagon of Ely Cathedral. From the esplanade is the entrance by flights of steps to a porch, the gable bearing the lion of the Earl of Lincoln holding a banner; and at the apex of the great gable of the library roof is a circular shaft, surmounted by an heraldic animal supporting a staff and banner. The Library has large end oriels, of beautiful design, and five bay-windows on the north side; the lights being separated by stone compartments, each boldly sculptured with heraldic achievements of King Charles II., James Duke of York, K.G., Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, K.G. (all visitors of the Society), and Albert Edward Prince of Wales. The buttresses dividing the bays are terminated by pillars, surmounted by heraldic animals. At the north-west angle of this front is an octagonal bell-turret. On the western front towards Lincoln’s-inn Fields, the clustered chimneys have a beautiful effect: they are of moulded red brick, resembling those at Eton College and Hampton Court Palace. The bosses, gurgoyles, and armorial, grotesque, and foliated ornaments throughout the building are finely sculptured.
Entering by the southern tower, the corridor is arranged on the plan of the college halls of the Universities, and has a buttery-hatch, and stairs leading to the vaulted kitchen, 45 feet square and 25 feet high, with one of the largest fire-places in England; adjoining are cellars for one hundred pipes of wine.
From the corridor, through a carved oak screen, you enter the Hall: length, 120 feet; width, 45 feet; height to the apex of roof, 62 feet. In size it exceeds the halls of the Middle Temple, Hampton Court Palace, and Christ-church, Oxford; but is exceeded in length by the hall of Christ’s Hospital, which is 187 feet. The upper part of the screen serves as the front of the gallery, between the arches of which, upon pedestals, in canopied niches, are costumed life-size figures of these eminent members of the Society: Lord Chief-Justice Sir Matthew Hale; Archbishop Tillotson, one of the preachers of Lincoln’s-inn; Lord Chief-Justice Mansfield; Lord Chancellor Hard-wicke; Bishop Warburton, one of the preachers; and Sir William Grant, Master of the Rolls. The sides of the Hall are panelled with oak, and the cornice is enriched with gilding and colour. The five large stained-glass windows on either side contain, in the upper lights, the arms, crests, and mottoes of distinguished members of the Society, chronologically arranged, from 1450 to 1843; and the lower divisions are diapered with the initials ” L. I.” and the milrine. Above the windows is a cornice enriched with colour and gilding.
The roof is wholly of oak, and is divided into seven compartments by trusses, each large arch springing from stone corbels, and having two carved pendants (as in Wolsey’s ‘Hall at Hampton Court), at the termination of an inner arch, that springs from hammer-beams projecting from the walls. These pendants are illuminated oll illumiblue and red, and gilt, and they each carry a chandelier to correspond. Between the wall trusses is’ a machicolated cornice, panelled and coloured.
Here is a nobly-designed fresco by G. F. Watts—” The Origin of Legislation.” This great work was the gift of Mr. Watts, the artist; commenced in 1854, but soon after discontinued through illness, and not renewed till 1857—finished Oct. 1859.
On April 25, I860, Mr. Watts was entertained in the Hall—an honour before conferred on no painter except Hogarth, who dined there in 1750—was presented by this Society with a silver-gilt cup, value 1501., and purse of 5001.; the testimonial being ” not in the character of compensation, but as a testimony of the friendly feeling of the Society for the man who had selected it as the recipient of so valued a gift, and of its appreciation of his genius as an artist.”
On the northern wall, above the dais panelling, is the picture of Paul before Felix, painted in 1750 by Hogarth, and removed from a similar position in the Old Hall. The composition is good; but the conception of character commonplace.
By the will of Lord Wyndham, Baron of Finglass, and Lord High Chancellor of Ireland, the sum of 2001. was bequeathed to the Society, to be expended in adorning the Chapel or Hall, as the benchers should think fit. At the recommendation of Lord Mansfield, Hogarth “was engaged to paint the picture, which was at first designed for the chapel.—Spilsbury’s Idneoln’alnn, p. 103.
At the opposite end of the Hall is a noble marble statue, by Westmacott, of Lord Erskine, Chancellor in 1806.
On either side of the dais, in the oriel, is a sideboard for the upper or benchers’ table; the other tables, ranged in gradation, two crosswise and five along the hall, are for the barristers and students, who dine here every day during term: the average number is 200; and of those who dine on one day or other during the term, ” keeping commons,” is about 500.
The western oriel window contains, in the upper light, the armorial bearings of Ralph Neville, Bishop of Chichester: Henry Lacy, Earl of Lincoln: William de Haverhyll, Treasurer to King Henry III., Edward Sulyard, Esq., by whom the inheritance of the premises of Lincoln’s Inn was transferred to the Society in 1580: whose arms are also here—motto: ” Longa professio est pads jus.” In the middle of the window are the arms of King Charles II. within the garter, and surmounted by the crown, with the supporters and motto; also the arms of James Duke of York and of Prince Rupert. On the other side, the quarrels of the whole windows are diapered, like the other windows of the hall, with the milrine and L. I. The oriel window, on the eastern side, contains all the stained glass removed from the old hall, consisting of the armorial insignia of noblemen, legal disnitaries, &c. All the heraldic decorations, with the exception of the eastern oriel, are by Mr. Willement.—Spilsbury’s Lincoln’s Inn, pp. 104-5.
From the dais of the Hall ls Iof the arge folding-doors open into the vestibule, east of which is the Council-chamber; and west, the Drawing-room: the stone chimney-pieces are finely sculptured. In the Drawing-room are portraits of Justice Glanville, 1598; Sir John Granville, Speaker of the House of Commons, 1640; Sir Matthew Hale, 1671, by M. Wright (acquired by the Society, with bis collection of MSS.); Sir Eichard Kainsford, Lord Chief-Justice K.B., 1676, by Gerard Soest; Lord Chancellor Hard-wicke, 1737, after Ramsay; Lord Chancellor Bathurst, 1771, by Sir N. Dance; Sir John Skynner, Lord Chief Baron, 1771, by Gainsborough; Sir William Grant, Master of the Rolls, by Harlow; Francis Hargreave, Treasurer in 1813, by Sir Joshua Reynolds ; and Sir H. Haddington, Speaker of the House of Commons.
In the Council-room is a portrait of Sir John Franklin, of Mavourn, Beds, Knight, a master in chancery thirty-three years; ob. 1707. Here are also several copies from the old masters; and a Lady with a Guitar, by William Etty, R.A. The walls of both Council and Drawing-rooms are also hung with a valuable collection of engraved portraits of legal dignitaries, eminent prelates, &c.
The Library, 80 feet long, 40 feet wide, and 44 feet high, has an open oak roof, of much originality. The projecting book-cases form separate apartments for study, and have an iron balcony running round them about midway, and another gallery over them against each wall. Each of the oriel windows displays arms of the present benchers; as also the five northern windows, except the lower lights of the central one, which are filled with the arms of Queen Victoria, of brilliant colour and broad treatment. The glass of the windows consists of small circular panes, termed beryl glazing, of remarkable brilliancy.
The Society’s valuable collection of MSS., mostly bequeathed by Sir Matthew Hale, are deposited in two rooms opening from the Library. The books and MSS. exceed 25,000: the collection of law-books is the most complete in this country, and here are many important works on history and antiquities. The Library, founded in 1497, is older than any now existing in the metropolis; and many of the volumes still retain iron rings, by which they were secured by rods to the shelves. The early Year-books are chiefly in their original oak binding; and four of them belonged to William Rastell, nephew of Sir Thomas More. Among the other rarities are, Le Mirror a Justices, per Andrew Home, in a hand of the reign of James I.; Placita of the whole reign of Edward II. on vellum, written in the fourteenth century; two volumes of Statutes on vellum, Edward III. and Henry V.; a MS. Year-book, Edward III.; the fourth volume of Prynne’s Records, bought for 335Z. by the Society at the Stowe sale, in 1849 (it was published in the year of the Great Fire, when most of the copies were burnt); several MSS. in the handwriting of Sir Matthew Hale, Archbishop Usher, and the learned Selden; a beautiful copy of the works of King Charles I., which had belonged to King Charles II.; Baron Maseres’s copy of his Scriptores Logarithmici, six vols. 4to; Charles Butler’s fine copy of Tractatus Universi Juris, with index, twenty-eight vols, folio, &c. (See Spilsbury’s Lincoln’s Inn, specially devoted to the Library; to which carefully-written work we are much indebted.)
The New Hall and Library were inaugurated October 30, 1845, by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, when Her Majesty held a levee in the Library, at which the Treasurer of the Inn, J. A. F. Simpkinson, was knighted; the Prince became a member of the Society, and with the Queen signed his name in the Admittance-book. Her Majesty andir r Majes Prince Albert then partook of an early banquet in the Great Hall j this being the first visit of a sovereign to the Inn for nearly two centuries.
Lincoln’s Inn is exempted from poor-rates as extra-parochial. The ground on which the New Hall is built belonged, at the time of building, to the parish of St. Giles in the Fields; but was, by agreement, subsequently severed from that parish, and annexed to the vill or township of Lincoln’s Inn, the Society paying annually a compensation to the parish for the rates.
The Old-buildings are continued to New-square, where may be noted some vine and fig trees. There are some very old houses and shops near the Carey-street gate : some shops are stuck up against the main building: these in former days had been book-stalls.
At Lincoln’s Inn and at Gray’s Inn the Curfew-bell is rung every night at nine o’clock; though, in this respect, the societies do not stand alone, for curfew-ringing is a practice still preserved in many towns scattered about England.
Gray’s Ink, on the north side of Holborn, and west of Gray’s-Inn-lane, appears to have been ” a goodly house since Edward III.’s time.” (Stow.) It was originally the residence of the noble family of Grey of Wilton, who, in 1505, sold to Hugh Denny, Esq., ” the manor of Portpoole (one of the prebends belonging to St. Paul’s Cathedral), otherwise called Gray’s Inn, four messuages, four gardens, the site of a windmill, eight acres of land, ten shillings of free rent, and the advowson of the chantry of Portpoole.” The manor was next sold to the prior and convent of East Sheen, in Surrey, who leased “the mansion of Portpoole” to “certain students of the law,” at the annual rent of 61. 13s. 4d.; and after the Dissolution by Henry VIII. the benchers of Gray’s Inn were entered in the King’s books as the fee-farm tenants of the Crown, at the same rent as paid to the monks of Sheen.
The principal entrance to Gray’s Inn is from Holborn, by a gateway erected 1592, a good specimen of early brickwork, leading to South-square (formerly Holborn-court), separated by the hall, chapel, and library from Gray’s-inn-square. Westward is Field-court, with a gate, now blocked up, to Fulwood’s Rents (see p. 363); and opposite is the lofty gate of the gardens; Verulam-buildings east; Raymond-buildings west; the northern boundary-wall being in King’s-road. The old name of Gray’s-inn-square was Corner-court, an evident relic of the Manor of Portpoole.
The Hall was completed in 1560. It has an open oak roof, divided into seven bays by Gothic arched ribs, the spandrels and pendants richly carved; in the centre is an open louvre, pinnacled externally. The interior is wainscoted, and has an oaken screen, decorated with Tuscan columns, caryatides, &c. The windows are richly emblazoned with arms. The men of Gray’s Inn had their masques and revels, and were ” practises” of gorgeous interludes and plenteous Christmasings: a comedy acted here Christmas, 1527, written by John Roos, a student of the Inn, and afterwards serjeant-at-law, so offended Wolsey, that its author was degraded and imprisoned. Adjoining is the Chapel, probably on the site of the “chantry of Portpoole,” wherein masses were daily sung for the soul of John, the son of Reginald de Gray, for which lands were granted to the prior and convent of St. Bartholomew, Smithfield: at their expense divine service was subsequently performed here on behalf of d ron behathe Society; and after the Dissolution, the chaplain’s salary was paid out of the Augmentation Court. At the Reformation, the Popish utensils, with a pair of organs, were sold, but were restored by Mary; and by command of Henry VIII. was taken out a window,” wherein the image of St. Thomas a- Becket was gloriously painted.” Richard Sibbs, author of The Bruised Reed, was one of the preachers.
In 29 Elizabeth, for the better relief of the poor in Gray’s-inn-lane, alms were distributed thrice by the week at Gray’s Inn gate.
James 1. signified by the .judges that none but gentlemen of descent should be admitted of Gray’s Inn. The Headers had liberal allowances of wine and veniso:i; vi*. viiirf. was paid for each mess; cgsfs and green sauce were the breakfast on Lenten-days ; and beer did not exceed 6s. per barrel. Caps were compulsorily worn at dinner and supper; and hats, boots, and spurs, and standing with the back to the fire, in the hall, were forbidden under penalty. Dice and cards were only allowed at Christmas. Lodging double was customary in the old inn; and at a pension, 9 July, 21 Henry VIII., Sir Thomas NcviJe accepted Mr. Attorney-General (Sir Christopher Hales) to be his bedfellow in his chamber here.
Gray’s Inn has been noted for its exercises, called by Stow ” Boltas Mootes, and putting of case3.” Bailey defines “Bolting (in Gray’s Inn), a kind of exercise, or arguing cases among the students.” (Vict., 3rd edit. 1737.) ” Bolting is a term of art used in Gray’s Inn, and applied to the bolting or arguing of moot cases” (Cowell’s Law Diet.) ; and he argues the bolting of cases to be analogous to the bouliing or sifting of meal through a bag. Judge Hale has ” beats and bolts out the truth.” Danby Pickering, Esq., of Gray’s Inn, was the last who voluntarily resumed these mootings.
The Garden (Gray’s-inn-walks) was first planted about 1600, when Mr. Francis
Bacon, after Lord Verulam, was treasurer. (See Gardens, p. 366.) Howell, in a letter from Venice, June 5, 1621, speaks of Gray’s-inn-walks as the pleasantest place about London, with the choicest society; and they were in high fashion as a promenade and place of assignation in Charles II.’s time, when from Bacon’s summer-house, on a mount, there was a charming view towards Highgate and Hampstead. The Garden was formerly open to the public, like those of the Inner Temple and Lincoln’s Inn.
Hall the chronicler, and Gascoigne the poet, studied at Gray’s Inn: Gascoigne and his fellow-student Kinwelmersh translated the Jocasta of Euripides, which was acted in Gray’s-inn-hall 1566. Bradshaw, president at the trial of Charles I., was a bencher. Sir Thomas Holt was treasurer of Gray’s Inn; and his son, Lord Chief-Justice Holt, was entered upon the Society’s books before he was ten years old: he is Verus the magistrate, in the Tatler, No. 14.
Lord Burghley entered at Gray’s Inn in 1541, and made genealogy his special study. Sir Nicholas Bacon kept his terms here, was called to the bar of the Society, and was elected Treasurer 1552; and his son Francis, Lord Verulam, was admitted here, and made an ancient in 1576: here he sketched his great work the Organum, though law was his principal study. In 1582, he was called to the Bar; in 1586, made a Bencher; in 1588, appointed Reader to the Inn; and in 1600, the Lentact600, th double Reader : in the interval he wrote his Essays, dedicated ” from my chamber at Graie’s Inn, this 30 of Januarie, 1597.” In 1583, he stood among the barristers at Temple Bar to welcome Queen Elizabeth into the City. Bacon had chambers in Gray’s Inn when Lord Chancellor; and here he received the suitors’ bribes, by which his name became tarnished with infamy. After his downfall and distress, when he had parted with York House, he resided, during his visits to London, at his old chambers in Gray’s Inn; whence, in 1626, on a severe day, he went in his coach to Highgate, took cold in stuffing a fowl with snow as an anti-putrescent, became too ill to return to Gray’s Inn, and was carried to the Earl of Arundel’s house at Highgate, where he died within a week. Bacon is traditionally said to have lived in the large house facing Gray’s Inn garden-gates, where Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, frequently sent him home-brewed beer from his house in Holborn. Basil Montagu,* however, fixes Bacon’s chambers on the site of No. 1, Gray’s-inn-square, first floor; the house was burnt Feb. 17, 1679, with 60 other chambers. (Historian’s Guide, 3rd edit. 1688.) Lord Campbell speculatively states that Bacon’s chambers ” remain in the same state as when he occupied them, and are still visited by those who worship his memory.” (Lives of the Lord Chancellors, vol. ii. p. 274.) The association with Bacon is recorded in ” Verulam-buildings.”
David Jones, the patriotic Welsh judge, temp. Charles I., was of Gray’s Inn; Romilly was also a member; and Southey was entered here on leaving Oxford. The students were formerly often refractory. Pepys writes in May, 1667: ” Great talk of how the Barristers and Students of Gray’s Inn rose in rebellion against the Benchers the other day, who outlawed them, and a great deal to do; now they are at peace again.”
Within Gray’s-inn-gate, next Gray’s-inn-lane, lived Jacob Tonson, who published here Dryden’s Spanish Friar, 1681, said to be the first work published by the Tonsons: Jacob was the second son of a barber-chirurgeon in Holborn. At Gray’s-inn-gate, also, lived Thomas Osborne, the bookseller, who gave 13,000Z. for the boolcs from the Har-leian Library, for the binding of a portion of which Lord Oxford is stated by Dibdin to have paid 18,000?.
