Old and New London, A Narrative of its History, its People and its Places. Illustrated with Numerous Engravings from the Most Authentic Sources. vol 3
Thornbury, Walter
1872-78
Chapter XVII: The Strand:--Southern Tributaries (continued).
Chapter XVII: The Strand:--Southern Tributaries (continued).
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Proceeding still westward on our pilgrimage along the Strand, we next arrive at , where in the last century resided Fielding, the novelist, of whom an interesting anecdote is told in the for :-- At the corner house, No. , Strand, now occupied by Eugene Rimmel, the perfumer, formerly lived another of the same profession, Charles Lillie, whom Steele has commemorated in the pages of the , and whose name is also embalmed in the | |
On the site of , between the Savoy and , stood Worcester House, the town mansion of the Earls of Worcester, and previously the residence of the Bishops of Carlisle. Its gardens extended to the river-side. The great Earl of Clarendon occupied this house before his own mansion was built, and paid for it the annual rent of . | |
In the Strand, near the Savoy, was a house known as Carey and afterwards as Stafford House. | |
p.101 [extra_illustrations.3.101.1] |
It is casually mentioned by Pepys as Dryden, too, in his speaks with evident delight of We must also mention another house of some repute which stood close by this spot down to a recent date, namely, the tavern known as the the entrance to which was at No. in the Strand. This inn has been shut up since the erection of the Thames , and, along with of the dilapidated tenements between the Savoy, the , and Garden, will doubtless soon be swept away. We have preserved a representation of the old inn on page . |
Concerning the old house of the Earls of Worcester, afterwards , honest John Stow tells a story to the effect that The house was burnt down in . | |
The building adjoining, Salisbury House, gave place to and , the latter of which, before the construction of the Thames , led to Salisbury Staris. Salisbury House-or, as it was sometimes called, Cecel House--was built by Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, a son of the great Lord Burghley, and was a mansion. In a great part of it was pulled down, and Cecil and Salisbury Streets were built on its site. A portion of Cecil House, consisting of large room, was subsequently fitted up with shops on both sides, and opened as This building extended to the river, where there was a flight of steps for the use of passengers by water. The place seems to have borne anything but a good reputation-being called the --and in the end going to ruin it was pulled down, with the remains of great Salisbury House, about the year . Upon the site was built. , of which Strype speaks as a so that it is to be hoped that the former tenants of the were put to flight. | |
Of we have little or nothing to remark, as its annals appear to be a blank of late years, except that in the last century it was inhabited by the Lord Grey, the Archbishop of York, and Dr. Wollaston. Of the same may be said, except that it was pulled down and rebuilt in the middle of the last century. | |
At the bottom of , on the left hand, in a house overlooking and the river, has been established, since , the Arundel Club,so called from its original abode in . It consists mainly of members of the newspaper press and of the dramatic profession, together with a few artists. Over the fireplace in the principal room is a fine portrait of Marinarni, many years scene painter at , painted by the late Mr. Clarkson Stanfield, R.A., and presented to the club by his son, Mr. G. C. Stanfield. | |
The next turning westwards of , down to what once was the river-sie, was called , leading to Ivy Bridge, or Pier-the same which in our own memories was used as the landing-stage of the halfpenny steamboats that used to ply between the Strand and , but were discontinued shortly after the disastrous explosion of the Cricket at the pier, in . The place is mentioned by both Stow and Strype. The former says that the lane and that the had been lately taken down. Strype adds that the road was very bad and almost impassable, which was not improbable, considering its narrowness and its steep descent. | |
Near this spot, Pennant tells us the former Earls of Rutland had He does not, however, say anything which can enable us to identify its situation. | |
Adjoining Ivy on the west was , the of the Bishops of Durham, of the most interesting of the old Strand palaces. According to Pennant, its original founder was Anthony de Beck, Patriarch of Jerusalem and Bishop of Durham in the reign of Edward I. It was rebuilt by Thomas Hatfield, soon after his nomination to that see, in ; he was Secretary of State to Edward III., and lived here till he was old Even from the rough sketch of. it in Aggas's map, would seem to have been an of some importance; but from Hollar we gather a more correct idea of its [extra_illustrations] | |
