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 XXXV: Pentonville.St. Mark the Evangelist
Chapter XXXV: Pentonville.St. Mark the Evangelist
The site of was once an outlying possession of the priory of St. John, Clerkenwell, and called the from its having belonged to Geoffrey de Mandeville-, Mantell. Eventually the fields were given to the Hospitallers. There were springs and conduit-heads in the meadows; and Gerard, the Elizabethan herbalist, specially mentions the white saxifrage as growing abundantly there. | |
The district of , once a mere nameless vassal of Clerkenwell and (the latter itself a comparative parvenu), received its present name from Henry Penton, Esq., member for Winchester, and a Lord of the Admiralty, who died in , and on whose estate the buildings in were erected, according to Mr. Pinks, about the year . | |
The Tavern, at the corner of , was at an early period the site of a house known as probably from Christopher Busby, who was landlord of the at , in . In ( years after the Restoration), the members of the quaint Society of Bull Feathers' Hall met at the Folly before marching to , to claim the toll of all gravel carried up Highgate Hill. Their pioneers, with spades and pickaxes, were preceded in the hall procession by trumpeters and hornblowers. Their standard was a large pair of horns fixed to a pole, and with pennants hanging to each tip. Next came the flag of the society, attended by the master of the ceremonies. After the flag came the mace-bearers and the herald-at-arms of the society. The supporters of the arms were a woman with a whip, and the motto, ; on the other side, a rueful man, and the motto,
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This singular club met in Chequer Yard, Whitechapel, the president wearing a crimson satin gown, and a furred cap surmounted by a pair of antlers, while his sceptre and crown were both horned. The brethren of this great and solemn fraternity drank out of horn cups, and were sworn as members on a blank horn-book. Busby's house retained its name as late as , but was afterwards called It had windows in front; and here men with learned horses, musical glasses, and sham philosophical performances, gave evening entertainments. The Tavern was in existence as early as , and was famous for its-racket-court. At No. , , that emperor of English clowns, [extra_illustrations.2.279.2] , lived in , after his marriage with Miss Hughes, the pretty daughter of the manager of Sadler's Wells. was then the St. James's or of the quarter. | |
On the west side of is a new church, opened in . It contains sittings for persons, and with the site cost about . The incumbent was Dr. Courtenay, formerly curate of St. James's, . St. James's was made a district, assigned out of the parish of St. James's, Clerkenwell, in . On the east side of formerly stood that celebrated Cockney place of amusement, The original tavern was erected in the reign of Charles I., and the curious tradition was that the workmen were said to have been regaling themselves after the completion of the building the very hour that King Charles's head fell at the scaffold. In was advertised as having for its fresh attractions a long walk, a circular fish-pond, a number of pleasant shady arbours, enclosed with a fence feet high, hot loaves and butter, milk direct from | |
p.280 | the cow, coffee, tea, and other liquors, a cricketfield, unadulterated cream, and a handsome long room, with In the following spirited verses describing the place, by William Woty, author of the appeared in the :--
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About this time the house and its customers were referred to by Oliver Goldsmith. He says,
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says Mr. Timbs,
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Washington Irving, in his says:--
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This popular place of amusement derives its name from an old stone conduit, removed in , and used to repair part of the . It bore the date , and beneath, the arms of Sutton, the founder of the Charterhouse, with initials and monograms probably of past masters. The conduit, repaired by Sutton, was built in the reign of Henry VI., and it supplied the Carthusian friars. The waterhouse was used by the school till about , when the supply fell short, and a supply was decided on. The site of the conduit was at the back of No. , , at the corner of Edward Street. There was a smaller conduit at the back of White Conduit Gardens, close to where now stands. In , Huntington (Sinner Saved) the preacher, cleansed the spring, but his enemies choked it with mud to spite him. Latterly, however, the Conduit House fell to ruins, and the upper floors became a mighty refuge for tramps and street pariahs. | |
An old drawing of represents White Conduit House as a mere tall building, with front windows, a gable roof, a side shed, and on the other | |