The Gray’s Inn Journal, in the style of the Spectator, was started by Arthur Murphy, in 1752, and continued weekly two years. Murphy studied the law, was refused admission to the Societies of the Temple and of Gray’s Inn because he had been an actor as well as author, but was admitted of Lincoln’s Inn. He was of a high family. He died a Commissioner of Bankrupts, 1805. Clergymen are admitted to Inns of Court and to the Bar, though they were not so until very lately.
In Gray’s Inn lived Dr. Rawlinson (” Tom Folio” of the Tatler, No. 158), who stuffed four chambers so full with books, that he slept in the passage. In Holborn-
* Mr. Montagu, who died in 1852, possessed a glass and silver-handled fork, with a shifting silver spoon-bowl, which once belonged to Lord Verulam, whose crest, a boar, modelled in gold, surmounts the fork-handle.
court (now South-square) were the chambers of Joseph Ritson, the literary antiquary and rigid Pythagorean: the site is now occupied by the libraries, between the ball and chapel, built by Wigg and Pownall in 1841; style, elegant Italian.
Admission to the Inns, and Call to the Bar. —The four Inns of Court, viz. the two Temples, Lincoln’s Inn, and Gray’s Inn, have exclusively (through their board of Benchers, usually their Queen’s Counsel) the power of conferring the degree of Barrister-at-Law, requisite for practising as an advocate or counsel in the Superior Courts. Lincoln’s Inn is generally preferred for students who contemplate the Equity Bar; it being the locality of Equity Counsel and Conveyancers, and of Equity Courts or Courts of Chancery. If the student design to practise the common law, either immediately as an advocate at “Westminster, the assizes, and sessions, or as a special pleader (a learned person who, having kept his terms, is allowed to draw legal forms and pleadings, though not actually at the bar), his choice lies usually between the Inner Temple, the Middle Temple, and Gray’s Inn, though he may adopt Lincoln’s Inn. The Inner Temple, from its formerly insisting on a classical examination before admission, became more exclusive than the Middle Temple or Gray’s Inn. Gray’s Inn has been numerously attended by Irish students, and has produced some of the greatest luminaries at the Irish Bar, including Daniel O’Connell. In the present day, Mr. Justice Lush, Serjeant Payne, Lord Romilly, M.B., and Mr. Huddleston, Q.C., have been students of Gray’s Inn, and the two latter are still among its benchers.
To procure admission to either of these Inns, the student must obtain the certificate of two barristers, coupled in the Middle Temple with that of a bencher, to the effect that the applicant is a fit person to be received into the Inn for the purpose of being called to the Bar. Once admitted, the student has the use of the Library, and is entitled to a seat in the church or chapel of the Inn, and to have his name set down for chambers. He is then required to keep commons, by dining in the hall for twelve terms (four terms occur in each year); on commencing which, he must deposit with the treasurer 1002., to be retained with interest until he is called; but resident members of the Universities are exempt from this deposit. The student must also sign a bond with sureties for the payment of his commons and term fees. In all the Inns no person can be called unless he is above twenty-one years of age and three years’ standing as a student. The call is made by the benchers in council; after which the student becomes a barrister, and takes the usual oath at Westminster. A Council of Legal Education has, however, of late years been established by the four Inns of Court, to superintend the subject of the education of students for the Bar; and, by order of this council, law lectures are given by learned professors at the four Inns, all of which any student of any of the Inns can attend. Examinations also take place, and scholarships, certificates, and other marks of approbation are the rewards of the successful students. Nevertheless persons may still be called to the Bar, regardless of the lectures and examinations; but in all cases keeping commons by dining in the hall is still absolutely necessary.
A Hall Dinner is a formal scene. At five or half-past five o’clock, the barristers, students, and other members in their gowns, having assembled in the hall, the benchers enter in procession to the dais; the steward strikes the table three times, grace is said by the treasurer or senior bencher present, and the dinner commences: the benchers observe somewhat more style at their table than the other members Jo at theirs: the general repast is a tureen of soup, a joint of meat, a tart, and cheese, to each mess consisting of four persons; each mess is also allowed a bottle of port-wine. The dinner over, the benchers, after grace, retire to their own apartment. At the Inner Temple, onn aer Temp May 29, a gold cup of ” sack ” is handed to each member, who drinks to the happy restoration of Charles II. At Gray’s Inn a similar custom prevails, but the toast is the memory of Queen Elizabeth. The Inner Temple Hall waiters are called panniers, from the panarii who attended the Knights Templars. At both Temples the form of the dinner resembles the repast of the military monks: the benchers on the dais representing the Knights; the barristers, the Freres, or Brethren; and the students, the Novices. The Middle Temple still bears the arms of the Knights Templars, viz. the figure of the Holy Lamb.
The entrance expenses at the Inner Temple (the average of the costs at other Inns) are 401. 11*. 5d., of which 251. Is. 3d. is for the stamp; on call, 821. 12s., of which 621. 2s. 6d. is for the stamp : total 1232. 3*. The commons bill is about 122. annually,
Arms of Temple, Inner: Az. a pegasus salient, or. Temple, Middle: Arg. on a cross gu. a paschal lamb or, carrying a banner of the first, charged with a cross of the second. Lincoln’s Inn: Or, a lion rampant purp. These were the arms of Lacy, Earl of Lincoln. Gray’s Inn: Sa. a griffin segreant, or.
INNS OF CHANCERY
THESE Inns were formerly the nurseries of our great lawyers; but they are at present attached only by name to the parent Inns of Court: the Inner Temple had three, Clemen?s, Clifford’s, and Lyon’s Inns; the Middle Temple one, New Inn; Lincoln’s Inn one, Thavie’s; and Gray’s Inn two, Barnard’s and Staple Inns.
Baenakd’s Inn, Holborn, anciently Mackworth’s, from having belonged to Dr. John Mackworth, Dean of Lincoln, temp. Henry VI., was next occupied by one Barnard, when it was converted into an Inn of Chancery; the arms of the house are those of Mackworth, viz. party per pale, indented ermine and sables, a chevron, gules, fretted or. The ancient Hall, maintained in the olden taste, is the smallest in the London Inns: it is 36 feet long, 22 feet wide, and 30 feet high.
In Barnard’s Inn, No. 2, second-floor chambers, lived the chemist, Mr. Peter Woulfe, F.B.S., a believer in alchemy. (See Alchemists, p. 3.)
Westward, in Holborn, in DyerVbuildings (the site of some almshouses of the Dyers’ Company), lived William Roscoe when he published his edition of Pope’s Works, with notes and a life of the poet, 10 vols. 8vo, 1824.
Clement’s Tnn, Strand, is named from being near the church of St. Clement Danes, and St. Clement’s Well. It was a house for students of the law in the reign of Edward IV. The Elizabethan iron gate, erected in 1852, bears the device of St. Clement, an anchor without a stock, with a C couchant upon it; as also does the Hall, built in 1715. In the small garden is a kneeling figure supporting a sun-dial; it is painted black, and has hence been called a blackamoor.
Shakspeare has left us a picture from this Inn at his period:
” Shallow. I was once of Clement’s Inn where I think they will talk of mad Shallow yet.
” Silence. You were called lusty Shallow then, cousin.
” Shallow. By the mass, I was called any tiling; and I would have done any thing indeed, and roundly too. There was I and little John Doit of Staffordshire, and Black George Barnes of Staffordshire, and Francis Pickbone and Will Squele, a Cotswold man; you had not four such swinge-bucklers in all the Inns of Court again.”
Then Shallow tells of Sir John Falstaff breaking “Skogan’s head at the court-gate, when he was a crack not thus high; and the very same day did I fight with one Sampson Stockfish, a fruiterer, behind Gray’s Inn.”
” Shallow. Oh, Sir John, do you remember since we lay all night in the Windmill in St. George’s Fields?
” Falstaff”. We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master Shallow.
” Shallow. I remember at Mile-End Green (when I lay at Clement’s Inn), I was then ” Sir Dagonett” in Arthur’s Show.”
Then Falstaff says of Shallow: ” I do remember him at Clement’s Inn, like a man made after supper of a cheese-paring.”— Henry IV. Part II. act iii. sc. 2.
Sir Edmund Sanders, Lord Chief-Justice of the Court of King’s Bench from 1681 to 1683, was originally a poor boy, who used to beg scraps at Clement’s Inn, where an attorney’s clerk taught him to earn some pence by hackney-writing. St. Clement’s Well, on the east of the Inn, and lower end of Clement’s-lane, is mentioned by Fitz-stephen: it is now covered, and has a pump placed in it.
Cliffoed’s Inn, behind St. Dunstan’s Church, Eleet-street, is named from Robert Clifford, to whom the property was granted by Edward II., and by his widow was let to students of the law. The arms are those of Clifford, viz. cheeky, or and azure, a fesse and bordure gules, bezante. Sir Edward Coke was admitted of this Inn, 1571; and Selden, 1602. Harrison, the regicide, was an attorney’s clerk here: in the same office with him was John Bramston, cousin of Sir John Bramston, who records: “When the warr begann, his fellow-clerke, Harrison, perswaded him to take armes (this is that famous rogue Harrison, one of the King’s judges), which he did, that he might get to the King, which he soon did.”— Autobiography.
The Hall is modern Gothic, but has some old armorial glass. Here is an oaken case, in which are the Society’s rules written on vellum, with illuminated initials and the arms of England, temp. Henry VIII. In this Hall Sir Matthew Hale and the judges sat after the Great Fire of 1666, to adjudicate in disputes between landlords and tenants, &c. The most authentic record of any settling of the Law Societies in the reign of Edward III. is a demise, in the 18th year, from Lady Clifford apprenticiis de Banco, ” of that house near Fleet-street called Clifford’s Inn.”
A very peculiar dinner-custom is observed in the Hall, which is believed to be unique. The Society consists of two distinct bodies—” the Principal and Rules,” and the junior members, or ” Kentish Mess.” Each body has its own table : atsomwn tabl the conclusion of the dinner, the chairman of the Kentish Mess, first bowing to the Principal of the Inn, takes from the hands of the servitor four small rolls, or loaves of bread, and, without saying a word, he dashes them three several times on the table; he then discharges them to the other end of the table, from whence the bread is removed by a servant in attendance. Solemn silence—broken only by three impressive thumps upon the table—prevails during this strange ceremony, which takes the place of grace after meat in Clifford’s Inn Hall; and concerning which, not even the oldest member of the Society is able to give any explanation.— Notes and Queries, 2nd S., No. 4. In No. 7, 31 r. Buckton, of Lichfield, says: ” Cakes, sacred to Ceres, usually terminated the ancients’ feasts; and the rolls at Clifford’s Inn may be thrown down as an offering to Ceres, legifera, as she first taught mankind the use of laws”—a remote probability.
In Clifford’s Inn ” lived Robert Pultock, author of Peter Wilkins, with its Flying Women. Who he was is not known—probably a barrister without practice; but he wrote an amiable and interesting book.”— Leigh Hunt.
Clifford’s Inn has a terrace and raised garden, rearward of which is the new Record Office, of late Gothic or Tudoresque style, somewhat of a German character, with massive buttresses and Decorated windows.
Ftjenival’s Inn, between Brook-street and Leather-lane, was originally the town mansion of the Lords Furnival, and was an Inn of Chancery in the 9th of Henry IV.; was held under lease temp. Edward VI., and the inheritance in the then Lord Shrews-
bury was sold early in Elizabeth’s reign to the Benchers of Lincoln’s Inn, who leased the property to the Society of Furnival’s Inn. Sir Thomas More was Reader here for three years. The original buildings were mostly taken down in Charles I.’s time, and then re-edified with a lofty street-front of fine brickwork, decorated with pilasters. The old Gothic Hall remained until 1818, when the entire Inn was taken down, and rebuilt of brick by Peto in modern style, with stone columns and other accessories. In the square is a statue of Peto. Thomas Fiddall, attorney of this Inn, in 1654 wrote a Conveyancing Guide, published with his portrait. Furnival’s Inn is let in chambers, but is no longer an Inn of Court or Chancery. Part of its interior is occupied by a well-appointed hotel.
” In the 32d of Henry VI., a tumult betwixt the gentlemen of innes of court and chancery and the citizens of London happening in Fleet-street, in which some mischief was done, the principals of Clif-foord’s Inne, Furnivalle’s lane, and Barnard’s Inne, were sent prisoners to Hartford Castle.”—Stow’s Annuls.
Lyon’s Ins, Strand, between Holywell-street and Wych-street, was originally a guest-inn or hostelry, held at the sign of the Lyon, and purchased by gentlemen, professors and students in the law, in the reign of King Henry VIII., and converted to an Inn of Chancery. Hatton describes the Inn, in 1708, as follows:—
Lyon’s Inn, an Inn of Chancery, situate on the Sh. side of Witch Str. It has been such an Inn since Anno 1420, or sooner. It is governed by a Treasurer and 12 Ancients; those of this House are 3 weeks in Michaelmas Term, other Terms 2 in Commons; and pay 5». for the Reading Weeks, for others 2s. &a prothers mp;d. Here are Mootings once in i terms, and they sell their chambers for 1 or 2 Lives. Their Armorial Ensigns are Chequy Or and Azure, a Lyon Rampant Sable. They have a handsome Hall, built in the year 1700.
Herbert, in his Antiquities of the Inns of Court and Chancery, the materials for which he mostly derived from Dugdale’s Origines Juridiciales, says:—” It (Lyon’s Inn) is known to be a place of considerable antiquity from the old books of the stewards’ accounts, which contain entries made in the time of King Henry V. How long before that period it was an Inn of Chancery is uncertain.” Sir Edward Coke, the year after his call to the Bar in 1579, was appointed Reader at Lyon’s Inn, where his learned lectures brought him crowds of clients; this bsing the start of our great constitutional lawyer.
The whole of the Inn was taken down in 1863; and a sketch of certain of its late tenants will be found in Walks and Talks about London, 1865. In chambers at the south-east corner of the Inn lived the gambler, William Weare, who was murdered by John Thurtell and others, at Elstree, in Hertfordshire, as commemorated in a ballad of the time, attributed to Theodore Hook :—
” They cut his throat from ear to ear, His brains they battered in: His name was Mr. William Weare, He dwelt in Lyon’s Inn.”
He left his chambers on the afternoon of October 24, 1823, for Elstree, whence he never returned alive. Lyon’s Inn Hall bore the date 1700, and a lion sculptured in its pediments. The Inn formerly had its sun-dial, and a few trees. Here lived Philip Absolon, who, in conjunction with E. W. Brayley, wrote a History of Westminster Abbey. The place had long ceased to be exclusively tenanted by lawyers.
New Inn, Wych-street, adjoins Clement’s Inn : the Hall and other buildings are modern. On the site, about 1485, was a guest inn, or hostelry, with the sign of the Virgin Mary, and thence called Our Lady’s Inn. It was purchased or hired by Sir John Fineux, Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, in the reign of Edward IV., at Gl. per annum, for the law-students of St. George’s Inn, in St. George’s-lane, Little Old Bailey; here also the students of the Strand Inn nestled, after they were routed from thence in the reign of Edward VI. by the Duke of Somerset. The armorial ensigns of New Inn are, vert, a flower-pot argent. Sir Thomas More studied here in the reign of Henry VII., before he entered himself of Lincoln’s Inn; and in after-life he spoke of ” New Inn fare, wherewith many an honest man is well contented.” Against the Hall is a large vertical sun-dial; motto, ” Time and tide tarry for no man.”
