Old and New London, A Narrative of its History, its People and its Places.Illustrated with Numerous Engravings from the Most Authentic Sources. vol 6
Walford, Edward
1872-78
Chiswick.
Chiswick.
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It is curious to note how the gradual--or, we might perhaps say, rapid--extension of the metropolis is affecting the once out-lying towns and villages in its immediate vicinity on both sides of the river. Many places, indeed, as we have already seen, such as Paddington and Bayswater, Stoke and Hackney, Clapham and Camberwell, have already become entirely absorbed into the gigantic city; whilst others are so rapidly increasing in size that they, too, will soon lose all signs of a separate existence. Chiswick, which lies on the bend of the river between Turnham Green and Brentford, still retains many of its rural charms, although their effacement by the hand of the builder may be perhaps but the work of a few years. To a certain extent, however, this progress is apparent even so far west as Chiswick, which we design to form the limit of our journeyings in this direction. | |
Chiswick is not found in Doomsday-Book, but it is mentioned in the various records of Henry III. by the name of According to the Saxon Chronicle, a battle was fought between Chiswick and Turnham Green between Edmund Ironside and the Danes, who were bent on attacking London, approaching it by the across the as it is now called, but which was the only entrance to the metropolis from the west, the present western road dating no further back than about the eighteenth, or perhaps the close of the century. A presumed proof of the antiquity of this road across the is to be found in the urn containing Roman coins dug up in the year , concerning which discovery we shall have more to say presently. With this single fact we must be content with regard to the early history of Chiswick, till we come to the reign of Henry II., when the Doomsday-Book of , in an Inquisition into the manor and churches belonging to the metropolitan cathedral, alludes to the --Sutton, i.e., South Town, being the popular name for that part of Chiswick which lay between Turnham Green and the river Thames. | |
In this document we find an account of the glebe, titles, and pension payable to the vicar; and it is worthy of note that now, after the lapse of nearly years, there is still paid to the vicar by the Chapter of a of annually, and another of to the chapter by the vicar. From another inquisition, dated , we learn that the then of the Manor had made a collection of Peter's pence; but, it is added, he keeps it for himself. If this was, as is suspected, a member of the Chapter of London, his act was a and possibly may have given rise to the saying. | |
The same source of information tells us that at there was a attached to the manor-house; and as the population in this part has very much increased of late years, a new church has been erected recently, almost on the site of the former fabric. | |
In , Gabriel Goodman, Prebendary of , becoming Dean of , the manor of Chiswick from the cathedral to the abbey. It was perhaps in consequence of the new tie thus springing up that a was built on for the use of the scholars. It was a plain and substantial building, comprising a house, dormitory, and school; and it is a matter of history that during the time of the great plague the school or at was carried on at Chiswick by Dr. Busby without interruption to the regular studies. The Pest House was pulled down only a few years ago, and its site is now covered by modern villas. During the demolition of this building it was discovered that some of its walls were as old as the century. But we are anticipating. | |
If Chiswick is approached by way of the Thames, but little of it is seen, as it lies opposite a small | |
550 | island of osiers-called Chiswick Ait or Eyotwhich nearly hides it from public view. Thus the steamers rather avoid the place, and all that can be seen of it is perhaps the spire of the old church and or of the pleasant houses in , which runs along the river's bank, almost a continuation of that of Hammersmith, mentioned in the preceding chapter. The visitor to Chiswick, approaching by land, may find it rather an outof- the-way place. It is true that part of it, Turnham Green, on the north side, lies on the high road at the western end of Hammersmith, but Chiswick proper lies off the high road and nearer the river, and it is only by walking that can get at the place; but the walk thither will be well repaid for the trouble taken in accomplishing it. Whatever alterations may pass over this once pretty village, it will always be a spot that the student of English history and English manners will regard with a fair amount of interest, for the sake of several men of mark who have lived or died in its neighbourhood. |