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[extra_illustrations.2.281.1] side the conduit itself. On either hand stretched bare sloping fields and hedge-rows. | |
The anonymous writer of the , describes the place as having boxes. for tea, cut into the hedges and adorned with pictures; pleasant garden walks, a round fish-pond, and . handsome tea-rooms. Later the fish-pond was filled up, and an Apollo dancing-room erected. In a was established here, and the place became somewhat disreputable. Mr. Chabert, the fire-eater, after a collation of phosphorus, arsenic, and oxalic acid, with a sauce of boiling oil and molten lead, walked into an oven, preceded by a leg of lamb and a rump-steak, and eventually emerged with them completely baked, after which the spectators dined with him. Graham also ascended from these gardens in his balloon. In this year Hone talks of the gardens as though the fireworks were as good as usual. | |
About archery was much practised; and in the house was rebuilt with a great ball-room and many architectural vagaries. A writer in the of says:--
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The place grew worse and worse, till, in , the house was pulled down and streets built on its site. The present Tavern covers a portion of the original gardens. Mr. George Cruikshank has been heard to confess that some of his early knowledge of Cockney character, and, indeed, of city human nature, was derived from observing evenings at White
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An old proprietor of the gardens, who died in , Mr. Christopher Bartholomew was believed to have realised property to the amount of . The at , was also his; and he used to boast that he had more haystacks than any round London. He, however, became a prey to the vice of gambling, and is said at last to have sometimes spent more than guineas in a single day in insuring numbers at the lottery. By degrees he sank into extreme poverty, but a friend giving him half of a of a favourite number, that turned up a prize, he again became affluent, only to finally sink into what proved this time irreparable ruin. | |
[extra_illustrations.2.282.1] was the result of a Government Commission sent over to America in , to inquire into the system of isolation so much belauded on the other side of the Atlantic. says Mr. Dixon in his published in , | |
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The Cattle Market (like the Thames | |
, projected by Martin, the painter, and others, and the , projected by Mr. Charles Pearson) was planned out nearly half a century ago, by active London minds. In John Perkins, Esq., of Bletchingley, in Surrey, struck with the dirt and cruelty of , and the intolerable danger and mischief produced by driving vast and half-wild flocks and herds of cattle through the narrow and crowded London streets, projected a new market in the fine grazing district north of the metropolis. The place was built at an expense of , and opened under an Act of Parliament, . So strong, however, was the popular and Conservative interest in old abuses, that the excellent new market proved a total failure, and was soon closed. The area for cattle at was nearly acres, abutting on the road leading from the Lower Street to Ball's Pond. It was enclosed by a brick wall, feet high, and had vast sheds on all the sides. A road ran entirely round the market, which was quadrated by paths crossing it at right angles, and there was to have been a central circus, to be used as an exchange for the greasy graziers and bustling salesmen, with offices for the | |
p.283 | money-takers and clerks of the market. The market was capable of accommodating head of cattle, calves, sheep, and pigs. The principal entrance from the had an arched gateway, and arched footways. Poor Mr. Perkins, he was before his age. The spot was excellently chosen, lying as it does near the great roads from the northern and eastern counties, the great centres of cattle, and communicating easily with the town by means of the , which was also convenient for the western part of London. years later, in , the nuisance of (thanks, perhaps, to ) became unbearable, even to the long-suffering abuse-preservers; so was condemned to be removed, and a new cattle-market was opened in Copenhagen Fields in , and that enriched district now rejoices in many cattle and all the attending delights of knackers' yards, slaughterhouses, tripe-dressers, cats'-meat-boilers, catgut-spinners, bone-boilers, glue-makers, and tallow-melters. |
It was proposed by a company of projectors, in the year , to establish a sea-water bathingplace at Copenhagen Fields, by bringing water through iron pipes It was calculated that the undertaking would pay the subscribers per cent. on the capital embarked, which was to be ; but the proposition met with little encouragement, and was soon abandoned. | |