Serjeants’ Inn, Chanceby-lane. —There were originally three Inns provided for the reception of the Judges and such as had attained to the dignity of the coif—viz.,
first, Scroop’s Inn or Serjeants’ Place, opposite St. Andrew’s Church, Holborn, now long deserted by the Serjeants; secondly, Serjeants’ Inn, Fleet-street, which was held by lease under the Dean and Chapter of York, and is now deserted as an inn for Serjeants; and thirdly, Serjeants’ Inn, Chancery-lane, the only place that can with propriety be at present called Serjeants’ Inn. Scroop’s Inn belonged to John Lord Scroop, and was afterwards known as Scroop’s-court. After his death it was let out to some Serjeants, who adopted it as their e”, it as place, whence it was called Serjeants’ Inn in Holborn. After they disused it, the site was used for tenements and gardens. The Serjeants about the beginning of the reign of Henry VI., and not before, resorted to the Fleet-street Inn, which bad a very fine chapel and hall and a stately court of tall brick buildings. It likewise retained a steward, a master cook, a chief butler, with other attendants and servants, and a porter. The old Inn in Holborn having been sold, and the Fleet-street Inn having become dilapidated, the Serjeants were quite ready to entirely emigrate to Chancery-lane, the third and chief Inn to which one need invite attention. It bore once the name of ” Faryndon Inn,” and it was known as early as the 17 Eichard II., when the inheritance belonged (and has done since) to the Eishop of Ely and his successors. In the ” accompt” of the Bishop’s bailiff 12 Henry IV., it was called ” Faryndon Inne,” and it was stated ” that the serjeants-at-law had lodgings there.” In 1416, 7 Henry V., the whole house was demised to the judges and others learned in the law. The freehold, after having passed through various hands, came to be held for three lives by Sir Anthony Ashley, Knight, under whom the judges and Serjeants continued to rent it. Eventually the Serjeants negotiated with the Bishop of Ely for the purchase of the fee simple of the property, and the same was ultimately vested in the Society by an Act of Parliament, creating the Society of Serjeants’ Inn, Chancery-lane, for the purpose, a Corporation, upon the annual payment for ever of a fee farm rent to the Bishop and his successors. The officers belonging to this Inn are similar to those in Fleet-street—namely, a steward, a master cook, a chief butler, and their servants, and a porter. In 1837-8 the Inn was rebuilt (under the auspices of Serjeant Adams, the then treasurer) by Sir Eobert Smirke, R.A., except the old dining-hall of the Society, which was then fitted up as a court for Exchequer equity sittings, but is now used as the state dining-room of the Serjeants, including the common law judges, who are always serjeants-at-law. The handsomest room is, however, the private dining-room, which contains one of the finest collections of legal portraits in the kingdom, including those of Sir Edward Coke, by Cornelius Jansen ; of Lord Mansfield, Lord King, Sir Francis Buller, Chief Justice Tindal, Lords Eldon, Denman, and Lyndhurst, all by painters of note. The windows (containing the armorial ensigns of judges and Serjeants) are finely executed. The chambers where the judges of the common law sit to hear summonses and other private matters are in this Inn. The arms of Serjeants’ Inn are, or, a stork ppr.
This Serjeants’ Inn is the exclusive property of the serjeants-at-law, or Servientes ad Legem, who are the highest degree in the common law. The serjeantcy-at-law, moreover, is somewhat of a title or dignity as well as a degree, being created by the Queen’s writ. In his armorial ensigns, the serjeant bears a helmet open and front face, like that of a knight, and not with the vizor down as an esquire’s is. He, in a knightly way, gives, on his appointment, gold rings to the Queen, the Lord Chancellor, and to his own legal friends. The serjeants-at-law form a brotherhood to which the judges of the Common Law Courts at Westminster must belong. For this reason, as being of the same body, the judges of the Common Law Courts at Westminster invariably address a serjeant as ” Brother;” and they never apply the term to any other counsel. The serjeants are a body incorporated by Act of Parliament. The robes of the serjeant vary in colour on particular days; and peculiar to him is ” the coif,” or circular black patch on the top of his wig. By that mark, peculiar to his order, the serjeant-at-law may always be recognised in court. The serjeant, on joining Serjeants’ Inn, quits entirely the Inn of Court to which he, as a student and barrister, belonged.
esfont> At some of the Inns of Court, if the new-made serjeant leaves the Inn in term-time, the following ceremony occurs: after giving a breakfast to the benchers of the Inn in their council chamber, the new serjeant proceeds to the banqueting-hall, and is there presented
by the treasurer with a silver pnrse containing ten guineas, as a retaining fee for any occasion on which the Society may in future require his services. A hell is then rung as a warning that he has ceased to be a member of the Inn.*
Serjeants’ Inn, Fleet-street. —This other, but obsolete Inn, in Fleet-street, already described, still bears the name of Serjeants’ Inn, and this is liable to be mistaken for the now only real Serjeants’ Inn, in Chancery-lane. The Fleet-street Inn was destroyed in the Great Fire, was rebuilt in 1670, and again rebuilt, as we now see it, with a handsome stone-fronted edifice, designed by Adam, the architect. This Inn is now let in private chambers to any one who likes to rent them.
Staple Inn, Holborn, nearly opposite Gray’s-inn-lane, is traditionally named from having been the inn or hostel of the Merchants of the (Wool) Staple, whither it was removed from Westminster by Richard II. in 1378. It became an Inn of Chancery temp. Henry V.; and the inheritance of it was granted 20th Henry VIII. to the Society of Gray’s Inn. The Holborn front is of the time of James I., and one of the oldest existing specimens of our metropolitan street-architecture. The Hall is of a later date, has a clock-turret, and had originally an open timber roof: some of the armorial window-glass is of date 1500 ; there are a few portraits, and at the upper end is the wool-sack, the arms of the Inn; and upon brackets are casts of the twelve Caasars. In the garden adjoining was a luxuriant fig-tree which nearly covered the south side of the Hall. Upon a terrace opposite are the offices of the Taxing Masters in Chancery, completed in 1843, Wigg and Pownall, architects; in the purest style of the reign of James I., with frontispiece, arched entrances, and semicircular oriels, finely effective: the open-work parapet of the terrace, and the lodge and gate leading to Southampton-buildings, are very picturesque.
Dr. Johnson lived in Staple Inn in 1759: in a note to Miss Porter, dated March 23, he informs her that ” he had on that day removed from Gough-square, where he had resided ten years, into chambers at Staple Inn;” here he wrote his Idler, seated in a three-legged chair, so scantily were his chambers furnished. In 1760, Johnson removed to Gray’s Inn. Isaac Heed lived at No. 11, Staple Inn.
Strand Inn, or Chester Inn from its being near the Bishop of Chester’s house, was taken down temp. Edward VI., by the Duke of Somerset for building his palace; it occupied part of the site of the present Somerset House. Occleve, the pupil of Chaucer, in the reign of Henry V., is said to have studied the law at ” Chestre’s Inn.”
Symond’s Inn, Chancery-lane, though named from a gentleman of the parish who died in 1621, is stated to be the only portion retained by the Bishops of Chichester of their property in Chancery-lane, where they formerly had a palace ; and here are Bishop’s-court and Chichester-rents.
Thatie’s Inn, beno,tie’s Itween JSTos. 56 and 57, Holborn-hill, was originally the dwelling of John Thavie, of the Armourers’ Company, who let the house temp. Edward III. to apprentices to the law : it was subsequently purchased as an Inn of Chancery by the benchers of Lincoln’s Inn, by whom it was sold in 1771; destroyed by fire, and rebuilt as a private court. In the adjoining church of St. Andrew is a monument to John Thavie, who, in 1348, ” left a considerable estate towards the support of this fabrick for ever,” from which property the parish now derive an annual income of 1300Z.
ISLE OF BOGS (TEE),
APART of Poplar Marsh, lying within the bold curve of the Thames between Blackwall and Limehouse, was originally a peninsula; in a Map drawn in 1588 by Robert Adams, engraved in 1738, this name is applied to an islet in the Thames, still in part existing, at the south-west corner of the peninsula, and from this spot the name appears to have extended to the entire marsh. (Notes and Queries, No. 203.) In 1799-1800, a canal was cut through the isthmus by the Corporation of London, to
* Nearly opposite Serjeants’ Inn, Chancery-lane, were two houses, date 1611, taken down in 1853. The richly-carved and picturesque house at the south-west corner, in Fleet-street (often engraved), was taken down for widening the lane in 1799.
save ships the long passage round the Isle; but since sold to the West India Dock Company, and now a timber-dock. Here Togodumnus, brother of Caractacus, is said to have been killed in a battle with the Romans under Plautius, a.d. 46. Traditionally, it was named from the hounds of Edward III. b-ing kept tbere, for contiguity to Waltham and other royal forests in Essex. Again, Isle of Dogs is held to be corrupted from Isle of Ducks, from the wildfowl u^on it. Here (says Lysons) stood the chapel of St. Mary, mentioned in a will of the fifteenth century, ” perhaps an hermitage founded for saying masses for the souls of mariners.” The remains of the chapel existed to a very late date. Pepys speaks of it as ” the unlucky Isle of Doggs.” He also speaks of a ferry in the Isle of Dogs, which is named as a horse-ferry by Norden in the Speculum Britannia, 1592 (MS.). This ferry is still used. The ground is very rich, and in Strype’s time oxen fed here sold for 347. apiece: the grass was long prized for distempered cattle. The island is a pleistocene drift or diluvial deposit, in which has been found a subterranean forest of elm, oak, and fir trees, eight feet below the grass, and lying from south-east to north-west; some of the elms were three feet four inches in diameter, accompanied by human bones and recent shells, but no metals or traces of civilization: the marsh is now enclosed by a pile and brick embankment. Here Captain Brown, R.N., established his works for the manufacture of iron suspension-bridges and iron cables: in 1813, he built here a suspension-bridge for foot-passengers, weighing only 38 cwt., but carts and carriages passed safely over it; the span was 100 feet. Captain Brown also constructed the chain-pier at Brighton, in 1822-3. About this time the Isle of Dogs began to be thickly inhabited: here is St. Edmund’s Roman Catholic Chapel. The late Alderman Cubitt built here a large number of houses, named Cubitt-town, and a Gothic church. The Isle is partly covered with stone-wharves, iron ship-building and chemical works, &c. Adjoining are the dockyards of the Wigrams and Greens, formerly Perry’s, mentioned by Pepys in 1660-G1: the picturesque old masting-house is 120 feet high. Near the principal entrance to the West India Docks is a bronze statue (by Westmacott) of Mr. Milligan, by es Millig whom the Docks were begun and principally completed. (See Millwai/l.)
The working men of the Isle of Dogs number some 15,000, engaged in the numerous factories and shipyards; for whose recreation has been formed a Free Library, to provide them with amusement for evenings too often spent in dissipation.
ISLINGTON,
CALLED also Iseldon, Yseldon, Eyseldon, Isendune, and Isondon, and of all the villages near London alone bearing a British name, was originally two miles distant north of the town, to which it is now united. Iseldon is conjectured to signify the lower fort, or station; and as there was undoubtedly a Roman camp at Highbury, this name may have been given to the camp which a few years since was visible in the field beside Barnsbury Park. Iseldon, in Domesday Book, possesses nearly 1000 acres of arable land alone; and so well cleared was the property, that there only remained “pannage for 60 hogs” (woodlands) adjoining Hornsey.
The great benefactor of Islington was Richard de Cloudesley, who by will, dated 1517, among other bequests to the parish, iett to poor men gowns with the names oiJesu and Maria upon them; also 40». for repairing and amending the causeway between his house and Islington Church; and a load of straw to be laid upon his grave: but superstition would not let Cloudesley’s ” bodie rest until certain exorcises, at dede of night,” had quieted him, with ” diuers diuinc exorcises at torchlight.” The name of this benefactor is preserved in Cloudesley Square and Terrace. Algernon Percy, Earl of Northumberland, is said to have resided at Newington Green, where Henry VIII. was a frequent visitor, probably on his hawking excursions; and one of his proclamations, in 1516, commands that ” the ga : ics of hare, partridge, pheasant, and heron, be preserved for his owne disport and pastime; that is to saye, from his palace of Westminster to St. Gyles in the Fields, and from thence to Islington, to our Lady of the Oke, to Highgate, to Hornsey Parke, to Hamstcd Heath,” &c.
Islington retained a few of its Elizabethan houses to our time, and its rich dairies are of like antiquity : in the entertainment given to Queen Elizabeth at Kenilworth Castle, in 1575, the Squier Minstrel of Middlesex glorifies Islington with the motto, ” Lac caseus infans j” and it is still noted for its cow-keepers. It was once as famous for its cheese-cakes as Chelsea for its buns; and among its other notabilities were custards and stewed ” pruans,” its mineral spa, and its ducking-ponds—Ball’s Pond dating
from the time of Charles I. At the lower end of Islington, in 1611, were eight inns, principally supported by summer visitors :—
” Hogsdone, Islington, and Tothnam Court, For cakes and creame had then no small resort.”
Wiiher’s Britain’s ‘Remembrancer, 1628.
Cowley, in his poem ” Of Solitude,” points to Islington of the seventeenth century, in thus apostrophizing ” the monster London” :—
” Let but thy wicked men from out thee go, And all the fools thof the foat crowd thee so, Ev’n thou, who dost thy millions boast, A village less than Islington will grow, A solitude almost.”
Lord Macaulay, in like vein, says, ” Islington was {temp. Charles I.) almost a solitude, and poets loved to contrast its silence and repose with the din and turmoil of the monster London.”— History of England, vol. i. pp. 349-350.
Islington parish includes Upper and Lower Holloway, three sides of Newington-green, and part of Kingsland; the southern portion of the village being in the parish of St. James, Clerkenwell. Besides St. Mary’s, the mother-church, here are a large church in Lower Holloway; St. John’s, Upper Holloway; St. Paul’s, Ball’s Pond j and Trinity, Cloudesley-square—all three designed by Barry, R.A., 1828-9, architect, also of St. Peter’s, in 1835; Christchurch, Highbury, designed by Allom, in 1849, has a picturesque tower and spire, and interior of novel plan. There are also other district churches ; St. John the Evangelist’s (Roman Catholic), with lofty gable and flanking towers; besides numerous chapels for every shade of dissent: Claremont Chapel, built in 1820, was named in memory of the lamented Princess Charlotte.
Canonbury, about half a mile north-east of the old church, was once the country-house of the Prior of the Canons of St. Bartholomew : the tower is described at p. 78.
An old Islingtonian has favoured us with these details of the New Eiver: Act of Parliament passed 1606; begun Feb. 20,1608; the labourers received 2s. 6d. per day; stopped at Enfield for want of funds; completed in five years; opened with great ceremony at the Head, Sadler’s Wells, Michaelmas Day, 1613, before the Lord Mayor and Lord Mayor Elect, Sir Thomas Myddelton, brother of Sir Hugh; King James, and Sir Hugh Myddelton.
The Neio River entere Islington by Stoke Newington, and passing onward, beneath Highbury, to the east of Islington, ingulfs itself under the road, in a subterraneous channel of 300 yards; again rises in Colebrook-row, and still coasting the southern side of Islington, reaches its termination at the New River Head, Sadler’s Wells. Prom this vast circular basin the water is conveyed by sluices into large brick cisterns, and hence by mains and riders to all parts of London. (See New Ritee.) Upon the Green, now planted and inclosed as a garden, is a portrait-statue in stone of Sir Hugh Myddelton, with a drinking fountain, presented by Sir Morton Peto, Bart., M.P.
The centre of Islington is perforated by the Regenfs Canal brick tunnel, commencing westward of White Conduit House, and terminating below Colebrook-row. This tunnel is 17 feet wide, 900 yards long, and 18 feet high, including 7 feet 6 inches depth of water.
Highbury was originally a summer camp of the Romans, and adjoined the Ermine-street. The manor was given to the Priory of St. John of Jerusalem between 1271 and 1286, and was the Lord Prior’s country residence, destroyed by Jack Straw in 1371. The site is now occupied by Highbury House, where is a lofty observatory, partly built by John Smeaton, F.R.S.
Among the more eminent inhabitants of Islington were John Bagford, the antiquary and book and print collector; William Collins, whilst under mental infirmity, was visitermty, wased here by Dr. Johnson; Alexander Cruden, compiler of the Concordance, died here in 1770; Oliver Goldsmith, and Ephraim Chambers the cyclopaedist, lodged in Canonbury tower; Quick, the comedian, in Hornsey-row; John Nichols, E.S.A., editor of the Gentleman’s Magazine, lived in Highbury-place; where Kit-hard Percival, F.S.A., formed a matchless collection of drawings and prints of Islington; William Knight, F.S.A., of Canonbury, a collection of angling-books and missals. William Upcott, F.S.A., the bibliographer and autograph-collector, died here in 1845; and Charles Lamb retired from his clerkship in the India House to a cottage in Colebrook-row, in 1825: ” the New River (rather elderly by this time) runs (if a moderate walking pace can be so termed) close to the foot of the house.” (C. Lamb.) The house remains, but has been much altered; and the New River has been covered over. Hard by was ” Starvation Farm,” where the owner, a foreign baron, kept his emaciated stock.
In July, 1864, was dispersed by auction the valuable Library of the late Mr. George Daniel, of 18, Canonbury-square, together with his collection of Original Drawings and Engraved Portraits of Actors and Actresses, Water-colour Drawings, Pottery and Porcelain, &c. The Library included the First
Four Folios of Shakspeare’s Works, the First Folio producing 682 guineas: the Quarto Plays comprised several first editions, 300Z. each and upwards; Sonnets, one of the only two pertect copies known, with the same imprint, 215 guineas; and a choice edition of the Poems; also, a collection of Black-letter Ballads, 1559-1597, 750?. A great number of the Books were unique, or nearly so, and included Garlands, Jests, Drolleries, and Songs \ two Missals of high class; Autograph Letters, Drawings, and Engravings, illustrative of the lives and times of Burns, Chatterton, Cowper, Goldsmith, Gray, Johnson, Kemble, Pope, &c. The sale occupied ten days.