The [extra_illustrations.6.550.1] stands near the river, and is dedicated to St. Nicholas, the patron saint of fishermen, who, at the time of its erection, as now, formed the majority of the parishioners. The present structure, though adorned with a handsome tower, is disfigured by a fair share of the deformities of the architecture of the eighteenth century, and in other respects is quite in harmony with its sister edifices which grace-or disgrace--the valley of the Thames between London and Windsor. It consisted originally of only a nave and chancel, and was built about the beginning of the century, at which time the tower was erected at the charge and cost of William Bordal, vicar of the parish, who died in . The tower is built of stone and flint, as was originally the north wall of the church. Some aisles or transepts of brick, in the hideous style of the Georgian era, jut out on either side, of them bearing the ominous date of , and the other of . These excrescences were erected in the shape of transepts; but as the population increased, and more space was needed, they were extended westward, and, so far as they can be described at all, ought perhaps to be termed aisles by courtesy. Recently some improvements and partial restorations have been made in the interior: the pews have given place to low open benches, an organ-chamber has been erected, the west window opened, and the chancel rebuilt and decorated in true ecclesiastical taste, and a new memorial east window inserted. Still, the inside of the nave is a most barn-like structure; and a modern roof, which not many years ago replaced the original handsome open timber-roof of the pre-Reformation era, looks heavy and cumbrous to a degree. | |
Taking a general view of the interior of the church, we may say that, with the single exception of Bath Abbey, we never saw a sacred edifice whose walls are more hideously disfigured with in the shape of marble mural monuments. These are of every date, from the fine classical piece of sculpture which commemorates of the Chaloners of Elizabeth's reign-Sir Thomas Chaloner, a distinguished chemist, in the boldest possible relief, and the more modest and retiring tablet which, adorned with a pile of Bibles on either side, records the virtues of the wife of Dr. Walker, a Puritan minister during the Commonwealth, who signalised his incumbency by the enlargement of the church, and by substituting the for the Prayer-book-down to the present century. Among them are monuments to such a cloud of peers and peeresses and honourables, as ought to gladden the heart of or himself. There is to a Duchess of Somerset; another to of the Burlingtons; or to the relatives of Sir Robert Walpole, all titled individuals; and another, very handsome of its kind, to of Nature's gentlemen, Thomas Bentley, the able and public-spirited partner of Josiah Wedgwood, who resided in the parish, and whose virtues it commemorates. Bentley lived in a large and substantial mansion in the high road leading from Hammersmith to Turnham Green, now (or lately) occupied by Mr. Vaughan Morgan. The bas-reliefs, of which he speaks so often in his correspondence with Wedgwood, still grace the walls of the house, which (if we except a few additions) is much in the same state as when owned by Bentley. | |
Garrick erected the monument in the chancel to his friend Charles Holland, the actor, who died at Chiswick House; and he also wrote the inscription. Charles Holland was the son of John Holland, a baker of Chiswick, where he was baptised . He was apprenticed to a turpentine merchant; but strongly imbued with a predilection for the stage, and praised for the display of that talent in his private circle, he applied to Garrick, who gave him good encouragement, but advised him This advice he followed; and under Garrick's auspices made his at , in , in the part of . He distinguished himself principally | |
551 | in the characters of in and in Holland was a zealous admirer and follower of Garrick; and, as a player, continued to advance in reputation. His last performance was the part of , in Shakespeare's ; and he died of the smallpox on following. His body was deposited in the family vault in Chiswick churchyard on the of the same month; and his funeral was attended by most of the performers belonging to . |
In the church, in the north wall of the chancel is raised a marble monument, on which is engraved the following inscription, in a circular compartment, surmounted by an admirable bust : A view of Holland's monument is given in Smith's
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Among the other parishioners buried in the church are several members of an old Berkshire family, the Barkers, whose name is still kept in memory by opposite Mortlake: a place well known to all oarsmen as the goal of the University boat-races. | |
The tower contains a peal of bells. The curfew was rung every evening at Chiswick as recently as years ago, when it was discontinued through the parsimony of the parishioners. The vestrymen of Chiswick appear to have shown either extreme precaution or else extremely aristocratic tendencies; for in (as we are told by a tablet on the wall of the church) they passed a resolution that henceforth no corpse should be interred in the vaults beneath the church unless buried in lead. | |
Chiswick churchyard holds the ashes of more than a fair sprinkling of those whose names have been inscribed on the roll of the Muses, or have achieved or inherited names illustrious in history. Space will permit us to speak of only a few. Here, then, lies the daughter of the Protector, Oliver Cromwell, Mary, Countess of Fauconberg. She was married at in , and resided at . In person, as we learn from Noble's she is said to have been handsome, and yet to have resembled her father. In the decline of her life she grew sickly and pale, and after seeing all the hopes of her family cut off by her father's death, she is said to have exerted such influence as she possessed for the restoration of Monarchy. She bore the character of a pious and virtuous woman, and constantly attended divine service in Chiswick Church to the day of her death. | |