[extra_illustrations.2.284.1] occupies acres of ground. The market-place is an irregular quadrangle, with a lofty clock-tower in the centre, and taverns at the corners, the open area being set off into divisions for the different kinds of live stock. No less than have been expended upon the land and buildings. In the parts of the market appropriated for the reception of the different cattle, each central rail is decorated with characteristic casts of heads of oxen, sheep, pigs, &c.; these were designed and modelled by Bell, the sculptor. The open space of the market will accommodate at time about cattle and sheep, with a proportionate number of calves and pigs. The calf and pig markets are covered, the roofs being supported by iron columns, which act at the same time as waterdrains. In the centre of the whole area is a twelvesided structure, called surmounted by an elegant campanile, or bell tower, | |
p.284 | The sides give entrance to sets of offices, occupied by bankers, salesmen, railway companies, and electric telegraph companies. In year () the returns were bullocks, sheep, calves, and pigs. The great Christmas sale, in the closing year of old , ranged from to bullocks, and between and sheep. On December , the bullocks were , being a greater number than ever before known at any metropolitan market. The market-days for cattle, sheep, and pigs are Mondays and Thursdays. There is a miscellaneous market for horses, asses, and goats on Fridays. (Timbs.) |
At a large house on Hermes Hill, afterwards (in ) occupied by the converted coal-heaver, a useful man in his generation, resided, in the last century, from till his death in , Dr. de Valangin, an eminent Swiss physician, who had been a pupil of Boerhaave. He called this hill from Hermes Trismegistus, the fabled Egyptian king, and discoverer of chemistry, fawning Lord Bacon compared James I., because, forsooth, that slobbering, drunken monarch was king, priest, and philosopher. De Valangin- the inventor of several useful and useless medicines, the which he presented to Apothecaries' Hall--was the author of a sensible book on diet, and The doctor, who was a man of taste and benevolence, married as his wife the widow of an eminent surveyor and builder, who, says Mr. Pinks, had recovered for a breach of promise, from a lover who had jilted her. He buried of his daughters in his garden, but the body was afterwards removed to the vaults of Cripplegate Church. In his book () De Valangin particularly mentions the increased use of brandyand-water by English people. His house was remarkable for a singular brick tower or observatory, which was taken down by the next tenant. | |
That eccentric preacher, William Huntington, was an illegitimate son, whose reputed father was a day-labourer in Kent. In youth he was alternately an errand-boy, gardener, cobbler, and coal-heaver. He seems, even when a child, to have been endowed with an extraordinary deep sensibility to religious impressions, and early in life he began to exhort men to save their souls, and flee the wrath to come, and, we fully believe, in all sincerity, though his manner was vulgar. His original name was. Hunt, but flying the country to escape the charge of an illegitimate child, he took for safety the name of Huntington; and, unable to pay for a Dissenting title. of D.D., he christened himself S.S. (sinner saved). Huntington seems to have had a profound belief in the efficacy of faith and prayer. Whether it was tea, a horse, a pulpit, or a hod of lime, he prayed for it, he tells us, and it came. Even a pair of leather breeches was thus supplied, as he mentions in his John Bunyan way. | |
he says,
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S. S. had strong belief in eternal perdition, and attacked the mad prophet Brothers, for his wild prophecies of the sudden fall of the Turkish, German, and Russian empires. When Huntington's chapel, in Tichfield Street was burnt, his congregation erected a new on the east side of , at a cost of , of which he craftily obtained the personal freehold. By his wife S. S. had children; he then married the widow of Sir James Sanderson, who came day to his chapel to ridicule him, but and to fall in love. He died in , and was buried in a garden in the rear of Jireh Chapel, on the cliff at Lewes. A few hours before his death, at Tunbridge Wells, he dictated the following epitaph for himself:--
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At the sale of his goods at , which realised , a humble admirer bought a barrel of ale, as a souvenir of his pastor. | |
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says Huntington,
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writes a contemporary,
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says Mr. Pinks,