Among the old inns and public-houses were—near the church, the Pied Bull, popularly a villa of Sir Walter Raleigh’s; in Lower-street, the Crown, apparently of the reign of Henry VII., and the Queen’s Head, a half-timbered Elizabethan house; near the Green, the Duke’s Head, kept by Topham, ” the Strong Man of Islington ;” •in Frog-lane, the Barley-mow, where George Morland painted; at the Old Parr’s Head, in Upper-street, Henderson the tragedian first acted; White Conduit House has been twice rebuilt within our recollection; and Highbury Barn, though now a showy tavern, nominally recals its rural origin; the Three Hats, near the turnpike, was taken down in 1839; and the Angel was originally a galleried inn. Timber gables and rudely-carved brackets are occasionally to be seen on Islington house-fronts bearing old dates; also here and there an old ” house of entertainment,” which, with the little remaining of ” the Green,” reminds one of Islington village.
Islington abounds with chalybeate springs, resembling the Tunbridge Wells water; one of which was rediscovered in 1683, in the garden of Sadler’s music-house, subsequently Sadler’s Wells Theatre; at the Sir Hugh Myddelton’s Head tavern was formerly a conversation-picture with twenty-eight portraits of the Sadler’s Wells Club. In Spa-Fields, about sixty years ago, was held ” Gooseberry Fair,” where the stalls of Gooseberry-fool vied with the ” threepenny tea-booths ” and the beer at ” my Lord Cobham’s Head.”
The following amusing Curiosities of Islington Taverns are selected and abridged from Pinks’s History of Clerkenwell, 1s olerkenw865:—
Less than half a century ago, the Old Red Lion Tavern, in St. John-street-road, the existence cf which dates as far back as 1415, stood almost alone; it is shown in the centre distance of Hogarth’s print of Evening. Several eminent persons frequented this house: among others, Thomson, the author of The Seasons; Dr. Johnson, and Oliver Goldsmith. In a room here Thomas Paine wrote his infamous book, The Eights of Man, which Burke and Bishop Watson demolished. The parlour is hung with choice impressions of Hogarth’s plates. The house has been almost rebuilt.
Opposite the Red Lion, and surrounded by pens for holding cattle on their way to Smithfield, was an old building called ” Goose Farm;” it was let in suites of rooms: here lived Cawse, the painter; and in another suite, the mother and sister of Charles and Thomas Dibdin—the mother, a short, squab figure, came on among villagers and mobs at Sadler’s Wells Theatre, but, failing to get engaged, she died in Clerkenwell Poorhouse. Vincent de Cleve, nicknamed Polly de Cleve, for his prying qualities, who was treasurer of Sadler’s Wells for many years, occupied the second-floor rooms above the Dibdins. ” Goose Yard,” on the west of the road, serves to determine the site of the old farmhouse.
The public-house facing the iron gates leading to the Sadler’s Wells Theatre, with the sign of The Clown, in honour of Grimaldi, who frequented the house, was, in his day, known as the King of Prussia, prior to which its sign had been that of the Queen of Hungary. It is to this tavern, or rather to an older one upon the same site, that Goldsmith alludes in his Essay on the Versatility of Popular Favour. ” An alehouse-keeper,” says he, ” near Islington, who had long lived at the sign of The French King, upon the commencement of the late war with France, pulled down his own sign, and put up that of the Queen of Hungary. Under the influence of her red face and golden sceptre, he continued to sell ale till she was no longer the favourite of his customers; he changed her, therefore, some time ago for the King of Prussia, which may probably be changed in turn for the man that shall be set up for vulgar admiration.” The oldest sign by which this house was distinguished was that of The Turk’s Head.
At The Golden Ball, near Sadler’s Wells, was sold by auction, in 1732, “the valuable curiosities, living creatures, &c, collected by the ingenious Mons. Boyle, of Islington,” including ” a most strange living creature, bearing a near resemblance of the human shape; he_ can utter some few sentences and give pertinent answers to many questions. Here is likewise an Oriental oyster-shell of a prodigious weight and size; it measures from one extreme part to the other above three feet two inches over. The other curiosity is called the Philosopher’s Stone, and is about the size of a pullet’s egg, the colour of it is blue, and more beautiful than that of the Ultramarine, which, together with being finely polished, is a most delightful entertainment to the eye. This unparalleled curiosity was clandestinely stolen out of the late Great Mogul’s closet; this irreparable loss had so great an effect upon him, that in a few months after he pined himself to death: there is a peculiar virtue in this precious stone, that principally relates to the Fair Sex, and will effectually signify, in the variation of its colour, by touching it, whether any of them have lost their virginity.”
At the Rising Sun, in the Islington-road,”in Mist’s Journal, Feb. 9,1726, we read that for thothd that e ensuing Shrove Tuesday “will be a fine hog barbygu’d —i.e., roasted whole—with spice, and basted with Madeira wine, at the house where the ox was roasted whole at Christmas last.”
In the Islington-road, too, near to Sadler’s Wells, was Stokes’s Amphitheatre, a low place, though resorted to by the nobility and gentry. It was devoted to bull and bear baiting, dog-fighting, boxing, and sword-fighting; and in these terrible encounters, with naked swords, not blunted, women engaged each other to ” a trial of skill:” they fought a la mode, in close-fitting jackets, short petticoats, Hoi-
land drawers, white thread stockings, and pumps; the stakes were from 101. to 201. Here we read of a day’s diversion—a mad bull, dressed up with fireworks, to be baited; cudgel-playing for a silver cup, wrestling for a pair of leather breeches, &c.; a noble, large, and savage incomparable Russian bear, baited to death by dogs; a bull, illuminated with fireworks, turned loose; eating farthing pies, and drinking hali’-a-gallon of October beer in less than eight minutes, &c
The increase of population in Islington has heen enormous. By the census of 1851 it stood at 95,154 : by that of 1861 it is seen to be 156,000, showing an increase in ten years of 60,846 persons. This is not entirely owing to the new buildings which have been erected there, great as the number of them is: the decadence of some of the streets must also be taken into account, many houses in which, formerly occupied by one family in each, now contain several. To meet these requirements at Islington have been erected, with a portion of the funds munificently presented by an American merchant, Mr. Peabody, to trustees for the poor of London, four blocks of buildings, to comprise in all 155 tenements, with ample accommodation for upwards of 650 persons. The whole cost of these buildings, exclusive of the sum paid for the land, will amount, when the accounts shall have been closed, to 31,690?. They are appropriately named Peabody-square.
Holloioay was once famous for its cheese-cakes, which, within recollection, were cried through London streets by men on horseback. Du Val’s-lane was traditionally the scene of the exploits of Du Val, the highwayman, executed at Tyburn Jan. 21, 1690, ” to the great grief of the women.” Within memory, the lane was so infested with highwaymen, that few people would venture to peep into it, even at mid-day : in 1831 it was lighted with gas. (J. T. Smith j At Lower Holloway, Mrs. Foster, grand-daughter of Milton, kept a chandler’s-shop for several years; she died in poverty at Islington, May 9, 1754, when the family of Milton became extinct.
Between Islington and Hoxton was built in 1786, a curious windmill for grinding white-lead, worked by five flyers, at right angles to which projected a beam with smaller shafts. In 1853 was built at the Rosemary Branch Gardens a Circus, to seat five thousand persons. At Hoxton were the ” Ivy Gardens” of Fairchild, who, dying rich, left to the parish of St. Leonard, Shoreditch, 50?. (increased to 100?. by the parishioners), the interest to be devoted to a lecture on Whit-Tuesday in the parish-church, ” On the goodness of God as displayed in the Vegetable Creation.” In Fairchild’s employ was William Bartlett, ” a simpler,” who died at the age of 102 years ; and his son James, ” a simpler,” aged 80.
In the Lower-road was ” the Islington Cattle Market,” origrifMarket,inated with a view to the removal of the cattle-market from Smithfield, and established by Act of Parliament in 1835; but it failed as a market, and has since been only used for the lairage of cattle; it occupied fifteen acres of land, walled in. (See Markets.)
JAMES-STREET, WESTMINSTER,
FACING St. James’s Park and Buckingham-gate, has been the abode of two distinguished literati. At No. 11 lived the poet Glover, whose song of ” Hosier’s Ghost” roused the nation to a Spanish war, and will be read and remembered long after his Leonidas is forgotten. At No. 6 died, December 31, 1826, William Gifford, editor of the Quarterly Review from its commencement in 1809 to 1824; and working editor of the Anti-Jacobin Review, writing the refutations and corrections of ” the Lies,” ” Mistakes,” and ” Corrections.” Gifford also translated Juvenal, wrote the satires of the Baviad and Maviad; and edited Massinger, Ben Jonson, Ford, and Shirley.
On the west side of James-street stood Tart Hall, partly built in 1638, by N. Stone, for Alathsea Countess of Arundel; after whose death it became the property of her second son William, the amiable Viscount Stafford, beheaded on Tower-hill, Dec. 29, 1680, upon ” the perjured suborned evidence of the ever-infamous Oates, Dugdale, and Tuberville.” The gateway of Tart Hall was not opened after Lord Stafford had passed under it for the last time. The second share of the Arundel Marbles was deposited here, and produced at a sale in 1720, 8851?. 19s. life?. {Minutes, Soc. Antiquaries^) Dr. Mead bought a bronze head of Homer for 136?. ; it is now in the British Museum, catalogued as a head of Pindar. The Hall was taken down soon after the sale: Walpole told Pennant it was very large and venerable. According to Strype, it was
part in the parish of St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields, and part in St. James’s; on the garden-wall, a hoy was whipt annually to rememher the parish bounds; upon the site of the wall was built Stafford-row : in one of the adjoining passages, Mrs. Abington, the actress, had an incognito lodging, for card-parties. Sir Richard Phillips, in his Morning’s Walk from London to Kew, 1817, writes—
At Pimlico the name of Stafford-row reminded me of the ancient distinction of Tart Hall, once the rival in size and splendour of its more fortunate neighbour, Buckingham House, and long the depository of the Arundelian Tablets and Statues. It faced the Park, on the present site of James-street; its garden-wall standing where Stafford-row is now built, and the extensive livery-stables being once the stables of its residents.”
Dr. Rimbault believes Tart Hall was called so from its proximity to the Mulberry Garden, which was famous for its tarts. It is so called in the inventory of ” household stuffs,” &c, taken in 1641. (Sari MS., No. 6272); in Algernon Sydney’s Letters to Henry Savile; in several documents in the State Paper Office, &c. (Notes and Queries, 2nd S.; ix. p. 407.)
In the Harleian MS. we read of four pictures: 1. A Goundelowe. 2. A Mountcbanke. 3. A Brave. 4. ” King Henry 7. his wife and children.” ” The Great Roome, or Hall,” was situated ” next to the Banketing House.” “My Lord’s Room” was hanged with yellow and green taffetas. A closet had the floor covered with a carpet of yellow leather. Ttinow leathe roof of one of the rooms was decorated with a ” picture of the Fall of Phaeton.” Mr. Arden’s room was ” hanged with Scotch plad.” Among the pictures named are—Diana and Actseon, by Titian (now in the Bridgewater Gallery ?); Jacob’s Travelling, by Bassano (now at Hampton Court ?); A Martyrdom, by Tintoret; The Nativity of Our Saviour, by Honthorst. No statues are mentioned. The site is marked in Faithorne’s Map of London, 1658.— Cunningham.
In James-street was the residence of Lord Milford, facing St. James’s Park, and first fitted up as the Stationery Office in 1820 : it was taken down on the removal of the office to the new buildings in Prince’s-street, Westminster.
ST. JAMES’S.
ALTHOUGH the Hospital dedicated to St. James is believed to have been founded prior to the Norman Conquest, and was rebuilt as a palace in 1532, not two centuries have elapsed since St. James’s formed part of the parish of St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields, and occupied the furthest extremity of the western boundaries of Westminster. ” The Court of St. James’s” dates from after the burning of Whitehall in the reign of William III., when St. James’s became the royal residence; the church was consecrated in 1685, in honour of the reigning monarch, to St. James.
Hatton (1708) describes the parish as “all the houses and grounds comprehended in a place heretofore called St. James’s Fields, and the confines thereof, containing about 3000 houses, and divided into seven wards.” In the reign of Queen Anne it had acquired the distinction of the Court quarter.
“The inhabitants of St. James’s, notwithstanding they live under the same laws and speak the same language, are a distinct people from those of Cheapside; who are likewise removed from those of the Temple on the one side, and those of Smithfield on the other, by several climates and degrees in their way of thinking and conversing together.”—Addison, Spectator, No. 403,1712.
St. James’s-street, in 1670, was called ” the Long Street,” and is described by Strype as beginning at the Palace of St. James’s, and running up to the road against Albemarle-buildings; the best houses, at the upper end, having a terrace-walk before them. Waller, the poet, lived on the west side from 1660 till 1687, when he died at Beaconsfield; Pope lodged ” next door to y e Golden Ball, on y e second terras.” Gibbon, the historian, died Jan. 16, 1794, at No. 76, then Elmsley, the bookseller’s, who would not enter upon ” the perilous adventure” of publishing the Decline and Fall, by which the publishers have profited ten times the amount paid to the author for his copyright.
Horace Walpole relates: ” I was told a droll story of Gibbon the other day. One of those booksellers in Paternoster-row, who publish things in numbers, went to Gibbon’s lodgings in St. James’s-strcet, sent up his name, and was admitted. ¦ Sir,’ said he, ‘ I am now publishing a History of England, done by several good hands ; I understand you have a knack at them there things, and should be glad to give you every reasonable encouragement.’ As soon as Gibbon had recovered the use of his legs and tongue, which were petrified with surprise, he ran to the bell, and desired his servant to show this encourager of learning downstairs.”
Here was the Thatched House Tavern, originally a thatched house in St. James’s
Fields. It was taken down in 1814 and 1863, having been for nearly two centuries celebrated for its club meetings; and its large public room, wherein were hung the Dilettanti pictures. Beneath the tavern front was a range of low-built shops, including that of Rowland, or Rouland, the fashionable coiffeur of huile Macassar fame. Through the tavern was a passage to the rear, where, in Catharine Wheel-alley, in the last century, lived the widow Delany, some of whose fashionable friends then resided in Dean-street, Soho. Upon part of the site has been built the Civil Service Club-house, described at pp. 244, 245. Sheridan called St. James’s-street the Campus Martius of the beaux.’ cavalry.
Facing St. James’s-street, upon the site of Albemarle-street, was Clarendon House, on the road whither, on Dee. 6,1670, between six and seven in the evening, the great Duke of Ormond was dragged from his carriage by Blood and his accomplices, tied to one of them on horseback, and carried along Piccadilly towards Tyburn, there to be hanged; but the alarm being given at Clarendon House, the servants followed and recovered his grace from a struggle in the mud with the man he was tied to, and who, on regaining his horse, fired a pistol at the duke and escaped. In the Historian’s Quide, third edit. 1688, are stated to have been “six ruffians mounted and armed;” the duke’s six footmen, who usually walked beside his carriage, were absent when the attack was made.
Bcey (properly Beeby) steeet, on the east, is named from the ground-landlord a half-pay officer temp. Charles I.: he died Nov. 1733, aged above 100 years. Swift and Steele, Crabbe and Thomas Moore, occasionally lodged in Bury-street. Swift paid for a first floor—a dining-room and bed-chamber,—eight shillings a week,” plaguy dear.”
Jeemyx-stbeet, on the east side of St. James’s-street, was named from Henry Jermyn, Earl of St. Albans. Here, in 1665-81, lived the Duke of Marlborough, when Colonel Churchill, at the west end, south side. Gray, the poet, lodged here, at the east end. Sir Isaac Newton lived in this street before he removed to St. Martin’s-street, Leicester-square; as did also William and John Hunter. East of St. James’s Church is the entrance-front of the Museum of Practical Geology, a lofty Italian building by Pennethorne; completed in 1850. (See Museums.)
In Jermyn-street, near St. James’s Church, about 1713, lived Mrs. Howe and her husband, who was absent from her seventeen years, as she supposed in Holland; though, in fact, living disguised in a mean lodging in Westminster. From Jermyn-street, Mrs. Howe removed to Brewer-street, Golden-square ; Mr. Howe often visited at an opposite house, whence he saw his wife in her dining-room receiving company; and for seven years he went every Sunday to St. James’s Church, and there had a view of his wife, but was not recognised by her. (See Dr. King’s Anecdotes of his own time.)
Krvo-STEEET, leading to St. James’s-square, has at the south-east corner the St. James’s Bazaar, described at p. 41. Here is the St. James’s Theatre, designed by Beazley for Braham the singer (it occupies the site of Nerot’s Hotel, No. 19), which cost Braham 8000/. (See Theatbes.) Nerot’s was of the time of Charles II., and had a carved staircase, and panels painted with the story of Apollo anddgiof Apol Daphne. Next are Willis’s Rooms (see Almack’s, p. 4); and opposite are Christie and Manson’s (late Christie’s) auction-rooms, celebrated for sales of pictures and articles of vertu. (See an account of these sales in the Shilling Magazine, vol. i.) At No. 16, in King-street, lodged Louis Napoleon, in a house which he pointed out to his Empress, as he rode up St. James’s-street, on their visit to Queen Victoria in 1855. There are four streets in this neighbourhood named from King, Charles, and the Duke of York.
