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PICTURESQUE S K E T C H E S O F L O N D O N, Past and Present.
PICTURESQUE S K E T C H E S O F L O N D O N, Past and Present.
vignette By THOMAS MILLER, AUTHOR OF THE “HISTORY OF THE ANGLO-SAXONS,” “LADY JANE GREY,” &c. L O N D O N: 227 STRAND. By T H O M A S M I L L E R, AUTHOR OF A “HISTORY OF THE ANGLO-SAXONS,” “LADY JANE GREY,” “FAIR ROSAMOND,” “PICTURES OF COUNTRY LIFE,” &c. WITH NUMEROUS ENGRAVINGS OF CHURCHES, PUBLIC BUILDINGS, ANTIQUITIES, STREET VIEWS, &c. LONDON: OFFICE OF THE NATIONAL ILLUSTRATED LIBRARY, 227 STRAND. ...
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LIST OF ENGRAVINGS.
LIST OF ENGRAVINGS.
image not available Frontispiece. Vignette in Title. Roman Hypocaust, Thames-street Roman Remains, found in Thames-street St. Paul’s Cathedral.—Charity Children’s Anniversary Festival Prerogative Court.—Doctors’ Commons Saracen’s Head, Friday-street Roman Lamp Gerard the Giant Gerard’s Hall Crypt Bow Church, Cheapside St. Stephen’s, Walbrook Roman Vessels found in Cannon-street The London Stone Lord Mayor’s Jewel St. Michael’s Church, Cornhill Lombard Street St. Mary’s Woolnoth Old Billingsgate
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ADVERTISEMENT.
ADVERTISEMENT.
T HE greater portion of the following work originally appeared in the columns of the Illustrated London News . The beauty of the sketches, and the permanent interest attached to them, led the proprietors of the National Illustrated Library to believe that a reprint of them would form a valuable and welcome addition to that series of illustrated works. The various articles have accordingly been carefully revised by the author; many additions have been made, and curious extracts from rare old work
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Ancient London.
Ancient London.
I NSTEAD of wasting words on traditions which few can believe, or filling my pages with accounts of the fabulous kings who are said to have descended from Æneas, and to have reigned in Britain centuries before the Roman Invasion, I shall commence the present work by shewing that the remote past will ever remain a mystery which man is not permitted to penetrate. The following opening to my History of the Anglo-Saxons applies to the “unknown” origin of London—the new Troy of ancient fiction—the Au
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CHAPTER II. ST. PAUL’S CATHEDRAL—DOCTORS’ COMMONS—THE OLD CITY STREETS.
CHAPTER II. ST. PAUL’S CATHEDRAL—DOCTORS’ COMMONS—THE OLD CITY STREETS.
T HE Cathedral of St. Paul’s is the great landmark of London. Long before the eye of the approaching stranger obtains a glimpse of the graceful spires, grey massy towers, and tall columns which ascend from every corner of the outstretched city, it rests upon that mighty dome, which looms through the misty sky, like some dim world hanging amid the immensity of space; for so does it seem suspended when the smoke from ten thousand homes throws a vapoury veil over the lower portion of the invisible
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CHAPTER III. CHEAPSIDE AND LOMBARD STREET.
CHAPTER III. CHEAPSIDE AND LOMBARD STREET.
W E have often wondered what effect Cheapside produces upon a countryman when he first visits London. The whole street is alive with cabs, carts, chariots, omnibuses, drays, wagons, and trucks, the latter of which are often drawn by boys, and we marvel that they are not flattened up amid the crowded ranks of vehicles, which form one continuous chain as far as the eye can penetrate. The splendid shops must strike a stranger with amazement, although far inferior to many which have lately been buil
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CHAPTER IV. THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF BILLINGSGATE, NEW COAL EXCHANGE, AND TOWER OF LONDON.
CHAPTER IV. THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF BILLINGSGATE, NEW COAL EXCHANGE, AND TOWER OF LONDON.
A LL doubts about the immense population of London would vanish from the mind of a stranger could he but stand on London Bridge Wharf, and see the vast multitudes that embark on the steamers, either at Easter or Whitsuntide, for Greenwich alone: he would behold such a sight as would convince him that no other city in the world could pour forth so many inhabitants; and all he had before seen would sink into insignificance beside what he would witness on the Thames, to say nothing of the numerous
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CHAPTER V. THE TOWER.
CHAPTER V. THE TOWER.
T HE oldest remains of London, with few exceptions, nearly stand facing each other, and are on opposite sides of the river. Thus, the Tower, though some distance “below” bridge, looks on its ancient neighbour a little higher up, the Church of St. Mary Overies, now called St. Saviour’s; while westward, Lambeth Palace confronts Westminster Abbey and Hall, where they stand looking at each other, as they have done for more than six centuries. Had that highway of waters which rolls between these anci
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CHAPTER VI. Docks, Sailors, and Emigrants.