Here, too, were buried Lord Macartney, our Ambassador to China, and Ugo Foscolo, the Italian patriot. The tomb of the latter, restored and surmounted by a fine block of Cornish granite in , at the expense of Mr. Gurney, was visited, during his stay in England, by Garibaldi, who made a pilgrimage to it, in company with M. Panizzi, at an hour when few of the good people of Chiswick were out of their beds. After reposing here for nearly half a century, the body of Ugo Foscolo was disinterred and conveyed to his native country, as is duly recorded by a recent inscription on the tomb, which is as follows:--
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Ugo Foscolo's was of the few great names in Italian literature in the present century. He was a native of Zante, of Venetian extraction, and was educated at Padua. After some adventures in the army, he devoted himself to literature, and was remarkable for the terseness and polish of his Italian style. He had studied the finest and best writers of Greece and Italy down to those of the Middle Ages inclusively. Admiring Alfieri beyond all others, he imitated him in keeping as close as possible to the severe style of Dante. Coming to England with good introductions, he might have supported himself in comfort, had it not been for his irritable temper, which was rendered worse by pecuniary losses. He obtained the of Holland House, but took a great dislike to its mistress, saying that He lived in lodgings in , made the acquaintance of Rogers, Campbell, and the rest of the literary clique, and contributed to the and other periodicals. He was also the author of
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552 | of many other works, the merits of which can be appreciated only by Italian scholars. He died in . In the year , as stated above, his remains were disinterred and carried over to his beloved Italy. Peace to his ashes! In spite of his rudeness to Lady Holland, he was in many ways of Nature's true nobility. |
Another noted individual who reposes here is Miles Corbet, the regicide, who died at the age of . Then there is Barbara Villiers, Duchess of Cleveland, fairest and gayest of the fair but frail beauties of the Court of the Charles: this lady was the daughter of William, Viscount Grandison, and wife of Roger Palmer, Earl of Castlemaine, of the Palmers of Wingham, Kent, and of Dorney Court, Bucks. | |
De Loutherbourg, the artist and magnetiser, of whom we have spoken in the preceding chapter; and Dr. William Rose, critic and journalist, the translator of Sallust, and both lie buried here. Among Dr. Rose's visitors, it appears, were many, if not most, of the of the day. J. J. Rousseau | |
took lodgings in Chiswick, during his brief stay in England, in order to be near him; and there is recorded in Faulkner's an anecdote of another visitor of very opposite principles, Dr. Samuel Johnson, who, as we learn from Boswell, often came to Chiswick. day, being invited by his host to take a stroll as far as Kew Gardens, at that time in the possession, if not in the actual occupation, of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and subsequently of the Princess Dowager and family, he replied to Rose, a tolerably convincing illustration, if be needed, of the great lexicographer's Jacobite partialities being still unabated at a time when the crushing defeat of Culloden was still rankling in the minds and memories of all adherents of the exiled family. | |
Another distinguished man whose remains are interred here was Dr. Andrew Duck, an eminent civilian, who died at Chiswick in . He was some time Chancellor of the diocese of Bath and Wells, and afterwards Chancellor of London, and subsequently Master of the Court of Requests. In he was elected member for Minehead in Somersetshire, and when the Civil War broke out | |
553 | he became a great sufferer for the royal cause. Among other works, Dr. Duck was the author of a book entitled
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Kent, the father of modern gardening, lies buried in the vault of the Cavendishes. He was the Paxton of the last century. Horace Walpole says of him, He frequently declared that he caught his taste for landscape gardening from reading the picturesque descriptions of the poet Spenser. Mason, who notices his mediocrity as a painter, pays the following tribute to his excellence in the decoration of rural scenery :
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| Kent, as may be judged from the above estimates, though a -rate painter, and a moderate architect, was at the same time an admirable landscape gardener. Another worthy who reposes here is William Sharp, well-known in his day as a line-engraver, to whom we are indebted for the reproduction of Sir Joshua Reynolds's portrait of John Hunter, considered to be of the finest prints in existence. Born in the in the year , and early trained in copying by his art the works of the old masters, he would in due time have proved himself a -rate artist, had he not devoted the best years of his life to the delusions and imposture of Joanna Southcott and | |
554 | the Brothers, whose portrait he engraved in duplicate, in the full belief that when the New Jerusalem arrived a single plate would not suffice to satisfy the demand for impressions! At the foot of each plate he added the words, It is only fair to add that he maintained his belief in these delusions down to his very last hour. Besides the portraits above mentioned, Sharp's principal works include, after Guido; the after Guido; and after Domenichino. He also engraved the after Vandyck; after Turnbull; and the after Copley. The plate of the after Annibal Carracci, was left unfinished at the time of his decease, which took place at Chiswick in . A portrait of Sharp painted by Longdale, was exhibited at the Royal Academy in , and was purchased by the trustees of the National Portrait Gallery. |