In King-street, St. James’s, was born, May 4,1749, Charlotte Smith, the poet and novelist; and here she mostly resided with her father, Mr. N. Turner, from her twelfth to her fifteenth year, when she married Mr. Richard Smith,a West India merchant, aged 21.
In St. James’s-street (west side) Thomas Wirgman, goldsmith and silversmith, kept shop, and after making a large fortune, squandered it as a regenerating philosopher—a Kantesian. He had tinted papers made especially for his books, one cf which, 400 pages, cost him 2276L printing. He published a grammar of the five senses, and metaphysics for children, and maintained that when his system was universally adopted in schools, peace and harmony would be restored to the earth, and virtue would everywhere replace crime. Sir Christopher Wren had a house in St. James’s-street, where he died, Feb. 25, 1723. Lord Byron lodged at No. 8, in 1811; Gillray, the caricaturist, lodged at No. 24, Humphrey the printseller’s, when, in 1815, he threw himself from an upstairs window, and died in consequence.
Humphrey was the publisher of Gillray’s caricatures, the copperplates of which were estimated, in 1815, to be worth 700W. After Humphrey’s death his widow could raise only 10001. upon the plates; subsequently, when offered by auction, they were bought in at 5C0Z.; and upon the widow’s death, her executors, unable to dispose of the plates as engravings, sold them to Mr. H. G. Bohn, the publisher as old copper, for as many pence as they were originally said to be worth pounds; and sets are now to be bought at one-fifth of the first cost. (See the Account, &c. by Wright and Evans, 1851.)
About 1708, Peyrault’s, or Pero’s ” Bagnio,” now Fenton’s Hotel, was in high fashion. At the south-west end was the St. James’s Coffee-house (Whig), taken down in 1806: it was the Foreign and Domestic News-house of the Tatler, and the ” fountain head” of the Spectator. Here, too, was the Tory house, Ozinda’sj and the Cocoa-tree, to which belonged Gibbon and Lord Byron.
In St. James’s-street are several Club-houses, already described {see pp. 241-260). At White’s is a pair of views by Canaletti: one, London Bridge, with the houses, from Old Somerset House Gardens j and Westminster Bridge (just built), taken from the water, off Cuper’s Garden.
Next to Brooks’s Club, in 1781, lived C. J. Fox. At No. 62 was Betty’s fruit-shop, famous in Horace Walpole’s time. Mason has, in his Heroic Epistles —
” And patriot Betty fix her fruit-shop here.”
It was a famous place for gossip. Walpole says of a story much about, ” I should scruple repeating it, if Betty and the waiters at Arthur’s did not talk of it publicly.” Again : ” Would you know what officer’s on guard in Betty’s fruit-shop ?”
In Cleveland-row, extending 1 from St. James’s-street to the Stable-yard of the Palace, Theodore Hook took a handsome house in 1827, which he furnished at the cost of 2000?. or 3000Z. Then came heavy embarrassments, in which he was assisted by the liberality of his publishers, Bentley and Col-burn, and the sale of his share in the John Bull for 4000Z. While residing in Cleveland-row, Hook fell in with the Rev. Mr. Barham (Ingoldsby), who called one day. Haynes Bayly was then discussing a devilled kidney. Hook introduced him, saying, ” Barham—Mr. Bayly—there are several of the name: this is not’ Old Bailey,’ with whom you may one day become intimate, but the gentleman whom we call ‘Butterfly Bayly’ (in allusion to his song,’I’d be a butterfly”‘). “A misnomer, Hook,” replied Barham ; ” Mr. Bayly is not yet out of the Qruh.”
St. James’s-place, west side of St. James’s-street, was built about 1694. Addison lodged here in 1712. Here also lived Parnell, the poet; Mr. Secretary Craggs; Bishop Kennett, the antiquary, who died here 1728; John Wilkes lived here in 1756 ” in very elegant lodgings j” and Mrs. Robinson, the charming actress, lodged at No. 13. Lady Hervey lived in a house built for her by Flitcroft, afterwards occupied by the Earl of Moira (Marquis of Hastings). Spencer House, facing the Green Park, was designed by Vardy; the figures on the pediment are by M. H. Spong, a Dane. At No. 25 lived Lord Guildford, who had his library lined with snake-wood from Ceylon, of which island he was Governor: the next tenant was Sir Francis Burdett, who expired here Jan. 23, 1844, of grief for the loss of his wife, who died thirteen dayg previously. At No. 22, built by James Wyatt, R.A., lived, from 1808, until his death in 1855, Samuel Rogers, the poet: here Sheridan, Lord Byron, Sir James Mackintosh, ” Conversation” Sharp, and Thomas Moore, were often guests.
Mr. Rogers’ choice collection of pictures, sculpture, Etruscan vases, antique bronzes, and literary curiosities, were to be seen through the introduction of any accredited artist or connoisseur. The paintings included these gems from the Orleans Gallery: Christ bearing the Cross (A. Sacchi); ” Noli me tangere” (” mellow and glorious union of landscape and poetry”), (Titian); Holy Family (Cor-reggio); large Landscape (Claude); Christ on the Mount of Olives (Raphael). Also, Christ disputing with the Doctors (Mazzolina di Ferrara), and the Coronation of the Virgin (A. Caracci), from the Aldo-brandini Palace; Triumphal Procession (Rubens), after Andrea Mantegna; St. Joseph and the Infaut Saviour (Murillo); Landscapes by Rubens and Domenichino, Gainsborough, and R.Wilson; Virgin and Child (Raphael); Knight in Armour (Giorgione); Allegory, and Forest Scene, sunset (Rembrandt); Virgin and Child, with six Saints (L. Caracci); a Mill, a small octagon (Claude); Head of Christ erowned with thorns (Guido); Virgin and Child (Van Eyck); two large compositions (N. Poussin); Sketch for Mary Magdalen anointing the feet of the Saviour (P. Veronese); Sketch for the Miracle of St. Mark (Tintoretto); Study for the Apotheosis of Charles V. (Titian); Portrait of Himself (Rembrandt) ; Infant Don Balthazar on horseback (Velasquez); the Evils of War (Rubens); Virgin and Child, a small miniature (Hemmelinck); three original Drawings (Raphael); black chalk Study (Michael Angelo); Puck, the Strawberry Girl, the Sleeping Girl, Girl with Bird, Cupid and Psyche, and the Painter’s House at Richmond (Sir Joshua Reynons Joshualds); Napoleon upon a rock at St. Helena (Hay-don) ; and twelve Elizabethan miniatures. The paintings were lighted by lamps with reflectors. Among the sculptures were: Cupid pouting and Psyche couching, and Michael Angelo and Raphael, statuettes by Flaxman. Here also were seven pictures by Stothard (including a copy of the Canterbury Pilgrims), and a cabinet with his designs. Among the autographs was the original assignment of Dryden’s Virgil to Tonson, witnessed by Congreve. Milton’s agreement with Symons for Paradise Lott, long possessed by Mr. Rogers, was presented by him to the British Museum in 1852.
This collection was dispersed by auction, after the death of Mr. Rogers, 18th of
December, 1855, in his 93rd year, afc his house in St. James’s-place, surrounded by the works of art which his fine taste had brought about him.
(See also Palaces, St. James’s ; and Sqttaees, St. James’s.)
JEWS IN LONDON.
THE Jews were settled in England in the Saxon period, a.d. 750. In 1189, great numbers were massacred on the coronation-day of Eichard I., when they lived in the Jewries, extending along both sides of the present Gresham-street to Basinghall-street, and Old Jewry on the east; the first synagogue in the metropolis being at the north-west corner of Old Jewry, which Stow describes as ” a street so called of Jews some time dwelling there and near adjoining.” The only burial-place appointed them in all England was the Jews’ Garden, Redcross-street, Cripplegate; until 1177, the 24th Henry II., when a special place was assigned to them in every quarter where they dwelt. (Stow.) The site of the present Jewin-street, Aldersgate-street, anciently ” Leyrestowe,” was granted them as a burial-place by Edward I. Capital punishment was inflicted for comparatively small offences, and scarcely a day passed without an execution in the Cheap. To some extent, this universal bloodthirstiness may explain, if it does not extenuate, the cruelties practised on the unfortunate Jews. For the king to take ” a moiety of their moveables,” whenever he wanted money, was bad enough; but on the doubtful charge of the wilful murder of a Christian child at Lincoln, ninety-two Jews were apprehended, and eighteen of them ” were on the same day drawn, and after the hour of dinner, and towards the close of the day, hanged.” In the week before Palm Sunday, in the year 1263, the Jewry in Loudon was wantonly destroyed, and more than five hundred Jews ” murdered by night in sections”—none escaping, seemingly, except those whom the mayor and the justiciars had sent to the Tower before the massacre began. The ground for this outrage (according to Fabyan) was, that a Jew had exacted more than legal interest from a Christian. Fifteen years later no less than 293 Jews were ” drawn and hanged for clipping the coin.” In 1285, more compendiously still, ” all the Jews of England were taken and imprisoned, and put to ransom on the morrow of St. Philip and James.” Finally, a few years afterwards ” it was provided by the King and his Council, upon prayer of the Pope, that all the Jews in England were sent into exile between the Gule of August and the Feast of All Saints, under pain of decapitation, if after such feast any one of them should be found in England.”
The Jews made no effort to return to England till the protectorship of Oliver Cromwell, when they proposed to pay 500,000Z. for certain privileges, including the us thluding e of St. Paul’s Cathedral as a synagogue; but 800,000Z. was demanded, and the negotiation was unsuccessful. They next applied to Charles II., then in exile at Bruges, when the king proposed they should assist him with money, arms, or ammuni’ tion, to be repaid ; and Dean Tucker remarks, that the restoration of the Stuarts was attended with the return of the Jews into Great Britain. The Jews themselves aver that they received a private assent to their re-admission ; and Bishop Burnet assert? that Cromwell brought a company of Jews over to England, and gave them leave to build a synagogue. Dr. Tovey, however, in the Jewish registers, finds that, by their own account, until the year 1663 the whole number of Jews in England did not exceed twelve; so that the date of their return must be referred to the reign of Charles II. The first synagogue was built by Portuguese Jews, in King-street, Duke’s-place, in 1656; and a school was founded by them in 1664, called ” the Tree of Life.” The first German synagogue was built in Duke’s-place in 1691, and occupied till 1790, when the present edifice was erected.
The principal Jewish Cemeteries are two on the north side of the Mile-End-road belonging to the Portuguese Jews, and a third to the German Jews. The old Portuguese ground was first used 1657: some of the tombs bear bas-reliefs from Scripture; as the story of Joseph and his brethren, Jacob wrestling with the angel, &c. Near Queen’s Elm, Fulham-road, is also “the burying-ground of the Westminster Congregation of Jews,” established 1816.
The Jewish quarter of the metropolis is bounded north by High-street, Spitalfields; east by Middlesex-street (Petticoat-lane); south by Leadenhall-street, Aldgate, and Whitechapel; and west by Bishopsgate-street.
The Clothes’ Exchange of Cutler-street, Houndsditch, is popularly known as Sag Fair; through which must pass, at one stage or another, half the second-hand habiliments of the empire. The trade in renovated clothes, too, is very great, so as to make the epithet ” worn-out” a popular error. Factitious arts make up the mighty business of Rag Fair; and Bevis Marks has long been the Oporto of London, noted for its manufacture of ” cheap port-wine.”
Saturday in the Hebrew quarter is a day of devotion and rest: every shop is shut; and striking is the contrast between the almost conventual silence on that day of Bevis Marks, Houndsditch, and St. Mary Axe, and the bustle of Whitechapel, Bishopsgate, and Leadenhall. How the Christian Sabbath is kept is denoted by such a notice as this: ” Business will commence at this Exchange on Sunday morning at 10 o’clock. By order of the managers, Moses Abrahams.” Again, from 8 to 12 o’clock on Sunday morning, Duke’s-place is the great market for the supply of oranges to the itinerant Jewish retailers.
The wealth of the leading Jews in London is very great, and their influence on the money-market is overwhelming. Their shipping trade is very extensive. The largest clothing-establishments are carried on by Jews. The trade in old silver goods, pictures, old furniture, china, and curiosities, is chiefly carried on by Hebrew dealers.
Jews are admissible to all public offices and dignititics and des, even to a seat in Parliament. In 1828 baptized Jews were allowed to purchase the freedom of the City of London, a privilege forbidden by the Court of Aldermen in 1785. Mr. David Salomons (1835) and Sir Moses Montefiore (1837) served as Sheriffs of London, these being the first Jews who filled that office; and Sir Moses is the first Jew who received a baronetcy in Britain. Mr. Salomons was elected Alderman for Cordwainers’ Ward in 1847, and is the first Jew who ever sat in the Court; he served as Lord Mayor in 1857-8. Alderman Sir Benjamin S. Phillips, Lord Mayor, 1865-6, received knighthood for his very able discharge of his duties, and the dignity he imparted to the office.
The Jews take care of their own poor; and their schools, hospitals, and asylums are numerous. You may see many poor Jews, but never a Jewish beggar. In 1S52, the amount of offerings during the sacred festivals of the New Year, Day of Atonement, &c, for the relief of the poor at the principal metropolitan Synagogues, were :—Great Synagogue, Duke’s-place, 8001. ; Sephardim, ditto; Bevis Marks, 5001. ; New, ditto; Great St. Helen’s, 6001.; Hamburgh, ditto; Fenchurch-street, 150Z.; West London ditto; Margaret-street, 70J.—total, 2120Z. The Western Synagogue, St. Alban’s-place, has abolished offerings, substituting in lieu thereof a charge on the seats. In 1852 there were distributed in Passover week to the poor of the Synagogues and the itinerant poor, 55,000 pounds of Passover cakes, costing 9161. 13*. Ad.
The Rabbinical College, or Beth Hamedrash, Smith’s-buildings, Leadenhall-street, contains one of the most splendid Jewish libraries in Europe, and is open to the public by tickets: here lectures are delivered gratuitously to the public, on Friday evenings, by learned Jews.
The Jews’ Free School, founded in 1817, is a good specimen of the zealous care with which the Jews organize their institutions. This School originated in the general feeling then entertained of the necessity of diffusing knowledge among the poor. Its founders adopted those parts of the various systems of education then in general use which appeared to them best calculated to advance that object, and the school has all along been conducted on a plan combining their advantages, mutual instruction on the monitorial plan being fully recognised. Many children, they state, who would have wandered idly about the streets, devoid alike of religion and knowledge, and who might easily have been ensnared into courses of vice and infamy, have by means of this institution been instructed in their religious duties and the elementary branches of knowledge, and been thus trained to become respectable and useful members of society. The School, greatly enlarged, is now established in Bell-lane, Spitalfields, and for nearly half a century has diffused the blessings of knowledge and morality among the poor Jews of the metropolis, according to the design of its founders and supporters, though of late years the system of education pursued in it has been somewhat modified and enlarged. The Revised Code insists that every child presented shall satisfy the inspector in reading, writing, and arithmetic according to a classification under six standards. In this department of the school the highest class was examined in the highest standard, a degree of proficiency which had not been attained in the first year ot the operation of the Revised Code by any other school in the country: making a small allowance for unavoidable absences, about 99 per cent, of those children presented passed successfully.
Je’R’s’-eow, at Chelsea, has been made by Wilkie the background of his picws nd of hture of
” the Chelsea Pensioners reading the Gazette of the Battle of Waterloo,” now in the Duke of Wellington’s Gallery, at Apsley House.
¦ Jews’-row has a Teniers-like line of mean public-houses, lodging-houses, rag-shops, and huckster-shops, on the right-hand, as you approach Chelsea College. It is the Pall Mall of the pensioners; and its projecting gables, breaks, and other picturesque attributes were admirably suited, in the artist’s opinion, for the localities of the picture.”— Mrs. A. T. Thomson.
ST. JOHN’S GATE, CLERKENWELL,
IS nearly all that remains of the magnificent monastery of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, that chivalrous order which for seven centuries ” was the sword and buckler of Christendom in the Paynim war.” The priory was founded in 1100, and was almost of palatial extent. King John resided here in 1212 ; and our sovereigns occasionally held councils here. Three acres of ground lying without the walls, between the land of the Abbot of Westminster and of the Prior of St. John of Jerusalem, was called No-man’s Land. In November, 1326, Anthony d’Espagne, a wealthy merchant, who collected a burdensome duty of 2s. a tun on wine, was dragged barefoot out of the City, and heheaded by the populace on No-man’s Land —a fitting name for the site of such an atrocity ! In 1382 the whole commandery was burnt by Wat Tyler’s mob; and the grand prior was beheaded in the courtyard, the site of St. John’s-square, at the southern entrance of which stands the gateway. Late in the fifteenth century, the rebuilding of the monastery was commenced by Prior Docwra, who, according to Camden, ” increased it to the size of a palace,” and completed this entrance about 1501, ” as appeareth by the inscription over the gatehouse yet remaining” (Stow).