CHAPTER VI. Docks, Sailors, and Emigrants.
O UR rambles have now brought us to the Docks; but, before describing them, we must glance backward at the scenes which in former years met the eye on the very spots which these vast basins now occupy, for we shall include them all in this chapter. There are people still living who can remember when Blackwall-Reach had for its landmarks grim gibbet-posts, on which the bodies of pirates bleached and blackened in the storm and sunshine, “making night hideous;” when the whole neighbourhood beyond t
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CHAPTER VII. WHITECHAPEL, AND THE OLD REMAINS IN BISHOPSGATE-STREET.
CHAPTER VII. WHITECHAPEL, AND THE OLD REMAINS IN BISHOPSGATE-STREET.
H ITHERTO our course has been eastward; we must now turn our faces towards the west, and describe a few of the objects which lie on our right hand, as we retrace our steps, and journey to where the sun sets. To the point from whence we started at the commencement of our work (the foot of Blackfriars Bridge) we shall find but little to detain us; for the Bank and Exchange are too commercial for our pages, as we have not undertaken to write a Guide-Book, and fear that we have already dwelt too min
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CHAPTER VIII. GUILDHALL AND THE LORD MAYOR’S SHOW.
CHAPTER VIII. GUILDHALL AND THE LORD MAYOR’S SHOW.
A LTHOUGH Guildhall was seriously scarred by the Great Fire, and but little more left than the crypt and bare walls that had witnessed its ancient splendour, we are still enabled, through old records and time-honoured chronicles, to obtain glimpses of the pageants and processions which, nearly four centuries ago, were held within those grey old walls. Of the ancient hall, erected in 1411, I have met with no satisfactory description; nor does it appear that any of our kings dined in Guildhall bef
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CHAPTER IX. CHRIST’S HOSPITAL.
CHAPTER IX. CHRIST’S HOSPITAL.
W E have often wondered how the mind of a stranger to London is impressed by seeing bare-headed young men moving about our city-thoroughfares wearing the costume of the period of the boy-king Edward VI.;—what he thinks of the blue-gown, orange-coloured petticoat, leather belt, yellow stockings, and clerkly band worn by the unmonk-like young gentry, who have succeeded the old Grey-Friars, those who in their day were seen in the narrow streets of ancient London. We have often seen a green-looking
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CHAPTER X. SMITHFIELD.
CHAPTER X. SMITHFIELD.
S MITHFIELD-market will soon be numbered with the things that “have been;” the defenders of dirt must give way, and the foul and musty corners of the City be purified. Should the present work turn up in “a lot” some century hence, our description of Smithfield may be as great a curiosity to the reader then, as Ned Ward’s picture of a Lord Mayor’s show one hundred and fifty years ago was to us, when we chanced to stumble upon the remains of the tattered old quarto volume in which it has been so l
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CHAPTER XI. NEWGATE.
CHAPTER XI. NEWGATE.
A ROUND and within London lies a land chequered with lights and shadows, close city courts, and stifling suburban alleys, in which the sunshine only lingers for a few minutes during the day (where it seems imprisoned and in a hurry to escape above the dusky chimneys); and in this vast metropolis these scenes are contrasted with broad green, airy parks, and long lines of palace-like streets, which stretch westward and dip into the open and surrounding country. Its living crowds are ever in motion
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CHAPTER XII. FLEET-STREET, OLD ALSATIA, AND LONDON LODGING-HOUSES.
CHAPTER XII. FLEET-STREET, OLD ALSATIA, AND LONDON LODGING-HOUSES.
W E have again reached the point from which we started at the commencement of our work, leaving behind us undescribed many objects of great interest to such as love to dwell upon the past, beside others of importance belonging to the present, but possessing not those picturesque features which we prefer dwelling upon. Here we shall pause for a while, and, as there is but little around us in the shape of “bricks and mortar” to arrest our attention, take a glance at the lights and shadows of busy
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CHAPTER XIII. THE STRAND, ADELPHI, AND COVENT-GARDEN MARKET.
CHAPTER XIII. THE STRAND, ADELPHI, AND COVENT-GARDEN MARKET.
W E have now quitted the City and entered the Strand; before us stands the Church of St. Clement Danes, on the right of which an archway opens into Clement’s Inn; beyond that is the old Angel Inn, from which Bishop Hooper was taken before he suffered martyrdom at Gloucester three centuries ago. Justice Shallow says: “I was once of Clement’s Inn, where I think they will talk of mad Shallow yet;” and no sooner is his back turned than Falstaff says: “I do remember him at Clement’s Inn, like a man m
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CHAPTER XIV. WESTMINSTER ABBEY AND THE PARKS.
CHAPTER XIV. WESTMINSTER ABBEY AND THE PARKS.
