Old and New London, A Narrative of its History, its People and its Places. Illustrated with Numerous Engravings from the Most Authentic Sources. vol 2
Thornbury, Walter
1872-78
Chapter XXXIV: Highbury-Upper Holloway-King's Cross.Old William White Building Highbury Crescent
Chapter XXXIV: Highbury-Upper Holloway-King's Cross.Old William White Building Highbury Crescent
In the prior of the convent of Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem, at Clerkenwell, purchased an old manor house here, as a summer residence, and it was afterwards rebuilt higher to the eastward, changing its name from Tolentone to Highbury In the reign of Richard II., when Wat Tyler and his bold Kentish men poured down on London, a detachment under Jack Straw, Wat's lieutenant, who had previously plundered and burnt the Clerkenwell convent, pulled down the house at Highbury. The ruins afterwards became known as- It is thought by antiquaries that the prior's moated house had been the praetorium of the summer camp of the Roman garrison of London. | |
Many of the old conduit heads belonging to the city were at Highbury and its vicinity, of these supplied the parish of , Cripplegate; and Mr. Lewis mentions another remaining in , in a field opposite No. , . It might have been from Highbury that the hunt took place, noted by Strype as occurring in , when the Lord Mayor, aldermen, and many worshipful persons rode to the Conduit heads, then hunted and killed a hare, and, after dining at the Conduit head, hunted a fox and killed it, at the end of , Cripplegate, with a great hallooing and blowing of horns at his death; and thence the Lord Mayor, with all his company, rode through London to his place in . | |
of the former celebrities of was that well-known chief cashier of the , honest old Abraham Newland. For years this faithful servant had never slept out of the , and his Highbury house was only a pleasant spot where he could rest for a few hours. He resigned his situation in , on which occasion he declined an annuity offered by the Company, but accepted a service of plate, valued at a guineas. He left , besides a year, arising from estates. He made his money chiefly by shares of loans to Government, in which he could safely speculate. He was the son of a baker. | |
Another distinguished inhabitant of Highbury was John Nichols, for nearly half a century editor of the , and partner of William Bowyer, the celebrated printer. His and his were his chief works. He was a friend of Dr. Johnson, and seems to have been an amiable, industrious man, much beloved by his friends. He died suddenly, while going up-stairs to bed, in . | |
[extra_illustrations.2.273.4] (built on the site of the barn of the prior's old mansion) was originally a small ale and cake house. It was the old rendezvous of the Highbury Society as far back as the year . This society was established to commemorate the dropping of a Schism Act, cruelly severe on Protestant Dissenters, and which was to have received the Royal sanction the day Queen Anne died. | |
says a chronicler of the society, The Highbury Society, says an authority on such subjects, was dissolved about the year . | |
At a little distance northward of Highbury Barn was another dairy-farm called Cream Hall, where Londoners came, hot and dusty, on shiny summer afternoons, to drink new milk and to eat custards, smoking sillabubs, or cakes dipped in frothing cream. Gradually Highbury farm grew into a tavern and tea-gardens, and the barn was added to the premises, and fitted up as the principal room of the tavern, and there the court baron for the manor was held. Mr. Willoughby, an enterprising proprietor who died in , increased the business, and his successors added a bowlinggreen, a trap ball-ground, and more gardens. A hop-garden and a brewery were also started, and charity and club dinners became frequent here. The barn could accommodate nearly persons at once, and people have been seen dining together, with geese roasting for them at fire. In , the Ancient Freemasons sat down, in number, to dinner; and in , licensed victuallers. There is now a theatre and a dancing-room, and all the features of a modern Ranelagh. The Sluice House, Eel Pie House, and Hornsey-wood House were old haunts of anglers and holiday-makers in this neighbourhood. | |
[extra_illustrations.2.274.1] was removed from in . The institution began in a house at Mile End, rented, in , by Dr. Addington, for a few students to be trained for the ministry. The present site was purchased for , by the treasurer, Mr. Wilson, and given to the charity. The building cost upwards of . says Mr. Howitt,
| |