In a Chapter held here 11 Jan. 1514, Sir T. Docwra prior, a lease was granted to Cardinal Wolsey of the manor of Hampton, which the most eminent physicians of England and learned doctors from Padua had selected as the healthiest spot within twenty miles of London for the site of a palace for the cardinal. In this curious document (Cotton. MSS. British Museum) is a grant of four loads of timber annually for piles for the Hampton Weir, to be cut “in and fro Seynt John’s Woode, Midd.” This grant is printed in the Gentleman’s Magazine, January, 1834.
Docwra was grand-prior from 1502 to 1520, and was the immediate predecessor of the last superior of the house, who died of grief on Ascension-day, 1510, when the priory was suppressed. Five years subsequently, the site and precinct were granted to John Lord Lisle, for his service as high-admiral; the church becoming a kind of storehouse ” for the king’s toyles and tents for hunting, and for the warres.” It was, however, undermined and blown up with gunpowder, and the materials were employed by the Lord Protector to King Edward VI. in building Somerset-place j the Gate would probably have been destroyed, but from its serving to define the property. The Priory was partly restored upon the accession of Mary, but again suppressed by Elizabeth. In 1604 the Gate was granted to Sir Roger Wilbraham for his life. Hollar’s very scarce etchings show the castellated hospital, with the old front, eastern side, towards St. John-street, about 1640; also the western side, and Gatehouse.
At this time Clerkenwell was inhabited by people of condition. Forty years later fashion had travelled westward ; and the Gate became the printing-office of Edward Cave, who, in 1731, published here the first number of the Gentleman’s Magazine, which to this day bears the Gate for its vignette. Dr. Johnson was first engaged upon the magazine here by Cave in 1737: ” his practice was to shut himself up in a room assigned to him at St. John’s Gate, to which he would not suffer any one to approach, except the compositor or Cave’s boy for matter, which, as fast as he composed, he tumbled out at the door.” (Hawkins.) At the Gate Johnson first met Richard Savage; and here in Cave’s room, when visitors called, Johnson ate his plate of victuals behind the screen, his dress being ” so shabby that he durst not make his appearance.” One day, while thus concealed, Johnson heard Walter Harte, the poet and historian, highly praise the Life of Savage. Garrick, when he first came to London, frequently called upon Johnson at the Gate; and at Cave’s request, in the room over the great arch, and with the assistance of a few journeyman-printers to read the other parts, Garrick represented the principal character in Fielding’s farce of the Mock Doctor. Goldsmith was also a visitor here. When Cave grew rich, he had St. John’s Gate painted, instead of his arms, on his carriage, and engraved on his plate. After Cave’s
death in 1754, the premises became the ” Jerusalem” public-house, and the ” Jerusalem Tavern.”
The latter name was assumed from the Jerusalem Tavern, Eed Lion-street, in whose dank and eob-webbed vaults John Britton served an apprenticeship to a wine-merchant; and in reading at intervals by candle-light, first evinced that love of literature which characterized his long life of industry and integrity. He remembered Clerkenwell in 1787, with St. John’s Priory-church and cloisters; when Spa-fields were pasturage for cows; the old garden-mansions of the aristocracy remained in Clerken-well-close; and Sadler’s Wells, Islington Spa, Merlin’s Cave, and Bagnigge Wells, were nightly crowded with gay company.
In 1845, under the new Metropolitan Buildings’ Act, a survey of St. John’s Gate was made, and a notice given to the then owner to repair it: and by the aid of ” the Freemasons of the Church,” and Mr. W. P. Griffith, architect, the north and south fronts were restored.
The gateway is a good specimen of groining of the fifteenth century, with moulded ribs, and bosses ornamented with shields of the arms of the Priory, Prior Docwra, &c The south or principal front has a double projection ; has numerous small windows; and a principal window over the crown of the arch in each front, in the wide and obtusely-pointed style. The south front bears the arms of France and England, and the north or inner front those of the Priory and Docwra. In the west side of the gateway is an ancient carved oak doorhead, discovered in 1813, when that part of the building (afterwards a coal-shed) was converted into a watch-house for St. John’s parish. In the spandrels are the monastery arms, as also in a low door-case of the west tower from the north side of the Gate; these spandrels also bear a cock and a hawk, and a hen and a lion. This was the entrance to Cave’s printing-office. The east basement is the tavern-bar, with a beautifully moulded ceiling. The stairs are Elizabethan. The principal room over the arch has been despoiled of its window-mullions and groined roof. The foundatioousThe foun-wall of the Gate is 10 feet 7 inches thick, and the upper walls are nearly 4 feet, hard red brick, stone cased: the view from the top of the staircase-turret is extensive. In excavating there have been discovered the original pavement, 3 feet below the Gate; and the Priory walls, north, south, and west. Other repairs were commenced in 1866.
St. John’s Church, in St. John’s-square, is built upon the chancel and side aisles of the old Priory-church, and upon its crypt; the capitals of the columns, ribbed mouldings, lancet windows, are fine; from the key-stone of each arch hangs an iron lamp-ring: in 1849, the crypt was found by excavation to have extended much further westward. The turret-clock belonged to old St. James’s Church, as did also the silver head of the beadle’s staff (James II. 1685). Here, too, is a portable baptismal bowl, with a scriptural inscription, and ” Deo est sacris:” it was formerly used as the church font. (See Ye History of ye Priory and Gate of St. John. By B. Foster. 1851.)
The Gate is minutely described in Chapter X. of Pinks’s History of Clerkenwell, pp. 241-257, with eleven engravings, wherein it is stated: “to Mr. W. P. Griffith, F.S.A., the inhabitants of Clerkenwell are deeply indebted for saving from positive defacement, if not from absolute removal, the Gate of the Priory of St. John.”
KENNINGTON,
A MANOR of Lambeth, is named from Saxon words signifying the place or town of the king. Here, at a Danish marriage, died Hardiknute, in 1041. Here Harold, son of Earl Godwin, seized the Crown the day after the death of the Confessor, and is said to have placed it on his own head. Here, in 1231, King Henry III. held his court, and passed a solemn and stately Christmas; and here, says Matthew Paris, was held a Parliament in the succeeding year. Hither, says Stow, in 1376, came the Duke of Lancaster, to escape the fury of the populace of London, on Friday, February 20, the day following that on which Wickliffe had been brought before the bishops at St. Paul’s. Hither also came a deputation of the chiefest citizens to Richard II., June 21, 1377, “before the old king was departed,” “to accept him for their true and lawfull king and gouernor.” Kennington was the occasional residence of Henry IV. and VI. Henry VII. was here shortly previous to his coronation. Leland tells us that Katharine of Aragon was here for a few days ; after
which the palace probably fell into decay: Camden, late in the reign of Elizabeth, says, though erroneously, that ” of this retreat of our ancient Kings, neither the name nor the ruins are now to be found.” The early celebrity of the manor of Kennington as a ” Royal property” is attested to this day in the names of Prince’s-road and Chester-place, which refer to the annexation of the manor to the Duchy of Cornwall, in the reign of Edward III., who was here in 1339, from a document printed in the Fcedera, tested by the Black Prince, then only ten years of age. James I. settled the manor, with other estates, on his eldest son, Henry, Prince of Wales: and after his decease, in 1612, on Prince Charles (afterwards Charles I.), and they have ever since been held as part of the estate of the Prince of Wales, as Duke of Cornwall. Charles was the last tenant of the palace, which was then taken down, and there was built on the site a manor-house, described in 1656 as an old, low, timber building; but of the palace offices there remained the stable, a long building of flint and stone, used as a barn: this was taken down in 1795. The palacl p95. Thee, there is no doubt, stood within the triangular plot of ground near Kennington Cross, now. bounded by Park-place, Devonshire-street, and Park-street; thick fragments of walls of flint, chalk, and rubble stone intermixed, may yet be seen in the cellars of some houses in Park-place.
Kennington Common (about twenty acres) was formerly noted for its cricket-matches, pugilism, and itinerant preachers, and as the exercise-ground of volunteer regiments. It was the common place of execution for Surrey, before the erection of the County Gaol, Horsemonger-lane; and on the site of St. Mark’s Church, south of the Common, some of the rebels of 1745, tried by special commission in Southwark, were hanged, drawn, and quartered: among them was ” Jemmy Dawson,” the hero of Shenstone’s touching ballad : and of another ditty, set to music by Dr. Arne, and sung about the streets. On the Common was a bridge, called Merton Bridge, which was formerly repaired by the Canons of Merton Abbey, who had lands for that purpose.— (Lysons.) Here was a theatre; for, Baker, in his Biographia Dramatica, edit. 1732, vol. ii. p. 239, says, ” the satyrical, comical, allegorical farce,” the Mock Doctor, published in 8vo, in 1739, was ” acted to a crowded audience at Kennington Common, and many other theatres, with the humour of the mob.” Here George Whitefield preached to audiences of ten, twenty, and thirty thousand persons, as we learn from his published diary, which is now scarce:
” Sunday, April 29,1731. At five in the evening went and preached at Kennington Common, about two miles from London, where upwards of 20,000 people were supposed to be present. The wind being for me, it carried the voice to the extremest part of the audience. All stood attentive and joined in the Psalm and the Lord’s Prayer so regularly, that I scarce ever preached with more quietness in any church. Many were much affected.
” Sunday, May 6,1731. At six in the evening went and preached at Kennington ; but such a sight I never saw before. Some supposed there were above 30,000 or 40,000 people, and near four score coaches, besides great numbers of horses; and there was such an awful silence amongst them, and the Word of God came with such power, that all seemed pleasingly surprised. I continued my discourse for an hour and a half.
” Friday, August 3,1739. Having spent the day in completing my affairs (about to embark for America), and taking leave of my dear friends, I preached in the evening to near 20,000 people at Kennington Common. I chose to discourse on St. Paul’s parting speech to the elders of Ephesus, at which the people were exceedingly affected, and almost prevented my making any application. Many tears were shed when I talked of leaving them. I concluded with a suitable hymn, but could scarce get to the coach for the people thronging me, to take me by the hand, and give me a parting blessing.”
On Kennington Common was held, April 10, 1848, the great revolutionary meeting of ” Chartists,” brought to a ridiculous issue by the unity and resolution of the metropolis, backed by the judicious measures of the Government, and the masterly military precautions of the late Duke of Wellington. In 1852, the Common, with the site of the Pound of the manor of Kennington, were granted by Act of Parliament, on behalf of the Prince of Wales, as part of the Duchy of Cornwall estate, to be inclosed and laid out as ” pleasure-grounds for the recreation of the public; but if it cease to be so maintained, it shall revert to the duchy.” They comprise tw buy comprelve acres, disposed in grass-plots, and planted with shrubs and evergreens; and at the main entrance have been reconstructed the model cottages originally erected at the expense of Prince Albert for the Great Exhibition of 1851: the walls are built with hollow and glazed brick, and the floors are brick and stucco; the whole being fireproof. At Kennington-green, in 1852, was built a large Vestry Hall, in semi-classic style, for the district of Lambeth. In Kenningtou-lane is the School of the Friendly Society of Licensed Victuallers, built 1S36; the first stone laid by Viscount Melbourne, in the name of King WiUiam IV.
KENSINGTON, £ ROMP TON, AND KNIGHTSBEIDGE.
KENSINGTON, a mile and a half west of Hyde Park-corner, contains the hamlets of Brompton, Earl’s-court, the Gravelpits, and part of Little Chelsea, now West Brompton ; hut the royal palace, and ahout twenty other houses north of the road, are in the parish of St. Margaret, Westminster. On the south side, the parish of Kensington extends heyond the Gore, anciently Kyng’s Gore, the principal houses hetween which and Knightshridge are also in St. Margaret’s. The old church (St. Mary Abbot’s) Bishop Blomfield used to designate the ugliest in his diocese.
The resolution to build this church was adopted by the vestry in 1696, and among the contributors were King ‘William III. and Queen Mary, as well as the Princess Anne. The King and Queen not only subscribed to the building fund, but presented the reading-desk and pulpit, which have crowns carved upon them, with the initials W. and M. E. A curtained pew was in consequence set apart for the Royal family, and long continued to be occupied by residents in Kensington Palace, among whom the Duke and Duchess of Kent and the late Duke of Cambridge are still remembered. It was in this church that the Duchess of Kent returned thanks after the birth of her present Majesty. In the parish books there are entries of the expenses incurred for ringing the church bells on all public occasions since the Revolution. Mr. Wilberforce, who resided at Kensington-gore, is still remembered sitting in the pew appropriated to the Holland-house family. George Canning might often be seen seated in the Eoyal pew. Coke, of Norfolk, had a pew here, which he regularly occupied. Nassau Senior, the political economist, resided at Hyde-park-gate, and W. M. Thackeray occupied a house which he had planned and built for himself in Palace-green, where he died December, 1863. These eminent writers both attended the early service at half-past nine. When Lord Macau’.ay came to reside at Holly-lodge, Campden-hill, he desired to have a list of the parochial charities and a seat in the parish church. Although confined to the house by asthma during the winter, he was regular in his attendance during the summer; he died at Holly Lodge, December 20,1859. The church, condemned as incapable of being long used for public worship, contains 114 monuments. (See p. 181.)
The extension of Kensington mostly dates from the enlargement of the royal palace; though the mineral spring which it once possessed may have contributed to the celebrity of the place. Holland House is described at p. 431. Nearly opposite, in tbe Kensington-road, was the Adam and Eve public-house, where Sheridan, on his way to or from Holland House, regularly stopped for a dram; and there he ran up a long bill, which Lord Holland had to pay. {Moore’s Diary.) Kensington Palace Gardens lead from the High-street of Kensington to the Bayswater-road, and contain several costly mansions, including one of German Gothic design, built for the Earl of Harrington in 1S52. On Camped 1S52. Oden Hill is the observatory of Sir James South, one of the founders of the Royal Astronomical Society: among the working instruments are a 7-feet transit instrument, a 4-feet transit circle, and one of the equatorials with which, between 1821 and 1823, Sir James South (at Blackman-street, Southwark) and Sir John Herschel made a catalogue of 380 double stars. In Little Chelsea was born, in 1674, Charles Boyle, fourth Earl of Orrery, patron of Graham, who constructed for the Earl an orrery, which was named after his lordship.
In Orbell’s-buildings, Kensington, lodged Sir Isaac Newton from January, 1725, until his death, March 20,1727, in his 85th year. His body, on March 28, lay in state in the Jerusalem Chamber, and was thence buried in Westminster Abbey.
Leigh Hunt has written a remarkably pleasant account of Kensington, under the title of The Old Court Suburb. Here are the old mansions, Kensington Souse and Colby Jfonse, described at p. 447. Campden House is described at p. 445.
Here was the Kintfs Arms Tavern, the last place in or about London where the old coffee-house style of society was still preserved, and where members of the legislature and a high class of gentry were to be met with in rooms open to ” the town.” It was patronized for many years by the family at Holland House, and Moore, in his Diary, alludes to it. It was much frequenred by members of tin London Clubs. Among them was ” Vesey junior” (Lord Eldon’s Law Reporter), who preserved his forensic name to his eightieth year. Flaxman, the sculptor, was fond of retiring thither, and always dined in one of the small rooms looking over the gardens ; and it was there also that “the Doctor” (William Jlaginn) was to be found in his best conversational mood.— Press Neicspaper.
At Gore House, Kensington Gore, Mr. Wilberforce resided from 1808 to 1821. He writes :—” We are just one mile from the turnpike at Hyde Park Corner, having about three acres of pleasure-ground around our house, or rather behind it; and several old trees, walnut and mulberry, of thick foliage. I can sit and read under their shade with as much admiration of the beauties of nature” as if 1 were 200 miles from the great city.” Thither came Clarkson, Zachary Macaulay, Komilly, and others, to commune with Wilberforce on measures for the abolition of slavery. He often alludes to his ” Kensington Gore breakfasts.” He was much attached to the place, hut its costliness made him uneasy lest it should compel him to curtail his charities. The Countess of Blessington resided at Gore House for the same period as Mr. Wilherforce —thirteen years. In her time the place retained much of its picturesqueness, of which there is an interesting memorial—a large view in the grounds, with portraits of the Duke of Wellington, Lady Blessington, and other celebrities, including Count D’Orsay, the painter of the picture. Lady Blessington’s Curiosities were sold here in 1819. The house was opened by Soyer as a restaurant (” Symposium “) during the Exhibition of 1851. In the Temple Bar Magazine, Mr. Sala has described, in his very clever manner, what he saw and thought, whilst for ” many moons he slept, and ate, and drank, and walked, and talked, in Gore House, surrounded by the very strangest of company.” In 1852, the Gore House estate, twenty-one and a half acres, was purchased for 60,000?., and the Baron de Villars’s estate, adjoining, forty-eight seres, fronting the Brompton-road, was bought for 153,500?., by the Commissioners of the Great Exhibition of 1851. que. The yellow gravel of Hyde Park and Kensington, so often found covering the London clay, is, comparatively speaking, of very modern date, and consists of slightly rolled, and, for the most part, angular fragments, in which portions of the white opaque coating of the original chalk-flint remain uncovered. —8kr Charles Lyell, F. 6.S.