W HAT a crowd of solemn associations gather around the mind of the intellectual visitor on first entering these ancient walls! the very silence which reigns around the vast edifice is startling, and the sound of a falling footstep seems to awaken a thousand sleeping echoes that were mute and voiceless as the surrounding tombs. We feel that we are in the presence of the mighty dead; and, as we gaze around, the deeds which throw a grandeur and a gloom over the pages of English history pass in vivi
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CHAPTER XV. ST. GILES’s.
CHAPTER XV. ST. GILES’s.
B Y way of contrast, we will stride from splendour to squalour—from St. James’s to St. Giles’s, whose names Douglas Jerrold has rendered inseparable in his fearless and life-like novel. As St. Giles’s folds within its arms a portion of the fashion-frequented neighbourhood of Oxford-street, so do the low alleys of Tothill-fields hem in the palaces of Westminster, creeping up to the very walls of the grey old abbey, and dipping down to the rim of the river; while, eastward, the city of merchants i
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CHAPTER XVI. LONDON FOG.
CHAPTER XVI. LONDON FOG.
S UCH of our readers as have never been in London in November can scarcely imagine what it is to grope their way through a downright thorough London fog. It is something like being imbedded in a dilution of yellow peas-pudding, just thick enough to get through it without being wholly choked or completely suffocated. You can see through the yard of it which, at the next stride, you are doomed to swallow, and that is all. It is a kind of meat and drink, and very sorry sustenance for those who are
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CHAPTER XVII. THE OLD BOROUGH OF SOUTHWARK.
CHAPTER XVII. THE OLD BOROUGH OF SOUTHWARK.
T HE first object that still strikes the eye when we have passed over into the Borough is the beautiful old church founded by a Saxon maiden called Mary of the Ferry, which in time was corrupted into Mary Overy, and is now called St. Saviour’s. No young poet need wish for a finer subject to try his hand on than this beautiful half holy old legend of the Ferryman’s Daughter, who, day after day, winter and summer, was seen with her quaint old-fashioned Saxon boat, ready to row passengers from the
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CHAPTER XVIII. STREET AMUSEMENTS.
CHAPTER XVIII. STREET AMUSEMENTS.
A T different times several ephemeral little treatises have appeared professing to teach the inhabitants of London how to live upon 50 l. , 100 l. , and divers other sums a year, not one, however, pointing out the way by which any of these incomes were to be obtained. Mrs. Glasse went very differently to work when she attempted to throw a new light upon the economy of cooking, by advising her readers to “first catch their hare,” thereby conveying most sensible information in one brief unmistakab
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CHAPTER XIX. SPRING-TIME IN LONDON.
CHAPTER XIX. SPRING-TIME IN LONDON.
T HE cries of “All a-blowing! all a-growing!” are the first sounds with which the spring-flowers are ushered into the streets of London; and although not uttered by the lips of such fabled nymphs as the poets of old clothed in the richest hues of their imagination, and sent forth as attendants on blossom-bearing Spring, the voices still come like gentle greetings from old friends, all the sweeter through having been so long absent. Sometimes we see a pretty face looking out, through the homely b
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CHAPTER XX. LONDON CEMETERIES AND THE EPIDEMIC IN 1849.
CHAPTER XX. LONDON CEMETERIES AND THE EPIDEMIC IN 1849.
T HAT it was customary in ancient times to bury the dead outside the city-walls the holy Bible bears witness, even as far back as in the early chapters of the Book of Genesis, where it is recorded how Abraham bought the field of Macphelah of Ephron the Hittite, “and the cave which was therein, and all the trees that were in the field, (and) that were in all the borders round about.” (Chap. xxiii.) Here we find a rural cemetery in a green field bordered with trees, in which the venerable patriarc
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CHAPTER XXI. GREENWICH.
CHAPTER XXI. GREENWICH.
B EAUTIFUL as Greenwich Park is within itself, with its long aisles of overhanging chestnuts, through whose branches the sunlight streams, and throws upon the velvet turf rich chequered rays of green and gold, yet it is the vast view which stretches out on every hand that gives such a charm to the spot. What a glorious prospect opens out from the summit of One-Tree Hill! London, mighty and magnificent, piercing the sky with its high-piled towers, spires, and columns, while St. Paul’s, like a mig
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CHAPTER XXII. HOLIDAYS OF THE LONDON POOR.
CHAPTER XXII. HOLIDAYS OF THE LONDON POOR.
FOOD and raiment, household shelter and a grave, are all the Poor-Law allows to the pauper; for there is no clause in that act permitting him the enjoyment of the sweet air of heaven, or the open and unwalled sunshine (the gold which God scatters down for all), beyond what blows and beats upon the narrow court-yard in which he is doomed to walk—the Prisoner of Poverty. The birds he there hears sing are the dirty sparrows that roost under the soot-blackened eaves, and weary the heart with their u
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