There are also buried here Judith, Lady Thornhill, the widow of Sir James Thornhill, the painter of the ceilings of Blenheim and Greenwich, and of the dome of ; her daughter, married to the immortal Hogarth; a sister of Hogarth; and last, not least, the great caricaturist himself, William Hogarth, to whose memory a large and conspicuous monument, erected by Garrick, stands in the churchyard, on the south side of the church, surmounted with a brazen flame like that on the top of the Monument at . The inscription on the tomb is as follows:--
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The inscription was written by Garrick himself. The monument is adorned also with a mask, a laurel-wreath, a palette, pencils, and a book inscribed
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Dr. C. Mackay, in his interesting volume entitled from which we have frequently quoted during the progress of this work, criticises the inscription on Hogarth's tomb in rather severe terms, remarking that and that, consequently, He adds, however, that
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writes Mrs. Piozzi, Johnson's stanzas were, it seems, only an alteration of those written by Garrick, as will be seen from the following letter which appears in Boswell's of the great doctor, as addressed by him to the great actor at the time when the inscription was in contemplation:--
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Hogarth died on . The very day before he died he was removed from his villa at Chiswick to Leicester Fields, we are told, To Hogarth's tomb is appended a short notice to the effect that it was restored, in , by a Mr. William Hogarth of Aberdeen, who, no doubt, was glad to give this proof of his connection with so distinguished a personage. | |
Carey, the translator of Dante, resided at Chiswick in Hogarth's house, and lies buried in the churchyard close under the south wall of the chancel. His monument was a few years ago rescued from oblivion, and restored at the expense of the vicar, who carefully inclosed it with iron railings. | |
It would appear from the parish books also, that Joseph Miller, of facetious memory, and who was a comic actor of considerable merit, lies buried here. He was for many years an inhabitant of Strand-on-the-Green, in this parish, where he died at his own house, according to the , on the . But it is always said that he was buried in St. Clement Danes. Near him sleeps James Ralph, well known as a political writer, and a friend of Franklin. He published some poems ridiculed by Pope in the
If his poems were not good, at all events his political tracts showed great ability, and he was in high favour with Frederick, Prince of Wales. | |
It is worthy of remark that the church and churchyard cover the remains of a considerable number of Roman Catholics, including, among many members of old English and Irish families, some of the Towneleys of Towneley, Mr. Chideock Wardour, &c. The Towneleys, we may add, owned a house in the village on the site of the former residence of the Earls of Bedford. In , and again in , the churchyard was enlarged by the addition of ground at its western extremity, the gifts of successive Dukes of Devonshire, as parishioners. | |
On the outside of the wall of the churchyard, on the north-east, facing the street, is the following curious inscription, which is of interest as showing the sacredness of consecrated ground centuries ago. It takes much the same view as that expressed at such length by Sir Henry Spelman in his book, : Beneath this inscription is a tablet setting forth that the wall was rebuilt in . | |
The churchwardens' books, commencing with the year , contain a variety of curious and interesting entries. is a constantly recurring item; so frequent, indeed, and occasionally so costly, that on occasion the good vicar was scandalised, and adds a foot-note, Another frequent item is that of (hire), for parochial excursions; in place we read of . confirmed. We find also frequently large fees paid and in - the books contain, , an account of the Great Plague, and of the sanitary measures adopted by the parish. Among other curious precautions, it should be mentioned that a resolution was passed by the parish that all loose and stray dogs and cats are to be killed for fear of conveying the infection, and that the poor bedesmen are to nurse
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Then there are sundry entries concerning a supposed antidote to the plague, but which does not appear to have proved an infallible elixir, for in more than instance we read an entry of for A or B, when the next page has a charge for carrying the said A or B to church. Other sums are charged as paid to
and In occurs a charge . after it had been occupied by the London who were quartered within its walls, and took part in the battle fought on Turnham Green between Prince Rupert and the Parliamentary forces. The records of fast-days, and of revels, feasts, bellringings, and tar-barrels on festive occasions paid out of the church rates-., for --show that Chiswick took an active part in the politics of the age. The books during the half of the last century contain several curious entries of rewards paid to the beadles for driving away out of the parish sundry poor women, who came into its aristocratic precincts in a condition which showed that they were likely to add to the population, and so to entail charges on the parishioners. To account for the disappearance of all earlier registers, it is said, but upon what authority | |