p.102 | appearance, when viewed from the river. It is described by Norden as but it would appear to have been dull and heavy, as well as grand, like many of its neighbours on the banks of the river. Henry VIII. obtained this house by way of exchange from Cuthbert Tonstall, the bishop whose name is so well known in English history. It is to be hoped that in this case the was really not a , after it passed out of the hands of the Church into those of royalty, became celebrated as a gay scene of chivalric entertainment on many occasions. In the year , for example, as Stow informs us, a magnificent tournament was held at . |
It had been proclaimed in France, Flanders, Scotland, and Spain, for all comers that would undertake the challenge of England, which were Sir John Dudley, Sir Thomas Seymour, Sir Thomas Poynings, and Sir George Carew, Knights, and Anthony Kingston and Richard Cromwell, Esquires. The old chronicler then gives a vivid picture of the tournament in detail, and adds, On day the Lord Mayor of London and the aldermen, with their wives, were entertained with a display of jousting, and there was a merry dance in the evening. | |
p.103 p.104 | |
Young Edward, on reaching the throne, gave to his sister, the Princess Elizabeth, and she in her turn, when she became queen, bestowed it on Sir Walter Raleigh. On his attainder, however, the property was restored to the Bishops of Durham, but--soon after sold to the Earl of Pembroke. In Edward's reign a royal mint was established at , under the direction of the Lord High Admiral Seymour. It was at that, in , the Duke of Northumberland, who then inhabited it, beheld the accomplishment of the act of his plan for placing his niece, Lady Jane Grey, upon the throne-namely, her marriage with his son, Lord Guildford Dudley. months later, and within days of the death of the king, the Lady Jane was conducted from to the Tower with great pomp and ceremony, and openly proclaimed queen. The result is but too well known to every reader of English history. | |
In the reign of James I. the thatched stables of the mansion, fronting the Strand, were pulled down, and a large building, called the erected in their place. It was opened in in the-presence of the'king, the queen, and Prince Henry, when his Majesty bestowed upon it the name of A rich banquet was served on the occasion, at the expense of Lord Salisbury. | |
The New Exchange consisted of a basement, in which were cellars; the ground-floor, level with the street, a public walk; and an upper storey, in which were stalls or shops occupied, by milliners and sempstresses, and other trades that supply dresses. The building did not attain any great success till after the Restoration, when it became quite a fashionable resort, and so popular that there is scarcely a dramatist of the time of Charles II. who is without a reference to this gay place. The shops, or stalls, had their respective signs, of which, the was kept by Thomas Radford and his wife, the daughter of John Clarges, a farrier in the Savoy. The farrier's daughter, as we have stated in a previous chapter, ultimately became Duchess of Albemarle. She died within a few days of the duke, and was buried by his side in Henry VII.'s Chapel, at . | |
But she was by no means the only duchess associated with the New Exchange. The Duchess of Tyrconnel, wife of Richard Talbot, Lord Deputy of Ireland under James II., after the abdication of the and the death of the other, is said to have supported herself for a short time in of the trades of the place; and she is commemorated by Horace Walpole with his usual piquancy. Pennant speaks of her as adding that she She sat in a white mask and a white dress, and was known as the This anecdote was dramatised by Douglas Jerrold, and produced at in , as She died in in the Convent of the Poor Clares in Dublin. | |
It was here, too, that a certain Mr. Gerard was walking day, meditating how he should best carry into execution a certain plot in which he was engaged--the assassination of no less a person than Oliver Cromwell-when he was insulted by Don Pantaleon, brother of the Portuguese ambassador, and resented it so warmly that the latter, in revenge, the next day sent a set of ruffians to murder him. His murderers mistook their victim, and killed another man. The , as well as tragical. Don Pantaleon was tried, found guilty, and condemned. On the scaffold he met the very man whom he had intended to destroy, Mr. Gerard, whose plot in the interim had been discovered, and the suffered in company. | |
The New Exchange was a long building running parallel with the Strand, and its site is now occupied by the houses Nos. to , the bank of Messrs. Coutts being the centre. It stands on the court garden front of , and, next to Drummond's, is the oldest of the West-end banks. It was founded by George Middleton, and originally stood in , not far from , but was removed to its present site by Mr. Thomas Coutts, an enterprising Scotchman, the story of whose rise is thus narrated : His father was a merchant at Edinburgh, who had sons, the youngest of whom, James and Thomas, were brought up in the paternal countinghouse. James, at the age of , came to London, and settled in , as a Scotch merchant, but from that business, however, he subsequently retired to become a banker. He took a house in the Strand, the same in which the firm still exists; and he was joined here, some years after, by his brother Thomas, as a partner. On the death of James--soon afterwards, Thomas continued to carry on the banking business, and with such an energetic spirit, that he soon gained many friends, and found himself on the sure road to success. Mr. Lawson, in his tells a story concerning Mr. Coutts | |