The eastern extremity of the Gore, now the site of Ennismore Gardens, is the highest point of ground between Hyde Park-corner and Windsor Castle. (Faulkner’s Kensington.) Kingston, next Ennismore, and now Listowel, House, was the residence of the Duchess of Kingston, ” the notified Bet Cheatley, Duchess of Kuightsbridge,” who died here in 1788. Here in 1842 died the Marquis Wellesley; in the corridor is a large window, a garden-scene, painted by John Martin when he was a pupil of Muss. At Old Brompton, upon the site of the Florida Tea Gardens, was Orford Lodge, built for the Duchess of Gloucester, and subsequently tenanted by the Princess Sophia of Gloucester, and the Bight Hon. George Canning, who was here visited by Queen Caroline. The house was afterwards called ” Gloucester Lodge,” and was taken down in 1852. Here also was Hale or ” Cromwell” House taken down in 1853, The large space of ground between the Kensington and Brompton roads included the Brompton Park nursery j and here (in 1853) were remains of the wall of Brompton Park. Brompton Hall, mostly modern, has a noble Elizabethan room, wherein Lord Burghley is said to have received Queen Elizabeth. In the hamlet of Earl’s Court, about 1761, John Hunter, the eminent surgeon, built a house, in which he lived for nearly thirty years. The house and grounds (where Baird was ” surprised to find so many living animals in one herd from the most opposite parts of the habitable globe “) remain to this day.
South Kensington is the district lying south of the main Kensington-road, the nucleus being the Gore House estate above mentioned; added to which were Gray’s Nursery Grounds, Park House, Grove House, and various market-gardens; the grounds of Cromwell House and other lands belonging to the Earl of Harrington and the Baron de Villars, in all eighty-six acres, for 280,000?., at an average of 3250Z. an acre. Old footpaths, &c., were stopped, and houses removed, and nearly two miles of new roadway formed the chief lines surrounding the best part of the Estate—namely, the Cromwell-road, the Exhibition-road, and the Prince Albert-road, forming with the main Kensington-road, four sides of a square. Thereon is now in progress of erection, ” the South Kensington Museum,” to be described under Museums. About twelve acres have been let on building leases, and are covered with lines of lofty and handsome houses, the Commissioners nearly doubling their original capital by the above speculation. They next let the upper part of the great centre square, about twenty-two acres, to the Horticultural Society. {See Gabuens, p. 370). Next was erected, south of the Horticultural Society’s Gardens, the buildings for the International Exhibition of the year 1862.
The main building, designed by Captain Fowke, R.E., occupied about sixteen acres of ground: it measured about 1200 feel from east to west, by 560 feet from north to south. The whole of this ground was covered by buildings of brick, iron, and glass; and two long strips of ground, east and west, were
roofed in by the temporary sheds, or annexh, in which were shown machinery, and large and heavy objects, this additional area extending to seven acres. The interior space, c thrior spovered by roofs of various heights, was divided into nave, transepts, aisles, and open courts; the latter were roofed with glass, but the other parts had opaque roofs, and were lighted by clerestory windows. The south front, in Cromwell-road, 1150 feet long, and 55 feet high, was of brick, had two projecting towers at each end, and a larger centre tower, in which was the main entrance to the Picture Galleries, being about as long as the Gallery of the Louvre, in Paris. In the east and west fronts rose a dome to a height of 260 feet. Under each noble arched recess was the entrance to the Industrial Courts, and in each tympan was a great rose-window. At the extreme north and south were two auxiliary Picture Galleries. The only portions of the building which resembled the Crystal Palace of 1851, were the six courts north and south of the nave; they had glass roofs on the ridge-and-valley plan, supported by square iron columns and wrought-iron trellis-girders. Each dome was at the intersection of the nave and transepts, and was of glass, with an outer and inner gallery. The interior was variously coloured, and relieved with gold, medallions and inscriptions; the decorations beneath the dome were grand, harmonious, and rich; and the view beneath the nave, 800 feet in length, remarkably effective. The Exhibition, based upon that of 1851, embraced thirty-six classes, besides those of the Fine Arts. It was opened with befitting ceremony, May 1,1862, by the Duke of Cambridge, by command of the Queen, whose absence—through the death of the great originator, Prince Albert—greatly dimmed the state pageant. About 22,000 exhibitors were here represented, of whom about 17,000 were subjects of Her Majesty, and 5000 of foreign States. The absence of artistic treatment in the plan of the building, the general elevation, and the exterior ornamental details, were very objectionable. Still, under many depressing influences, the Exhibition proved numerically and practically a success; the manufactures of the United Kingdom showed not merely a gratifying advance upon those of 1851, but a still greater improvement as compared with those of other countries; commercially, the exhibitors largely benefited by the sale of works of industrial and fine art, home and foreign. A compact account of the International Exhibition, 1862, will be found in the extra volume of the Year-book of Facts, pp. 362.
In the construction of the building 4000 persons were employed; the buildings were insured for 400,000/., at a cost of 3300J.; the prizes to exhibitors were declared July 11; the Exhibition was closed Nov. 1; Great Exhibition Memorial to Prince Albert, inaugurated June 10″, 1863. The buildings have since been taken down, except the Picture Galleries, in which has been held the National Portrait Exhibition.
Beompton has long been frequented by invalids for its genial air. (See Consumption Hospital, p. 43, and Holt Trinity Church, p. 208.) At No. 7, Amelia-place, died, in 1817, the Right Hon. J. P. Curran. In Brompton-square, at No. 13, died Charles Incledon, the singer, 1826; and in the same year, at No. 22, George Colman the younger. At the Grange, taken down in 1842, lived Braham, the singer. At No. 45, Brompton-row, Count Rumford, the heat-philosopher; Rev. W. Beloe, the ” Sexagenarian ;” and Sir Richard Phillips, when writing his Million of Facts. At No. 14, Queen’s-row, Arthur Murphy died in 1805, aged 77. The National School-house attached to Brompton Church was built in 1841, in the Tudor style, by George Godwin, F.R.S., architect. Brompton was once famous for its taverns j southward, among ” the Groves,” were the Hoop and Toy, the Florida, and other tea-gardens; at Old Brompton there remains the Swan, with its bowling-green. In a retired and well-appointed house, eastward, Mademoiselle Jenny Lind resided, during the zenith of her welhe th of hl-earned fame as a songstress.
Knightsbetdge, or Kingsbridge, which is the more ancient name is doubtful. In a charter of Edward the Confessor, the wood at Kyngesbyrig is referred to. In a charter, not royal, namely one of Abbot Herbert, of Westminster, less than a century thereafter, occurs the name of Knyghtsbrigg. In Domesday it formed part of three manors—Neyte, Hyde (whence the name of Hyde Park), and Eybury, now spelt Ebury, which came by marriage to the Grosvenor family, and has been chosen as a title by one of its members. There is a tradition as to ” Knightsbridge,” namely, that two knights, on the way to Fulham, to be blessed by the Bishop of London, quarrelled and fought at the Westbourn Bridge, and killed each other on the spot. A commentator of Norden, the topographer, too, gives the following anecdote : ” Kinges-bridge, commonly called Stonebridge, near Hyde Park-corner, where I wish no true man to walk too late without good guard, as did Sir H. Knyvett, knight, who valiantly defended liimself, there being assaulted, and slew the master-thief with his own hands.” Still, we have the fact that the place was called ” Knyghtsbrigg” in a formal charter (that of Abbot Herbert), long before the time to which either of these traditions could apply.
The bridge whence the place partly derived its name was one thrown across the Westbourn, which, rising at West-End in Hampstead, and giving its name to a district of Bayswater, flowed through the (artificially widened) Serpentine to the Thames. Its course may yet be traced on any map of London by the irregularities it has caused in laying out Belgravia. Part of it was an open brook so lately as 185-1, but it is now wholly covered in; and is, we need not say, a common sewer, like the Oldbourne or the Fleet. Pont-street, which opens Belgravia to Sloane-street, must derive its name from the fact that it was at one time one of the few bridges over the Westbourne. This brook used formerly to over-
flow after heavy rains. One such flood is remembered in 1S09, when for several days passengers had to be rowed from Chelsea to Westminster by the Thames boatmen.
The Knightsbridge road was infested by footpads, so that even so late as 1799 a party of light horse patrolled nightly from Hyde Park-corner to Kensington; and it is within the memory of some still alive that pedestrians walked to and from Kensington in bands sufficient to ensure mutual protection, starting at known intervals, when a bell was rung to announce the proper time. It was not even safe to sojourn at the change-houses or inns which stood by the way, for these were the haunts of the highwaymen. The water supply of the hamlet was anciently by means of springs and wells, which were very numerous, pure, and valuable. Donbtless, the Westbourn was also of great use to the inhabitants. In the beginning of the eighteenth century, a conduit was formed within Hyde Park, by permission of the Crown, for the supply of Park-side; and in the fields on each side of Rotten-row there was a row of conduits, the waters of which were received by one at the end of Park-side, known as St. James’s or the Receiving Conduit: these supplied the royal residences and the Abbey. A spring in Hyde Park, in the time of James I., was allowed to supply the Lazar-house (now Trinity Chapel, described at p. 216) by ” a pipe of lead bringinge the sayde springe of water to the sayde house.”— Builder.
West of St. George’s Hospital, at No. 14, John Liston, the comedian, lived several years, and here he died, Doere he March 22,18 46. Liston was born in Norris-street, Haymarket, in 1776, and was educated in Archbishop Tenison’s school: he first appeared on the stage, at the Haymarket Theatre, in 1805; and retired at the Olympic Theatre in 1837: he died worth 40,(KKM.
In 1842, opposite the Conduit in Hyde Park, was built the St. George’s Gallery, for the exhibition of Mr. Dunn’s Chinese Collection; subsequently occupied by Mr. Gordon Cumming’s African Exhibition, and Bartlett and Beverley’s Diorama of the Holy Land. The Gallery was then taken down.
The original entrance was copied from a Chinese summer-house, inscribed ” Ten thousand Chinese things.” This Collection, formed by Mr. Nathaniel Dunn, in twelve years, and first exhibited in Philadelphia, consisted of a vast assemblage from China of its idols, temples, pagodas, and bridges; arts and sciences, manufactures and trades; parlours and drawing-rooms; clothes, finery, and ornaments; weapons of war, vessels, dwellings, &c. Here were life-size groups of a temple of idols, a council of mandarins, and Chinese priests, soldiers, men of letters, ladies of rank, tragedians, barbers, shoemakers, blacksmiths, boat-women, servants, &c, amidst set scenes and furnished dwellings. Here was a two-storied house from Canton, besides shops from its streets; here were persons of rank in sumptuous costumes, artisans in their working-clothes, and altogether such a picture of Chinese social life as the European world had never before seen. Part of the collection was subsequently .exhibited in 1851, in a gay pavilion built for the occasion west of Albert Gate; the site of which is now occupied by a band-some five-storied mansion.
Westward is Albert-gate, Hyde Park, opened 1846 : the stags upon the piers were formerly at the Ranger’s Lodge, Green Park, and were modelled from a pair of prints by Bartolozzi. The ground, with the site of the large and lofty houses east and west, was purchased by the Crown from the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, when the Cannon Brewery was removed: the house east was bought for 15,000£. by Mr. Hudson, then ” the Railway King.” It is now the residence of the French Embassy.
Knightsbridge Green is identified as the burial-pit of the victims of the plague in the lazar-house and the hamlet generally. On the Green was erected, in 1864, the New Tattersall’s removed from ” the Corner,” for the increased accommodation and comfort of the Jockey Club, its subscribers, and the general public.
The plot of ground upon which it stands is nearly two acres in extent. It is approached from the east by Knightsbridge-green, and the fagade consists of two square wing-blooks, divided by a pedimented gateway, carved, and two side entrances. The subscription-room is a saloon 60 ft. by 30 ft., with a clear height of 26 ft. 6 in.: lighted by day by two large domes 18 ft. high, covered with lunettes. A third dome is in the centre of the ceiling, in which an enormous sun-burner is placed by night. These domes are bordered by a beautiful guillocke pattern, and enriched with coloured devices. The walls are decorated in the same pattern. The spacious floor is paved, in a tasteful geometric pattern. A raised dais, about 6 in. in height, surrounds this apartment. It is skirted and edged with marble. Under each of the two extreme domes a large octagon slab of marble supports the desks used for recording wagers or writing letters. At the south-west corner is an area of about 70 ft. by 40 ft. for open-air betting, with a telegraph office. The grand or central eby or cenntrance leads into the principal public yard, appropriated to sales by auction. In the centre of this area is the old and familiar temple of the other premises at Hyde Park-corner, covering the aqueduct with its fox and the bust of George IV. when in early life; and in the north-west corner, is the well-known pulpit of the auctioneer. The whole yard is covered by a gigantic roof of Hartley’s patent glass.
At Rutland Gate (on the site of a mansion of the Dukes of Rutland) is the house where John Sheepshanks, Ksq., formed his collection of 228 pictures (with two exceptions), by modern British artists: including 6 works by A. Callcott, B.A.; W. Collins, R.A., 7; John Constable, R.A., 5; C. W. Cope,
B.A., 7; W. Etty, R.A., 2; Edwin Landseer, R.A., 9; C. Leslie, R.A., 9 ; W. Mulready, R.A., 15; W. Red-prave, R.A., 6; C. Stanfield, R.A., 3; J. M. W. Turner, R.A., 5; T. Uwins, R.A., 4; T. Webster, R.A., 5. The collection was bequeathed by Mr. Sheepshanks to the National Gallery.
In High-road, between the Green and Rutland-gate, are the oldest houses in the hamlet. Chatham House is dated 1688. Three doors heyond it is The Rose and Crown inn, formerly Oliver Cromwell, the front of which is emblazoned with the great Protector’s arms. There is a tradition that his body-guard was once quartered here; as well as of its having sheltered Wyat, while his unfortunate Kentish followers rioted on the adjacent green. At the corner of South-place is the Phoenix Floorcloth Manufactory, the earliest established, founded by Nathan Smith, 1754; burnt down 1794; rebuilt 1821: at the north end is a clock, with a figure of Time, cut in stone. At Kent House resided for a few years the Duke of Kent, who largely added to the original house. Stratheden House was the town residence of Lord Campbell and Lady Stratheden: Lord Campbell died here, June 23, 1861, aged eighty-one: the first volume of his Lives of the Chancellors is dated from this house.
In Sigh-row stood the noted Fox and Bull Tavern, of the time of Queen Elizabeth, and noted for its gay company to our time. The house is referred to in the Tatler, No. 259. Sir Joshua Reynolds, Sir W. Wynn, the patron of Ryland, and George Morland, were visitors here j and Sir Joshua painted the sign, which hung till 1807, when it was destroyed in a storm. The Elizabethan house was panelled and carved and had enriched ceilings; and its immense fire-dogs were not disused till 1799. In a house westward lived Lady Anne Hamilton; then Mr. Chalon and Mr. Davies, both artists of repute ; and next Mr. White the naturalist, who had here a menagerie. Mr. Woodburn, the connoisseur in ancient art, once lived here; and the staircases still bear evidence of the artistic tenancy.
Ozias Humphry, R.A., resided many years at Knightsbridge ; he died at 13, High-row, in 1810. At the west end of the row is the Horse Guards’ Barracks, built in 1795, and capable of accommodating 600 men and 500 horses. Bensley, the actor, who in early life had been in the army, was appointed barrack-master, which appointment he held till his death, in 1817. Hard by are the stables built for the Duke of Wellington: Hardwick, architect. In Park-row resided, about 1828, Olive, the soi-disant Princess of Cumberland, and next door, Sir Richard Phillips. (Abridged chiefly from Davis’s Memorials of Knightsbridge, 1859.)
Lowndes-square occupies the site of a famous place of amusement—Spring Gardens, sinong Gardo called after the still more celebrated Spring Gardens at Charing-cross: the World’s End, at Knightsbridge, mentioned by Pepys and Congreve, is supposed to have been a synonym of this fashionable house of entertainment. The building itself survived till 1826. There was another famous place of entertainment in the same neighbourhood, called Jenny’s Whim. Its site is now occupied by St. George’s-row, near the Chelsea Water-works; and the house, distinguishable by its red-brick and lattice-work, was not removed until November, 1865. Angelo says it was established by a firework-maker, in the reign of George I.; here were a large breakfast-room, bowling-green, alcoves, and arbours; a fish-pond, a cock-pit, and duck-hunting pond; a grotto, and a decanter of Dorchester for sixpence; a large garden with amusing spring deceptions; and a piece of water with large fish or mermaids.