556 | we know not, that when the Protector quartered his troops in the church, he and his soldiers tore up those documents to light the fires, and for other and viler purposes. We may add that although there is a tradition that Lady Fauconberg got possession of her father's body at the Restoration, and deposited it carefully here; and although Miss Strickland, in of her biographies, mentions a report that the real child of James II. died of and was buried at Chiswick, no traces of any entry of such burials are to be found in the parish records. [extra_illustrations.6.556.1] |
But Chiswick has been remarkable for other celebrated persons who have lived in it. Amongst those of whom we have not already spoken, excepting with reference to their graves in the churchyard, may be mentioned Sir Stephen Fox, the friend of Evelyn, who occupied the , now the asylum kept by Dr. Tuke; Dr. Busby, of scholastic fame; Pope, who resided for a time in Mawson's Buildings (now Mawson Row); the notorious Barbara, Duchess of Cleveland; Lord Fauconberg, the Protector's son-in-law; the Pastons, ancient Earls of Yarmouth; Sir John Chardin, the traveller; Lord Heathfield, the defender of Gibraltar; Lord Macartney, our Ambassador in China; Hogarth, Zoffany, and Loutherbourg, the painters; Holland, the actor, and friend of Garrick; Dr. Rose, the translator of Sallust; Carey, the translator of Dante; Sharp, the engraver; and Carpue, the anatomist. Thomas Wood, another resident of Chiswick, was immortalised by an epigram, written in Evelyn's by Pope's own hand:
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The above lines were communicated to , , by the Rev. R. Hotchkin, rector of Thimbleby, from a copy once in the possession of Mason, the poet. | |
At a short distance north-west of the church, in a narrow and dirty lane leading towards entrance to the grounds of Chiswick House, still stands the red-bricked house which was once occupied by Hogarth, and still bears his name. The house is very narrow from front to back; end abuts on the road; but the front of it, which apparently is in much the same condition now as when Hogarth lived, looks into a closed and high-walled garden of about a quarter of an acre, in which a prominent object is a fine mulberry-tree planted by the painter's own hand. At the bottom of the garden stood till recently the workshop in which he used to ply his art, secluded and alone. Hard by against the wall were formerly memorials in stone to his favourite dog, cat, and bullfinch. That over the dog was inscribed- and on that of the bird was the memorial over the grave of the cat disappeared many years ago. The memorials above mentioned remained upon the grounds till quite recently, it being in the agreement when the house was let that they should not be disturbed; their position, however, had long been changed. For some time they were covered over with concrete, to serve as the flooring of a pigsty; but in the end they were carried away, and the bones of Hogarth's were disinterred. Hogarth's residence is now a private dwelling-house, and the garden is tenanted by a florist. leaden urns which adorn the entrance to the house were the gift of David Garrick to his friend. | |
Mr. Tom Taylor thus describes Hogarth's house, as it was in :--
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It was here that Hogarth used to spend the summers of his later life, enjoying the fresh air and green fields, which in his time were more extensive than they are now, although Chiswick has been less over-built than most of the London suburbs, and still retains much of its old-world character. Besides his favourite amusement of riding, the artist used to occupy himself in painting and in superintending the engravers whom he often invited down from London. And to his Chiswick cottage he came, after his bitter quarrel with Wilkes and Churchill, bringing some plates for re-touching. He was cheerful, but weak, and must have felt that his end was not far off, when in , he put the last touches to his His prints now filled a large volume; and as the story | |
557 | goes, at of the last dinners which he gave he was talking of a final addition to them. |
Hogarth was then not in the best of health, and in reply to of his guests as to what his next picture was to be, he remarked,
said of the party,
said Hogarth, with a sigh; however, he began his design the next day, and worked at it till it was finished. A strange and yet impressive grouping of objects have we there--a broken bottle, an old broom worn to the stump, the butt-end of an old musket, a cracked bell, a bow unstrung, an empty purse, a crown tumbled to pieces, towers in ruins, the sign-post of a tavern called the the moon in her wane, the map of fhe globe burning, a gibbet falling and the body dropping down, Phoebus and his horses dead in the clouds, a vessel wrecked, Time with his hour-glass and scythe broken, a tobacco-pipe in his mouth with the last whiff of smoke going out, a play-book opened with stamped in the corner. cried Hogarth; as he dashed into the picture the broken painter's pallet; it was his last performance. | |
Passing on a few steps farther, we come to a plain house, in the garden of which stands Hogarth's portable sun-dial, duly authenticated. In the same house Hogarth's arm-chair, made of cherrywood, and seated with leather. The latter is much decayed, and of the arms is wormeaten, but the rest is sound and good. | |
This chair, in which Hogarth used to sit and smoke his pipe, was given by the painter's widow to the present owner's grandfather, who was a martyr to the gout. It moves very easily on primitive stone castors, in number. To this same individual Mrs. Hogarth offered to sell a quantity of her late husband's pictures for ; but the bargain was never concluded, and his paintings were eventually dispersed. | |