p.105 | shrewdness and enterprise which will bear repeating:-- Most members of the king's family, the late Duke of Wellington, &c., banked here, and so did Dr. Johnson and Sir Walter Scott. |
Mr. Coutts hadnot only many friends, but even real admirers, among the nobility, and he is said to have been an object of attraction to not a few designing matrons, who had marriageable daughters. But all these aristocratic matrimonial speculations were somewhat rudely dispelled and frustrated, and Mr. Coutts in the end in the person of Elizabeth Starkey, a domestic in his brother's service. The union, it is affirmed, was productive of great happiness to the banker, and he was blessed with daughters, each of whom became married to men of title-namely, the Marquis of Bute, the Earl of Guildford, and Sir Francis Burdett, Bart. After the death of his wife, Mr. Coutts gave his hand to Miss Harriet Mellon, the celebrated actress. On this marriage, both Mr. and Mrs. Coutts were made the constant subjects of unworthy ridicule, which, however, had no other effect than that of strengthening the confidence of the husband in his wife, a confidence which was displayed in a remarkable manner in the will made by Mr. Coutts shortly before his death, which happened in . By this will he left the whole of his fortune, amounting to some , to his widow, Mrs. Coutts subsequently () married the Duke of St. Albans; but under the marriage settlement wisely reserved to herself the whole control of the immense fortune left to her by her husband. On her death, in , she bequeathed her vast property to the favourite granddaughter of Mr. Coutts, [extra_illustrations.3.105.1] , the youngest daughter of Sir Francis Burdett, the estimable and beneficent lady, founder of so many churches, schools, and other [extra_illustrations.3.105.2] , on whom the Queen has been pleased to confer the title of Baroness, and who is now well known as Lady Burdett Coutts. | |
The partners in () are Messrs. William M. Coulthurst, E. Marjoribanks, Hugh L. Antrobus, E. Coulthurst, the Hon. H. Dudley Ryder, G. Robinson, and Lord Archibald Campbell. Lady Burdett Coutts had till recently a considerable interest in it. It is supposed that Messrs. Coutts is the largest private bank, and has the most extensive connection among the nobility and landed gentry of any existing firm. | |
We learn from Mr. Peter Cunningham's that the interior of the house occupied by Messrs. Coutts is very handsome and well decorated, containing, , some He adds:
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The estate of Durham Yard, having become an unprofitable heap of ruin, was purchased by Messrs. Adam, brothers, architects by profession, who built upon it, in , parallel with the river, the noble terrace known as the , and also or streets running at right angles with it, | |
p.106 [extra_illustrations.3.106.1] | and communicating with the Strand, in which they have preserved their respective Christian names, as well as family name--as , , , &c. |
The following account of the brothers Adam we take from -- | |
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We ought not, and indeed we cannot forget to record here the fact that in the centre house of [extra_illustrations.3.106.3] died, in , no less a man of note than David Garrick, within a few yards from the scene of his professional triumphs. He had been an inmate of it for the last years of his life. In the same street lived Topham Beauclerk, the wit, politician, and friend of Johnson, of whom it is recorded by Boswell that as he stood day here gazing on the river below, he lamented in breath the loss of both. | |
The author of tells us an interesting story connected with this part of the Strand. He went, indeed, so far as to promise to pay it a personal visit twice every day. adds the writer,
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Mr. Timbs remarks that dark arches, The piers on which the arches rest having shown symptoms of insecurity, the whole of the structure was gradually underpinned, and otherwise strengthened, in the years -. | |
Garrick died in the back room of the floor of his house in the . The ceiling of the drawing-room, if we may believe Mr. J. T. Smith, the author of was painted by Zocchi, the subject being and the chimney-piece of the same room is said to have cost . | |
The --or, as the place was called in slang terms, the --was in former days | |
p.107 | of the places of bad reputation with which the neighbourhood abounded;--but the name and the reality have both passed away. |