A well-known public-house the at Upper Holloway, is celebrated by Drunken Barnaby in his noted doggerel. The a house especially celebrated, was once famous for its cheesecakes, which were sold in London by a man on horseback, who shouted
| |
In an old comedy, called (to, ), on the introduction of a Whitsun morris-dance, the following song is given :
| |
Upper Holloway was the residence of the ancient and honourable Blount family, during a considerable part of the century. Sir Henry Blount, | |
p.275 | who went to the Levant in , wrote a curious book of travels, and helped to introduce coffee into England. He is said to have guarded the sons of Charles I. during the battle of Edgehill. His sons both became authors. Thomas wrote and Charles was a Deist, who defended Dryden, attacked every else, and wrote the life of Apollonius Tyaneus. He shot himself in , in despair at being refused ecclesiastical permission to marry the sister of his deceased wife. The old manor house of the Blounts was standing a few years ago. |
Hornsey Road, which in Camden's time was a to Whetstone, by way of Crouch End, years ago had only houses, and no side paths, and was impassable for carriages. It was formerly called Devil's, or Du Val's, Lane, and further back still Tollington Lane. There formerly stood on the east side of this road, near the junction with the Sisters' Road, an old wooden moated house, called but really the site of old Tollington House. Tradition fixed this lonely place as the retreat of Duval, the famous French highwayman in the reign of Charles II. After he was hung in , he lay in state at a low tavern in , and was buried in the middle aisle of , Covent Garden, by torchlight. The tradition is evidently erroneous, as the Devil's House in Devil's Lane is mentioned in a survey of Highbury taken in (James I.) Duval may, however, have affected the neighbourhood, as near a great northern road. The moat used to be crossed by a bridge, and the house in was a public-house, where Londoners went to fish, and enjoy hot loaves, and milk fresh from the cow. In , after [extra_illustrations.2.275.1] had shot of his pursuers near a cave which he haunted in Epping Forest, he seems to have taken to stopping coaches and chaises at Holloway, and in the back lanes round . A gentleman telling him audaciously he had reigned long, Dick replied gaily, Nevertheless, the gallows came at last to Dick. | |
Stroud Green (formerly a common in Highbury Manor) boasts an old house which once belonged to the Stapleton family, with the date . It was afterwards converted into a public-house, and a years ago had in front the following inscription-
| |
About a century ago a society from the Tavern, , used to meet annually in the summer time at Stroud Green, to regale themselves in the open air. They styled themselves and the crowd that joined them made the place resemble a fair. | |
Copenhagen Fields were, it is said, the site of a public-house opened by a Dane, about the time when the King of Denmark paid his visit to his brother-in-law, James I. In Camden's map, , it is called for the Danes who were then frequenting it had kept up the Danish pronunciation. Eventually, after the Restoration, it became a great tea-house, and a resort for players at skittles and Dutch pins. | |
The house was much frequented for its teagardens, its fine view of the Hampstead and Highgate heights, and the opportunities it afforded for recreation. Hone was told by a young woman who had been the landlady's assistant that in a body of the Lord George Gordon rioters passed Copenhagen House with blue banners flying, on their way to attack Caen Wood, the seat of Lord Mansfield, and that the proprietor was so alarmed at this, that at her request Justice Hyde sent a party of soldiers to protect the establishment. Soon after this a robbery at the house was so much talked of, that the visitors began to increase, and additional rooms had to be built. The place then became famous for fives-playing, and here Cavanagh, the famous Irish player, immortalised in a vigorous essay by Hazlitt, won his laurels. In Hazlitt, who was an enthusiast about this lively game, writes, The next landlord encouraged dog-fighting and bull-baiting, especially on Sunday mornings, and his licence was in consequence refused in . | |
In the early days of the French Revolution, when the Tories trembled with fear and rage, the fields near Copenhagen House were the scene of those meetings of the London Corresponding Society, which so alarmed the Government. The most threatening of these was held on , when Thelwall, and other sympathisers with France and liberty, addressed , and threw out hints that the mob should surround on the , when the king would go to the House. The hint was attended to, and on that day the king was shot at, but escaped unhurt. In many | |