The principal street of Chiswick is a narrow, winding thoroughfare, running at right angles from the river, close by the church. In the middle of the village is the Griffin Brewery, where, aided by the medicinal virtues of a spring of their own, Messrs. Fuller, Smith, and Turner produce ales in no way inferior to those of Bass and Allsopp; and not far distant is the brewery of Messrs. Sich and Co., a firm perhaps equally well known. | |
, as we have stated above, overlooks the river, and commands beautiful and extensive views. It commences at the vicarage, and extends eastward towards the terrace at Hammersmith, with which it forms a continuous promenade. About half-way along is an old publichouse, the which has stood upwards of a century: it is a large house, and some of the rooms and fireplaces bear evident traces of its antiquity. Chained to the lintel of the door is an old whetstone, which was placed there a few years ago, on the demolition of a still older inn which stood next door, on the spot now occupied by the new store-rooms of the Griffin Brewery. This older hostelry bore the sign of the The stone itself, which has been handed over to the safe keeping of the bears the following inscription, cut upon it in deep letters :-- As originally cut, the number of years was evidently ioo; the figure is clearly a more recent addition. From the tool-sharpening operation that has been carried on, a portion of the stone is considerably worn away, and with it part of the inscription, which, we were informed by an old inhabitant, ran thus:-- Of the ludicrous uses to which a whetstone may sometimes be put we have given an amusing instance in our account of Fulham Palace. | |
A little to the east of the on the spot now occupied by a row of modern semidetached villas, stood formerly a building called the College House, which was originally the prebendal manor-house of Chiswick, of which we have spoken above. In it was held by Dr. Gabriel Goodman, Dean of ( of Fuller's ), who granted a lease of the manor, in trust, for years, to William Watter and George Burden, that they should within years convey the farm to the Abbey Church of . In this lease it was stipulated that the lessee From that time down to a comparatively recent date a piece of ground was reserved (in the lease to the sub-lessee) as a play-place for the scholars, although it is not known that the school was ever removed to Chiswick since the time of Dr. Busby, who resided here with some of his scholars, in , In , when the plague commenced in town, Dr. Busby removed his scholars to Chiswick. But it spread its baneful influence even to this place. Upon this Dr. Busby called his scholars together, and in an excellent oration acquainted them that he had presided over the school for years, in which time he had never hitherto deserted ; but that the exigencies of the time required it now. At the end of the last century, according to Lysons, the names of Lord Halifax and John Dryden, who were Busby's scholars, could be seen written on the walls of this interesting old house. When Hughson published his (in ), the old College House was occupied as an academy. In more recent times the premises were taken by Mr. C. Whittingham, who here set up that printing-press which subsequently turned out so many beautifully-printed octavos and duodecimos, embracing nearly the whole range of English literature. Mr. Whittingham built for himself extensive premises at Chiswick, where he manufactured paper, the reputation of which soon spread, owing to its strength, and yet its softness. This was made principally from old rope, by a | |
process of his own devising. Whittingham commenced business on a small scale in , but ultimately he realised a handsome income from the
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The old house, which in its latter days was known as Chiswick Hall, having been disposed of, was finally demolished in , when the lower part of the walls, which had been embedded in stones and wood-work, was found to be of great thickness. Some part ot the old boundary-walls are still standing. The old materials having been used in the alterations carried out in the century, there can be no doubt that the fragments found embedded in the walls were from the earlier building, and possibly of Norman origin. | |
Here, probably at Walpole House, on , Barbara, Duchess of Cleveland, spent the last few years of her life. Here, in the summer of , says Boyer, she She died , in the year above mentioned, and was buried in the chancel of the parish church, though no stone marks the spot. The pall of this mistress of | |
559 560 | royalty was borne by Knights of the Garter, the Dukes of Ormond and Hamilton, and foul other peers of the realm, Lords Essex, Grantham, Lifford, and Berkeley of Stratton. At Walpole House Daniel O'Connell resided for several years while he was studying for the law. |
In , the road leading from up to the Kew and , lived Dr. Rose, a pupil of Doddridge, and a schoolmaster of repute. He kept an academy at Kew, where Dr. Johnson came to take tea. Sometimes Rose would be unavoidably absent, and Johnson drank cup after cup, condescending to say little to Mrs. R., as she tells us, except, Dr. Rose, as we have stated above, lies buried in the neighbouring churchyard. | |
Another resident was Dr. Ralph, a political writer and historian, who appears in Bubb Dodington's Diary to have been long in the confidence and service of the clique at Leicester House. | |