In , at No. , is the building designed and erected for the [extra_illustrations.3.107.1] . This society has a history of its own, and has not been without its influence on the world of art and science in England. It originated, in , through the public spirit of William Shipley, a drawing-master, and brother to the then Bishop of St. Asaph. Mr. Shipley obtained the approval and concurrence of Lord Folkestone, Lord Romney, the Bishop of Worcester, Dr. Isaac Maddox, and a few other friends, and in the fist meeting was held at Rawthmell's Coffee House. The object of the society was the encouragment of art in connection with manufacture, &c. In the society met at Peel's Coffee House. The Royal Academy is said to have sprung from the Society of Arts, and in the latter proposed to the Academy- which had been instituted in --that they should paint the great council-room at the , and be renumerated by the public exhibition of their works therein. The Academy, with Sir Joshua Reynolds at its head refused this proposal; but in the following year James Barry, who had signed the refusal with the rest, volunteered to decorate the room without any remuneration at all. The states that when he made his offer he had but in his pocket. His offer was accepted, and the result was the production of [extra_illustrations.3.107.2] , which occupied him years in painting. The subject are so connected as to illustrate this great maxim of moral truth :
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There are here a few other pictures and minor works of art and ingenuity, and they are open to the inspection of the public, free of charge, during the months of March, April, and May, from till . It is worthy of note that in Sir William Fothergill Cooke, who was at that time a member of the Council, and Vice-President of the Society of Arts, originated at a council-meeting his scheme for an International Exhibition of Industry, which was eventually carried out in . Lectures are given every Wednesday evening, from November to May. The terms of membership are guineas annually. | |
, our next turning in passing westward along the Strand, and , a thoroughfare running parallel with it, mark the site of York House, a building so named from having been the town residence of the Archbishop of that see, after the fall of Wolsey and the loss of their former and more magnificent palace at , which has passed irrevocably into the hands of the Crown. It had been in ancient times the house or as it was termed, of the Bishops of Norwich, who, however, exchanged it for an abbey in Norfolk in the early part of the reign of Henry VIII. The next owner, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, obtained it in exchange for his own residence, House, across the river. In the reign of Queen Mary it was purchased by Heath, Archbishop of York, who called it York House; but the name did not long continue, as his successor, Archbishop Matthew, under James I., exchanged it with the Crown for certain manors in the far North. It was afterwards inhabited by Lord Chancellor Egerton, also by Sir Nicholas Bacon, the philosopher's father, as Keeper of the Great Seal; and subsequently by Bacon himself, on his attaining the dignity of Lord Chancellor, and it was here that he was deprived of the on his degradation. York House then passed, as we have said, into the hands of the Crown, and was granted a few years later to George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, who rebuilt it in a style of great magnificence. In the year after the execution of Charles I. the Parliament bestowed it on General Fairfax, whose daughter and heiress marrying Villiers, the Duke of Buckingham of that line, it reverted to its rightful, owner, who resided here for several years after the Restoration. He was, however, a man whose taste and extravagances led him into pecuniary difficulties, and to pay his debts he sold it for building purposes, bargaining, however, that his name and titles should be kept in memory by the streets built upon it, and which were called, respectively, George, Villiers, Duke, and Buckingham Streets. These are all that now remain to tell the antiquary of the century the story of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, his rise at Court, and his fall. | |
His mansion never lost its name of York House, and the water-gate at the foot of continued to be known as The water-gate is the only vestige now remaining of this once splendid mansion. | |
On the side next the river appear the arms of the House of Villiers, and on the north side is their family motto, (the Cross is the Touchstone of Faith). | |
At York House, within a few yards of the spot [extra_illustrations.3.107.3] | |
p.108 | where he saw the light, Lord Bacon kept his sixtieth birthday. How much he loved the place may be gathered from his answer to the Duke of Lennox, who had urged him to sell his mansion. He did not, however, return to the house after his imprisonment in the Tower. |
The old mansion was pulled down, as we have already noticed, by the Duke of Buckingham, who erected in its place a modern fashionable residence, the state apartments of which were fitted up with large mirrors, and other costly pieces of luxury. Between the house and the river he carried a long terrace with an embattled wall, in the middle of which was the water-gate above mentioned. After the duke's death, in the year , York House was let on lease to the Earl of Northumberland. says Mr. Timbs, Here also was the collection of sculptures which belonged to Rubens, and in the garden was John | |