Knightsbridge-grove, approached through a stately avenue of trees from the road, was a sporting house, where the notorious Mrs. Cornelyus endeavoured to retrieve her fortunes after her failure at Carlisle House; but she again failed in 1785. Ten years after, she reappeared at Knightsbridge as Mrs. Smith, a retailer of asses’-milk, in a suite of breakfast-rooms—but in vain.
The existence of Belgravia only dates from 1825. Before that, the district was a marshy tract, bounded by mud-banks, and partly occupied by market-gardens. The sites of Belgrave and Grosvenor Squares were nursery-grounds. Grosvenor Bridge, where the King’s-road crosses the VVestbourne, was not built till the time of Charles II.; and it was long called Bloody Bridge, from the number of murderous robberies there committed. It is curious that the whole of this district was built over, not gradually, but in two distinct movements—one from 1770 to 1780, and the other, after a pause of nearly fifty years, beginning in 1825, and still in operation.
KENSINGTON GARDENS.
THESE delightful gardens, which, in our time, included an area of ahove 350 acres, did not, when purchased by William III., soon after his accession, exceed 26 acres, which he added to Hyde Park. In 1691 they were described by the Rev. Dr. Hamilton, to the Society of Antiquaries, as ” not great, nor abounding with fine plants. The orange, lemon, myrtle, and what other trees they had there in summer, were all removed to London or Mr. Wise’s greenhouse at Brompton Park, a little mile from there.” Queen Anne added 30 acres, and planted the design as we now have it. Evelyn notes: ” Sept. 2nd, 1701.—I went to Kensington and saw the houses, plantations, and gardens, the work of Mr. Wise, who was there to receive me.” {Diary, vol. ii. p. 75.) Bowack, in 1705, described the gardens as “beautified with all the elegances of art (statues and fountains excepted). There is a noble collection of foreign plants, and fine neat greens, which makes it pleasant all the year; the whole, with the house, not being above 26 acres. Her Majesty has pleased lately to plant near 30 acres more towards the north, separated from the rest only by a stately greenhouse, not yet finished.” Thus, previous to 1705, Kensington Gardens did not extend farther north than the conservatory; and the eastern boundary was nearly in the fine of the broad walk which crosses before the east front of the palace. The kitchen gardens, which formerly extended northward towards the gravel-pits, and the 30 acres north of the conservatory, added by Queen Anne to the pleasure-gardens, may have been the 55 acres “detached and severed from the park, lying in the north-west corner thereof,” granted in the 16th of Charles II. to Hamilton, Ranger of anon, Ran the Park, and Birch, Auditor of Excise; the same to be walled and planted with ” pippins and red-streaks,” on condition of their furnishing apples or cider for the King’s use. At the end of the avenue leading from the south front of the palace to the wall on the Kensington-road, is a large and lofty architectural alcove, built by Queen Anne’s orders; so that Kensington Palace, in her reign, seems to have stood in the midst of fruit and pleasure gardens, between the Kensington and Uxbridge roads. Addison, in the Spectator, No 477, dignifies Wise and London as the heroic poets of gardening, and is enraptured with their treatment of the upper garden at Kensington, which was at first nothing but a gravel-pit; the hollow basin and its little plantations, and a circular mount of trees, as if scooped out of the hollow, greatly delighting the essayist. Tickell opens his elegant eclogue with the oft-quoted glance at the morning promenade of his day; where—
” The dames of Britain oft in crowds repair
To gravel walks and unpolluted air:
Here, while the town in damps and darkness lies,
They breathe in sunshine, and see azure skies;
Each walks with robes of various dyes bespread,
Seems from afar a moving tulip-bed,
Where rich brocades and glossy damasks glow,
And chintz, the rival of the showery bow.”
Queen Anne’s Banqueting-house, north of the palace, completed in 1705, is a fine specimen of brickwork: the south front has rusticated columns supporting a Doric pediment, and the ends have semicircular recesses. The interior, decorated with Corinthian columns, was fitted up as a drawing-room, music-room, and ball-room; and thither the Queen was conveyed in her chair from the western end of the palace. Here were given full-dress fetes a la Watteau, with a profusion of “brocaded robes, hoops, fly-caps, and fans,” songs by the court lyrist, &c. But when the Court left Kensington, Queen Anne’s building was converted into an orangery and greenhouse. (See Palaces.)
Caroline, queen of George II., formed the Serpentine, dividing the Palace grounds from the open Hyde Park by a sunken fosse and wall, thus adding 300 acres to the gardens or private grounds; the ha ha, now extending from the Bayswater-road to the powder magazine, remaining identically as it was then formed. With the soil dug was raised a mount to the south-east, with a revolving prospect-house. The Gardens were planted and laid out by Bridgeman, who banished verdant sculpture, but adhered to straight walks and clipped hedge, varied with a wilderness and open groves.
A plan of 1762 shows the formal Dutch style on the north of the palace. On the north-east, a fosse and low wall reaching from the Uxbridge-road to the Serpentine at once shut in the Gardens, and conducted the eye along their central vista, over the Serpentine (formed between 1730 and 1733), to its extremity; and across t, t and ache Park to the east of Queen Anne’s gardens, immediately in front of the palace, a reservoir was formed into ” the round pond;” thence long vistas were carried through the wood that encircled it, to the head of the Serpentine, to the fosse and Bridgeman’s ha-ha wall, affording a view of the Park; and to the mount already mentioned, which, with its evergreens and temple, has disappeared within recollection. Bridgeman, ” Surveyor of the Royal Gardens,” died in 1738; and was succeeded by Samuel Milward and John Kent. Kensington Gardens long maintained its rural character; for, in a minute of the Board of Green Cloth, 1798, we read of a pension granted to a widow, whose husband was accidentally shot while the keepers were hunting foxes in Kensington Gardens.
After King William took up his abode in the palace, a court end of the town gathered round it. The large gardens laid out by Queen Caroline were opened to the public on Saturdays, when the King and Court went to Richmond; all visitors were then required to appear in full-dress. When the Court ceased to reside at Kensington, the Gardens were thrown open in the spring and summer; and next open throughout the year, as at present. On stated days in the London season, military bands perform. Here is a refreshment-room: ” Gentlemen are requested not to smoke in the vicinity of the music platform and refreshment room, as much complaint has been made by visitors to the gardens in consequence of this practice.—Office of Works, August 20, 1855.”
Of late years Kensington Gardens have been greatly improved by drainage, re-laying out, and the removal of walls and substitution of open iron railing. Viewed from near the palace, eastward are three avenues through dense masses of ancient trees. Immediately in front of the palace is a quaintly-designed flower-garden, between which and Kensington are some stately old elm-trees. The broad walk, 50 feet in breadth, was once the fashionable promenade. On the southern margin of the Gardens is a walk, bordered by the newer and rarer kind of shrubs, each labelled with its Latin and English name, and its country. The most picturesque portion of the Gardens, however, is at the entrance from near the bridge over the Serpentine, where is a delightful walk east of the water, beneath some noble old Spanish chestnut-trees. The elegant stone bridge across the west end of the Serpentine was designed by Sir John Rennie in 1826, and cost 36,500^. A pair of magnificent Coalbrook-dale iron gates // (from the Great Exhibition of 1851) has been erected adjoining the southern lodge. r
An unornamented gate has been opened in the Bayswater-road. In 1860, a ride was formed in the Gardens, which had hitherto (except during the Exhibition year 1851) been kept from equestrian intrusion. In 1861 was formed another ride, adapted only for summer, and entering Kensington Gardens from Hyde Park, through the gateway in the south-western arch of the bridge; proceeding along the edge of the Serpentine between a bank of rhododendrons and fine trees; then through a broad and shady avenue, and returning along an open space to the entrance-gate.
On this side of the Gardens are the Ornamental Water-works, completed in 1861. They consist of a small Italian garden, with an engine-house, 48 feet high, Italian in style, and an engine to pump the water in to large reservoirs, with a jet in the centre of each; the tower end separated from the Serpentine by a screen, with vases; and in the centre a large octagonal fountain; the whole supplying the Serpentine. The sculpture here is by John Thomas; and the engineer of the water-works, Hawksley. p> A large portion on the west side of the Gardens, including the extensive kitchen-gardens (which date from 1738), pursuant to 5 Vict., c. 1., has been appropriated to a fine public road from Kensington to Notting-hill: here are several handsome mansions, the gardens of those on the west side extending to the old red-brick wall of the Palace kitchen-gardens, which remains. By the formation of this road, Kensington Palace Gardens, the royal gardens were reduced to 261 acres, their present extent. Their effect is not exhilarating, but a relief to the in-dwellers of London.
KENT-STREET, SOUTHWARK,
ORIGINALLY ” Kentish-street,” is a wretched and profligate part of St. George’s parish. In 1633 it was described as “very long and ill-built, chiefly inhabited by broom-men and mumpers ;” and for ages it has been noted for its turners’ shops, and broom and heath yards. Evelyn tells of one Burton, a broom-man, and his wife, who sold kitchen-stuff in Kent-street, whom God so blessed that Burton became a very rich and a very honest man, and Sheriff of Surrey. At the east end of Kent-street, in 1847, was unearthed a pointed arched bridge of the 15th century, probably erected by the monks of Bermondsey Abbey, lords of the manor. In Rocque’s Map, 1750 (when the Kent-road was lined with hedge-rows), this arch, called Lock’s-bridge, from being near the Lock Hospital, carries the road over a stream which runs from Newington-fields to Bermondsey. Yet, what long lines of conquest and devotion, of turmoil and rebellion, of victory, gorgeous pageantry, and grim death, have poured through this narrow inlet of old London! The Roman invader came along the rich marshy ground now supporting Kent-street (says Bagford, in a letter to his brother-antiquary, Hearne) j thousands of pious and weary pilgrims have passed along this causeway to St. Thomas’s of Canterbury; here the Black Prince rode with hi3 royal captive from Poictiers, and the victor of Agincourt was carried in kingly state to his last earthly bourne. By this route Cade advanced with his 20,000 insurgents from Blackheath to Southwark; and the ill-fated Wyat marched to discomfiture and death. To the formation of the Dover-road, in our time, Kent-street continued part of the great way from Dover and the Continent to the Metropolis,
Smollett, in his Travels, 1766, describes “the avenue to London by the way of Kent-street, which is a most disgraceful entrance to such an opulent city. A foreigner, in passing through this beggarly and ruinous suburb, conceives such an idea of misery and meanness, as all the wealth and magnificence of London and Westminster are afterwards unable to destroy. A friend of mine, who brought a Parisian from Dover in his own post-chaise, contrived to enter Southwark after it was dark, that his friend might not perceive the nakedness of this quarter.”
KENTISH TOWN,
A HAMLET of St. Pancras, and a prebendal manor of St. Paul’s, was formerly written Kaunteloe, and is the property of the Camden family. Here was the Castle tavern, which had a Perpendicular stone chimney-piece; the house was taken down in 1849 : close to its southern wall was a sycamore planted by Lord Nelson, when a boy, at the entrance to his uncle’s cottage; the tree was spared. Opposite were the old Assembly-rooms, taken down in 1852: here was a table, with an inscription by an invalid, who recovered his health by walking to this spot every morning to take his breark,take hikfast in front of the house. Kentish Town Chapel, originally built by Wyatt in 1784, has been enlarged and altered to the Early Decorated style : here is buried Grignon, the engraver. (See p. 212.) In 1848, was built here a large Congregational Nonconformist Chapel, in ecclesiastical style. In Gospel-terrace is the Roman Catholic Chapel of St. Alexis, established 1847. In 1848 were erected the National Infant and Sunday Schools, by Hakewill, upon the plan of the Committee of Privy Council on Education; the site is part of an estate bequeathed by the witty divine, Dr. South, to Christ Church, Oxford. Near Highgate Rise is the Grove, where Charles Mathews the elder made his • collection of paintings, prints, and other memorials of theatrical history, now at the Garrick Club-house. Nearly opposite (at the corner of Swain’s-lane, leading to the Highgate and Kentish Town Cemetery— see p. 82), was “a miniature Wanstead House” (the design copied from Wanstead House, Essex), the villa of Mr. Philip Hurd, of the Inner Temple, who collected here a costly library, including the celebrated Breviarium Romanum, purchased by him, in 1827, from Mr. Dent’s library, for 378Z.: it consists of more than 500 leaves of vellum, illuminated by Flemish painters in Spain, of the fifteenth century, with miniatures and borders of flowers, fruit, and grotesque figures, upon a gold ground. (See Dibdin’s Bibliographical Decameron, vol. i. pp. 163-7.) The villa was taken down in 1851, and upon the site are built handsome houses. From the rear of Mr. Hurd’s house, some twenty-five years since,
not a house could be seen, so rural was this neighbourhood; now little can be seen but bricks and mortar. The river Fleet, which runs in the rear of the hamlet, has its source from springs on the south side of the hill between Hampstead and Highgate. In July, 1846, were sold 27 acres of building-ground in Gospel-Oak and Five-Acre Fields, between Kentish Town and Hampstead, for nearly 400Z. an acre. Beneath the Gospel Oak preached some of our earliest Reformers, and Whitefield the Methodist.
In the last century, the road between the metropolis and Kentish Town was beset with highwaymen. In the Morning Chronicle and London Advertiser, Jan. 9, 1773, appears: ” Thursday night some villains robbed the Kentish Town stage, and stripped the passengers of their money, watches, and buckles. In the hurry they spared the pockets of Mr. Corbyn, the druggist; but he, content to have neighbour’s fare, called out to one of the rogues, ‘ Stop, friend, you have forgot to take my money !’ “— Note* and Queries, No. 62.
The original “Mother Red Cap,” Kentish Town, was a place of terror to travellers, and is believed to have been the ” Mother Damnable ” of Kentish Town in early days; at this house ” Moll Cutpurse,” the highwayman of the time of Oliver Cromwell, dismounted and frequently lodged.—Smith’s Book for a Saint/ Day, p. 20.
Camden Town, begun 1791, built on the estate of the Marquis Camden; and Somers Town, begun 1786, on the estate of Earl Somers—are also hamlets of Pancras parish, and both are now united with London, and are portions of the metropolis.
Walpole writes, June 8,1791: ” There will soon be one street from London to Brentford; ay, and from London to every village ten miles round! Lord Camden has just let ground at Kentish Town for building fourteen hundred houses—nor do I wonder; London is, I am certain, much fuller than ever I saw it. I have twice this spring been going to stop my coach in Piccadilly, to inquire what d.—inquirewas the matter, thinking there was a mob—not at all; it was only passengers.” .
KILBURN,
A HAMLET about two and a half miles north-west from London, at the southwestern extremity of the parish of Hampstead, is named from Cold-bourne, a stream which rises near West End, and passes through Kilburn to Bayswater; and after supplying the Serpentine reservoir in Hyde Park, flows into the Thames at Hanelagh. Kilburn has its station upon the London and North-Western Railway. In the last century, the place was famed for its mineral spring (Kilburn Wells), which rises about 12 feet below the surface, and is enclosed in a brick reservoir, the door-arch of which bears on its keystone 1714. The water is more strongly impregnated with carbonic acid gas than any other known spring in England. In 1837 was taken down a cottage at Kilburn in which Oliver Goldsmith had resided.
Kilburn originated from Godwyn, a hermit, who, temp. Henry II, built a cell near the little rivulet called Cuneburna, Keelebourne, Coldbourne, and Kilbourne, on a site surrounded with wood. Between 1128 and 1134, Godwyn granted his hermitage and adjoining lands to the conventual church of St. Peter at Westminster, who soon after assigned the property to Emma, Gunilda, and Cristina, maids-of-honour to Maud (queen of Henry I.), herself a Benedictine nun; and hence the cell of the anchorite became a nunnery; Godwyn being appointed its master or warden, and guardian of the maidens, for his life. Certain estates were granted to the nuns in Southwark and Knightsbridge (which manor still belongs to Westminster), the latter property in the place called Gara, probably Kensington Gore. Provisions, kitchen-fare, wine, mead, and beer were also assigned; and in return the vestals prayed for St, Edward the Confessor, and the church at Westminster.
At the Dissolution, in 1536, the “Nonre of Kilbourne” was surrendered; when the inventory shows the chamber furniture to have included ” bedsteddes, standing bedd wt 4 postes, fetherbedds, matteres, cov’lettes, wollen blankettes, bolsters, pillowes of downe, sheetes,” &c. The name of the last prioress was Anne Browne. Soon after the King assigned the priory estate, with other lands, to Weston, prior of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, in exchange for Paris Garden in Surrey, &c. The church was dedicated to St. Mary and St. John the Baptist; the latter, in his camel-hair garment, is portrayed on the priory seal. The Abbey Farm at Kilburn includes the site of the priory: the only view known of the conventual buildings is an etching, date 1722.
Several relics, including pieces of pottery, a few coins, and a bronze vessel, all mediaeval, were found on the Priory site in the autumn of 1852, and shown to the Archaeological Institute. In the Graphic and Historical Illustrator, pp. 336-340, is a good account of Kilburn Priory, mostly derived from Park’s Hampstead.