In the quiet village was frighted from its propriety by the arrival of the celebrated Rousseau, who took lodgings at a small grocer's shop near the house of Dr. Rose. says a writer in the Caldwell papers, At time Edward Moore, the journalist, lived here. Originally a linen-draper, he became the author of the tragedy of , forgotten comedies, a collection of periodical essays; and was for some time editor of the . He was in the habit of attending Chiswick Church, and as the tale goes, his wife called him to account Sunday for having been very inattentive during the service. Moore at once remarked,
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On the west side of is Mawson Row-formerly called Mawson's Buildings--a row of red-brick houses, in number. Alexander Pope and his father lived here for a short time. They removed thither early in , from Binfield, the place of the poet's birth; and left Chiswick for the more famous residence at Twickenham about the year . The elder Pope, who died here in , lies buried in Chiswick churchyard. Portions of the original drafts of the translation of the on which Pope was engaged at this period, and which are preserved in the , are written upon the backs of letters to Pope and his father, addressed, Among the writers of these letters appear to be Lord Harcourt, and Teresa Blount. | |
Higher up stands the old , which was once inhabited by the lords of the manor, and has all the imposing exterior of a French . It is now a private lunatic asylum. At the junction of the lane with the high road is Grosvenor House, an old-fashioned mansion, which, since , has been occupied as St. Agnes' Orphanage for Girls. | |
At a short distance westward from lies the hamlet of Turnham Green, which connects the parish of Hammersmith with that of Chiswick, to which it belongs. abuts upon the main road, and is enclosed; and in the centre stands a church of Early-English architecture, which was erected in , when the hamlet was made into an ecclesiastical district. | |
Without going back to mythical times,--to speak of a certain battle which is stated to have been fought here in the British or Saxon times, and without inferring, as does Stukeley, that it was a Roman station simply because an urn of Roman manufacture was dug up here during the reign of George I., we may state that Turnham Green in its time has been the scene of sundry historic events. Here, in , Prince Rupert encamped with his army; and on the day of the the green witnessed some sharp skirmishing, no less than of the prince's cavaliers being left dead on the field. The Royalists--headed by Prince Rupert, and followed by King Charles-after leaving Oxford, and making their way through Abingdon, Henley, and other towns, had reached as far as Brentford, which was occupied by a broken regiment of Colonel Hollis's, but The Royalists, it appears, fancied that they should cut their way through Brentford without any difficulty, go on to Hammersmith, where the Parliament's train of artillery lay, and then take London by a night assault. But Hollis's men opposed their passage, and stopped their march so long at Brentford that the regiments of Hampden and Lord Brooke had time to come up. These regiments, not without great loss, completely barred the road. The Earl of Essex, having quartered his army at Acton, had ridden to to give the Parliament an account of his campaign, and while he was absent, Prince Rupert, taking advantage of a dense November fog, had advanced, and fallen unexpectedly upon the Roundheads. The roar of the artillery was heard in the , and the Earl of Essex | |
561 | rushed out of the house, mounted his horse, and galloped across the parks in the direction of the ominous sound. As he approached Brentford, the earl learned, to his astonishment, the trick which had been played; he had gathered a considerable force of horse as he rode along, and when he came to the spot he found that the Royalists had given over the attack and were lying quietly on the western side of Brentford. says May, Essex found himself, in the course of this Sunday, at the head of men, who were drawn up in battle array on Turnham Green. How the Royalists took themselves off again to Oxford, by way of Kingston Bridge, is recorded in history; and how the Earl of Essex went in pursuit, crossing over the Thames by a bridge of boats from Fulham to Putney, we have already told. |
Turnham Green was to have been the scene of the Jacobite plot to assassinate William III. on the , as recorded by Macaulay in the chapter of his history. he writes, For their complicity in this plot, gentlemen, named Charnock, Keyes, King, Sir John Frend, Sir William Parkyns, and Sir John Fenwick, were tried, and executed on . The spot is still easily identified. In his under date , Macaulay has an entry:
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A pamphlet, published in , furnishes details of another sanguinary encounter, on a smaller scale, which took place here; the pamphlet is entitled
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In , Mr. Alderman Sawbridge, then Lord Mayor, met with a mishap here. Crossing the green, on his way back from a state visit to royalty at Kew, his carriage and suite were stopped by a single highwayman; even the City sat still and submitted to see himself and the chief civic dignitary stripped of their valuables. It is said that when the highwayman had thus outraged the City magnates, he rode off towards Kew, and meeting the vicar on the way, made him deliver up his valuables, and among other things his written sermon! | |
But. even Turnham Green has its amusing memories. Angelo, in his tells a good story, the scene of which he lays here.