de Bologna's The pictures were sold by order of the Parliament in , and the house was given by Cromwell to General Fairfax, by the marriage of whose daughter and heiress with George, Duke of Buckingham, as we have already said, it was re-conveyed to the Villiers family. The duke resided here for a time, but in he sold the estate for . | |
Not far from the gate stood formerly a high and not very shapely tower of wood, erected in -, for supplying the Strand and its neighbourhood with the water of the then silvery Thames. Happily both the tower and the water-works, and also the water so supplied, have long been things of the past. In a print published in , representing York Stairs and the Water-gate, the wooden tower of the water-works close by is shown. It was an octangular structure about feet high, with small round loopholes as windows, to light the interior. | |
The houses at the bottom of , facing the river, have each an association of its own with the past. That on the west side was the residence of Samuel Pepys, from whose amusing | |
p.109 | we have drawn so largely; but it has been entirely remodelled, if not rebuilt, since his time. At the last house, on the opposite side of the street, lived Peter the Great during part of his stay in this country. And among the other celebrated persons who have made their home, for a time at least, are the witty Earl of Dorset, Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, John Henderson, the actor, and William Etty, the painter. The latter lived at No. , occupying chambers and a studio at the top of the house, from down to a few months before his death in . In the lower rooms of the same house Mr. Clarkson Stanfield had chambers, when commencing his career as a scene-painter, and before he became known by his noble sea-pieces. At there is a very good view of , taken from the river, about the year , which shows the houses of [extra_illustrations.3.109.1] and Pepys. |
In John Evelyn was living in -, as he tells us in his
Here, too, as Mr. Peter Cunningham reminds us, lived | |
Sir Richard Steele for the or years after the loss of his wife in . | |
Mr. Timbs identifies the site of the house in which Lord Bacon was born with that of No. , in the Strand, at the west corner of . It was for many years the shop of Messrs. Roake and Varty, and contained a portion of the old ceiling of the house once inhabited by Bacon. The house was pulled down in to form the approach to the railway station. | |
writes Allen, in his
Each intervening spot was still guarded by a wall, and frequently laid out in decorative walks, a most pleasing contrast to the present state of the same district. On the Strand side of the original | |
p.110 [extra_illustrations.3.110.1] | the lapse of centuries has worked wonders in improvement. There was no continued street here till about the year . The side next the Thames then consisted of distinct mansions, screened from the vulgar eye cheerless extensions of massive brick wall. The north side was formed by a thin row of detached houses, each of which possessed a garden, and all beyond was country. was a distant country hamlet. |
It was on account of these numerous palatial residences, no doubt, and not on account of the magnificence of its shops, that Middleton, the dramatist, styles the Strand These, it would seem, were, for the most part, far from being consisting mainly of fishmongers' stalls and sheds, against the erection of which the authorities were often forced to protest, and sometimes to take even stronger measures. For instance, Howes writes:
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It has been often remarked that out of the mansions which lay crowded between the Strand and the Thames, a very large number appear to have belonged to prelates of the Church in proportion to those of the titled aristocracy-the Howards and the Cecils. And if a reason is asked, it may be found in the of John Selden, who observes that In consequence, we are told by Mr. Peter Cunningham as many as bishops possessed inns or hostelries in this district previous to the Reformation. | |
As an instance of the insecurity of life--for the laity, at least--in the neighbourhood of the Strand, in the reign of George I., we take the following from a newspaper of the year :--
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Footnotes: [extra_illustrations.3.101.1] History of England- Cover [extra_illustrations] Durham, Salisbury and Worcester Houses- 1630 [extra_illustrations.3.105.1] Miss Angela Burdett [extra_illustrations.3.105.2] buildings for ameliorating the condition of the working classes [extra_illustrations.3.106.1] Wheatley's Adelphi and its site [extra_illustrations.3.106.3] Adelpi Terrace [extra_illustrations.3.107.1] Society of Arts [extra_illustrations.3.107.2] six great pictures [extra_illustrations.3.107.3] Journal- Society of Arts- September 22, 1882 [extra_illustrations.3.109.1] Peter the Great [extra_illustrations.3.110.1] Vaudeville Play Bill of 1817 |