p.276 | members of the Corresponding Society, including Hardy, Thelwall, Holcroft, and Horne Tooke, had been tried for treason in connection with the doings of the society, but were all acquitted. |
After Horne Tooke's acquittal, he is reported to have remarked to a friend, that if a certain song, exhibited at the trial of Hardy, had been produced against him, he should have sung it to the jury; that, as there was no treason in the words, they might judge if there was any in the music. | |
As he was returning from the to Newgate, cold night, a lady placed a silk handkerchief round his neck, upon which he gaily said, During his trial for high treason, Tooke is said to have expressed a wish to speak in his own defence, and to have sent a message to Erskine to that effect, saying, to which Erskine wrote back,
| |
In , an immense number of persons of the trades' unions assembled in the Fields, to form part of a procession of men to White- | |
| hall, to present an address to his Majesty (which, however, Lord Melbourne rejected), signed by unionists, on behalf of some of their colleagues who had been convicted at Dorchester for administering illegal oaths. Among the leaders appeared prominently Robert Owen, the socialist, and a Radical clergyman in full canonicals, black silk gown and crimson Oxford hood. | |
(perhaps Midden or Dunghill Lane), an ancient way leading from to Highgate, and avoiding the hill, was once the chief road for northern travellers. At present, bone-stores, chemical works, and potteries render it peculiarly unsavoury. | |
is so called for reasons. In the place, there was formerly a small brick bridge over the Fleet at this spot; and, secondly, because, as London tradition has steadily affirmed, here was fought the great battle between Suetonius Paulinus, the Roman general, and Boadicea, the Queen of the Iceni. It is still doubtful whether the scene of the great battle was so near London, but there is still much to be said in its favour. | |
p.277 | The arguments pro and con are worth a brief discussion. Tacitus describes the spot, with his usual sharp, clear brevity. he says, Now the valley of the Fleet, between and , backed by the great northern forest of Middlesex, undoubtedly corresponds with this description, but then Tacitus, always clear and vivid, makes no mention of the river Fleet, which would have been most important as a defence for the front and flank of the Roman army, and this raises up serious doubts. The Roman summer camp near , opposite. Minerva Terrace, in the , we have already mentioned. There was a praetorium there, a raised breastwork, long visible from the , a well, and a trench. In arrow-heads and red-tiled pavements were discovered in this spot. |
In John Conyers, an antiquarian apothecary of , discovered in a gravel-pit near the in Coldbath Fields, the skeleton of an elephant, and the shaft and flint head of a British spear. Now it is certain that the Romans in employed elephants, as Poly- | |
| bius expressly tells us, when Julius Caesar forced the passage of the Thames, near Chertsey, an elephant, with archers in a houdah on its back, led the way, and drove the astonished Britons to flight. Another important proof also exists. In a fragment of a Roman monumental inscription was found built into a cottage on the east side of . It was part of the tomb of an officer of the legion, which had been dug up in a field on the west side of the road leading to the Caledonian Asylum. This legion formed part of the army of Claudius which Paulinus led against Boadicea. Mr. Tomlins, however, is inclined to think that a fight took place at during the early Danish invasions. | |
The great battle with the Romans, wherever it took place, was an eventful , and was of the last great efforts of the Britons. Suetonius, with nearly soldiers, waited for the rush of the wild half-savage men, who had already sacked and destroyed Colchester, St. Albans, and London. His legions were in the centre, his light-armed troops at hand, while his cavalry formed his right and left wings. Boadicea and her | |
p.278 | daughters, in a war-chariot, was haranguing her troops, while the wives of her soldiers were placed in wagons at the rear end of the army, to view the battle. The Britons rushed to the attack with savage shouts, and songs of victory the Romans received their charge with showers of javelins, and then advanced in the form of a wedge, the Britons eagerly opening their ranks, to surround and devour them up. The British chariots, armed with scythes, made great havoc among the Romans, till Suetonius ordered his legionaries to aim only at the charioteers. The Britons, however, after a stubborn fight, gave way before the close ranks of disciplined warriors, leaving some men upon the field, while the Romans, shoulder to shoulder, are reported to have lost only men. The line of wagons with the women proved a fatal obstruction to the flight of the Britons. The last fact to be recorded about the Romans at is the discovery, in , under the foundation of a house in , of an iron urn, full of gold and silver coins of the reign of Constantine. |