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, leading to what was once called Bagnigge Wash, used to be frequently overflowed, when the Fleet Sewer was swollen by heavy rains or rapid thaws. The street was made about the year . In Grimaldi lived here, and took in brother actors as lodgers. He removed to in . This wonderful clown was the son of a celebrated Genoese clown and dancer, who came to England in , in the capacity of dentist to Queen Charlotte. He played at , under Garrick's management, and was generally known on the boards, from his great strength, as At performance the agile comic dancer is said to have jumped so high that he actually broke a chandelier which hung over the side stage-door, and kicked of the glass drops into the face of the Turkish ambassador, who was gravely sitting in a stage-box. Joe was born in , in , , and his appearance was at Sadler's Wells, in , before he was years old. Grimaldi's amusements, in his leisure time, were innocent enough; he was devoted to the breeding of pigeons and collecting of insects, which latter amusement he pursued with such success, as to form a cabinet containing no fewer than specimens of butterflies, he says, for all of which, no doubt, the entomologist will deem him sufficiently rewarded. He appears, in old age, to have entertained a peculiar relish for these pursuits, and would call to mind a part of Surrey where there was a very famous sort, and a part of Kent where there was another famous species. of these was called the (which, he adds, was very ugly); and another, the by which Dartford Blue he seems to have set great store. | |
At the dreadful accident at Sadler's Wells, in , during the run of , when twentythree people were trodden to death, during a false alarm of fire, Grimaldi met with a singular adventure. On running back to the theatre that | |
p.286 | night he found the crowd of people collected round it so dense, as to render approach by the usual path impossible. says his
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Grimaldi died in . For many years he had been a nightly frequenter of the coffee-room of the Tavern, in , . Mr. George Cook, the proprietor, used to carry poor half-paralysed Joe out and home on his back. | |
, on the north side of , was erected, says Mr. Pinks, prior to . It formerly bore the odd name of from a public-house which bore the sign of the
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In resided Mr. James Pascall, a much-respected public-spirited man, who laboured years for the interests of Clerkenwell parish, and helped to detect a fraudulent guardian named Scott, who defrauded the parish, in , of more than . He also urged forward the covering up the noisome Fleet Ditch, and wrote a useful work on the Clerkenwell charity estates. | |
At No. , , now No. , , lived for wretched years the [extra_illustrations.2.286.1] . This miserable wretch was the son of an itinerant fiddler near Windsor. Early in life he was a common porter, but by a stratagem obtained the hand of the rich widow of a paper-maker at Tottenham, and then bought a sugar-baker's business at . Here his miserable life as a miser began. He would often feign fits near a respectable house, to obtain a glass of wine. His ink he begged at offices, and his paper he stole from the Bank counters. It is said that he collected with his own hands manure for his garden. His horse he kept in his kitchen, and his chaise he stored up in his bed room. His annual treat was the Epsom Races. Turned out of this house at last, Cooke betook himself to No. , , , and died in , aged . He was buried at , , the mob attending throw ing cabbage-stalks on his dishonoured coffin. He left (and here was his pride) in the per Cents. chiefly to the and Tottenham Almshouses; such is the inconsistency of human nature. In an old portrait Cooke is represented with an enormous broad-brimmed hat, a shade over his eyes, knee breeches, buckle shoes, an immense coat with a cape, while a stiff curled wig and huge cable pigtail completed the strangelooking figure. | |
, , was projected by Mr. Penton, in , to benefit his estate; but the incumbent of St. James's refusing to sign a bond to the Bishop of London for the regular payment of the minister, closed the matter for years. In , however, a chapel was begun by subscription, and was opened in . The minister was Mr. Joel Abraham Knight, from the Spa Fields Chapel. The church trustees of St. James's purchased the chapel in for . Mr. Hurst, the architect of the chapel, who died in , lies in a vault beneath the building. The chapel and cemetery were consecrated for the use of the Church of England in . | |
says Caulfield, in his
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In Clerkenwell pickpockets had grown so daring, that day, as the society of were going into this chapel, a gentleman looking on had his pocket picked, and was knocked down, and the person who informed the gentleman he was robbed was also knocked down and dragged about the road by his hair, no interfering, although hundreds of honest persons were present. | |
Chapel is built chiefly of brick, with a stone facade. The building stands north and south, instead of east and west. The altar-piece, in West's feeble manner, was painted by Mr. John Frearson, an amateur artist. At the death of a Mr. Faulkner, in , the Bishop of London ordered the churchwardens of Clerkenwell to sequestrate at once all the for the benefit of the next incumbent, but the Rev. Dr. A. L. Courteney, the curate, claimed the profit, as having by the incumbent's death become perpetual curate of the district chapelry erected in . The case, however, never came on for trial, as the trustees dreaded litigation. | |
p.287 | In Dr. Courteney opened his new church at the corner of . The incumbent of St. James's, Clerkenwell, presents to the living of St. James's, . |
Prospect House, in , now , was of those old houses of half rural entertainment once common in this part of London. It derived its attractive name from the fine view it commanded northward --a great point with the Cockney holiday-maker. From Hill, as the vicinity was called, there really was a fine of busy, moody London; and Canaletto sketched London from here, when he visited England. Prospect House is mentioned as early as , and is noted in Morden and Lee's Survey and Map of . The tavern was famous, like many other suburban taverns, for its bowling-greens. Subsequently it was rechris- tened from its proprietor, and was generally known as or D'Aubigney's. In Mr. Johnson, a new landlord, turned the old bowlinggreen into a circus, and engaged Price, from the a rival house near, to exhibit feats of horsemanship, as he had done before the Royal Family. Price, the desultory man, eventually cleared by his breakneck tricks. The time of performance was m. In , newspapers record, a bricklayer beat his wife to death, in a field near Dobney's, in presence of several frightened people. In Prospect House was taken for a school, but soon re-opened as the The interior of the bowers were painted with scenes from Shakespeare. It was the year of the Jubilee, remember. In an extraordinary man, a beetamer, named Wildman (perhaps from America), exhibited here. His advertisement ran- This Wildman seems to have sold swarms of bees. | |
In the gardens were fast getting into the that awaits, sooner or later, all such fools' paradises. A verse-writer in the , , says-
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In the worn-out house became a lecture and discussion room, but about the ground was cleared, and built. , however, struggled on till , when they disappeared, leaving as a slight memorial a mean court in known as Dobney's Court. Until the building of , says Mr. Pinks, the only carriage-way leading to Dobney's was leading from , , under the gateway of the and from thence to the bowling-green. | |
The London Female Penitentiary, at No. , , was formerly a nunnery school. This excellent charity, intended to save those whom vanity, idleness, and the treachery of man have led astray--poor creatures, against whom even woman hardens her heart--started here in . The house was fitted for about inmates, but was in a few years enlarged, so as to hold women. The path of penitence is up-hill everywhere, but especially in London. The inmates are trained for service, and their earnings at needlework and washing go far to maintain the institution. If the peace makers were expressly blessed by our Saviour, how much more blessed must be those who step forward to rescue poor women like these who are willing to repent, but who are by poverty drifted irresistibly down the black river to the inevitable grave. The report, a few years ago, showed good results. There were then in the house, had been placed out in service, and reconciled to their friends. From to there were poor women sent to service, reconciled and restored to their friends, married, and who have emigrated. Altogether in that time charity and kindness had been held out to of the most miserable outcasts of the metropolis. | |
In a terrible and wholesale tragedy was enacted at No. , , by a German whip-maker named Steinberg. On a September night this wretch, from no known reason, but perhaps jealousy, murdered his mistress and children, the youngest a baby, and then cut his own throat. It was with difficulty the mob | |
p.288 p.289 | was prevented from dragging the murderer's body through the streets. His victims were buried in St. James's Churchyard, and he himself in the paupers' burial-ground in , the corpse being shaken out of the shell into a pit. No stake was driven through the body, as usual, formerly with suicides, but of the grave-diggers broke in the skull with an iron mallet. There was afterwards a shameful exhibition opened at Steinberg's house, a sham bloody knife being shown, and wax figures of the woman and her children placed in the various rooms, in the postures in which they had been found. The victims' clothes were bought for , and nearly was taken for admission in day. And yet this was not in the Ashantee country, but in civilised England, only a few years ago. |
Footnotes: [extra_illustrations.2.279.2] Joe Grimaldi [extra_illustrations.2.281.1] Map of city Prisons [extra_illustrations.2.282.1] The Pentonville Penitentiary [extra_illustrations.2.284.1] The present Metropolitan Cattle Market [extra_illustrations.2.286.1] celebrated miser, Thomas Cooke |