Gossiping Aubrey mentions that in the spring after the Great Fire of London the ruins were all overgrown with the Neapolitan cress, says he, In the reign of Edward VI, says Stow, a miller of was set in the pillory in Chepe, and had his ears cut off, for uttering seditious words against the Duke of Somerset. In , John Everett, a highwayman, was hung at Tyburn, for stopping a coach and robbing some ladies at . The man had served in Flanders as a sergeant, and had since kept an ale-house in the . | |
In assumed the name of , from a ridiculous octagonal structure crowned by an absurd statue of George IV., which was erected at the centre of roads which there united. The building, ornamented by Doric columns, was feet high, and was crowned by a statue of the king feet high. Pugin, in that bantering book, ridiculed this effort of art, and contrasted it with the beautiful Gothic market cross at Chichester. The Gothic revival was only just then beginning, and the dark age was still dark enough. The basement was a police-station, then a public-house with a camera-obscura in the upper storey. The hideous monstrosity was removed in . , which had been a haunt of thieves and murderers, was built upon by Mr. Bray and others, on the accession of George IV., when houses were erected in , , &c. The locality being notorious, it was proposed to call it Cross, or Boadicea's Cross, but Mr. Bray at last decreed that was to be the name. | |
Early in the century the great dust-heaps of London (where now stand Argyle, Liverpool, and Manchester Streets) were some of the disgraces of London; and when the present was fields, near were heaped hillocks of horse-bones. The dustmen and cinder-sifters were the, pariahs of the metropolis. The mountains of cinders and filth were the of years, and were the haunts of innumerable pigs. The Russians, says the late Mr. Pinks, in his excellent bought all these ash-heaps, to help to rebuild Moscow after the French invasion. The cinder-ground was eventually sold, in , to the Pandemonium Company for , who walled in the whole and built the Royal Clarence Theatre at the corner of . Somewhere near this Golgotha was a piece of waste ground, where half the brewers of the metropolis shot their grains and hop-husks. It became a great resort for young acrobats and clowns (especially on Sunday mornings), who could here tumble and throw to their hearts' content, without fear of fracture or sprain. | |
In Mr. Grove, an advertising tailor of , bought Garrick's villa, at Hampton, for . In , opposite the great cindermoun- tain of , was St. Chad's Well, a chalybeate spring supposed to be useful in cases of liver attacks, dropsy, and scrofula. About the middle of the last century or persons a morning used to come and drink these waters, and the gardens were laid out for invalids to promenade. | |
The Great Northern Railway Terminus at occupies more than acres of land. For the site of the passenger station, the Small-pox and was cleared away. The front towards has main arches, each feet span, separated by a clock tower feet high. The clock has dials feet in diameter, and the principal bell weighs cwt. Each shed is feet long, feet wide, and feet high to the crown of the semicircular roof, without a tie. The roof is formed of laminated ribs feet apart, and of inchand-a- half planks screwed to each other. The granary has storeys, and will hold sacks of corn. On the last storey are water-tanks, holding gallons; and the grain is hoisted. by hydraulic apparatus. The goods shed is feet in length, | |
p.279 | and feet wide; and the roof is glazed with cast glass in sheets, feet by feet inches. Under the goods platform is stabling for horses. The shed adjoins the , which, from thence, enters the Thames at . The coal stores will contain tons. The buildings are by Lewis and Joseph Cubitt. The railway passes under the and , beneath Copenhagen Fields, over the , through tunnels at Hornsey and elsewhere, and over a viaduct at Welwyn, with arches, feet wide, and feet high (Timbs). |
Footnotes: [extra_illustrations.2.273.4] Highbury Barn [extra_illustrations.2.274.1] Highbury Independent College [extra_illustrations.2.275.1] Turpin |