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Like its neighbour Hammersmith, Turnham Green has numbered among its residents a few men of note in their day; among them, Lord Lovat, the Scottish rebel, and the hero of Gibraltar, Sir George Eliott, Lord Heathfield. | |
The old has been a well-known tavern at Turnham Green for a couple of centuries; it is mentioned in an advertisement in the as far back as the year . Here Horace Walpole used often to bait his horse when journeying between London and his favourite Strawberry Hill. The as Mr. Larwood tells us, in his was a common sign for posting inns in former times: and it certainly points back to a very primitive mode of travelling. Another old inn, but which has disappeared within the last few years, was the a name already made familiar to our readers in our account of . | |
The locality of Turnham Green has long been famous for its gardens and nurseries. Almost the very last entry in John Evelyn's relates to | |
562 | this place; he writes, under date :--
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Mr. Glendinning's nursery here has long been in existence as the Chiswick Nursery, and it is said that heaths were cultivated here almost earlier than in any of the metropolitan establishments of this kind. Of late years this nursery has greatly risen in character, and is still constantly improving. New houses have been erected, a wider range of plant-culture has been taken, and a considerable interest is made to attach to it on account of the spirit and enterprise with which new plants are procured, and the successful manner in which they are flowered. | |
The following epitaph on Jemmy Armstrong, a sheriff's officer, who died in , at his villa on Turnham Green, commonly known by the name of will be found in for :--
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From Turnham Green, a broad road lined with lime-trees, and known as the Duke's New Roadfrom the fact of its having been made by the late Duke of Devonshire-leads to Chiswick House, of the many seats of his Grace. In the year of King Edward IV., Baldwin Bray, whose ancestors were settled here for many generations, conveyed the lease of the to Thomas Coveton and others; and during the civil war this manor was sequestered to the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of London. In the lease came into the hands of Thomas, Earl of Fauconberg, whose son's greatnephew, Thomas Fowler, Viscount Fauconberg, assigned it about the year to Richard, Earl of Burlington. After the Earl's death, the lease was renewed to the Duke of Devonshire, who married his daughter and sole heir. The other, or prebendal manor, is still in the hands of the Weatherstone family. | |
The mansion stands near the site of an old house, which, it is said, was built by Sir Edward Warden, or Wardour, but which was pulled down in , and by Kip's print of it seems to have been of the date of James I. Towards the latter end of that king's reign, it certainly was the property and residence of Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset, whose abandoned Countess died there in misery and disgrace. The Earl, who was a partaker in her crimes, survived her many years, but was never able to retrieve his broken fortunes and dishonoured name. On the marriage of his daughter, Lady Ann, with Lord Russell,* he was obliged to mortgage his house at Chiswick to make up the marriage portion which the Earl of Bedford demanded with his wife, and the mortgage never being paid off, the estate passed away into other hands, from whom again it passed through several changes into the possession of Boyle, Earl of Burlington, above mentioned. Faulkner, in his remarks that
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The house, which is almost hidden from our view by the tall cedars and other trees among which it stands embowered, was erected by the last Earl of Burlington--the as he is called--in the reign of George II., from a design by Palladio; and it is a standing proof of the skill and taste of the noble designer, though its merits have been variously estimated. | |
The ascent to the house is by a double flight of steps, on side of which is the statue of Palladio, on the other that of Inigo Jones. The portico is supported by fluted columns, of the Corinthian order, surmounted by a pediment; the cornice, frieze, and architraves being as rich as possible. Inside this is an octagonal saloon, which finishes at the top in a dome, through which it is lighted. The interior of the structure is finished with the utmost elegance; the ceilings and mouldings are richly gilt, upon a white ground, giving a chaste air to the whole interior. The principal rooms are embellished with books, splendidly bound, and so arranged as to appear not an encumbrance but ornament. The tops of the book-cases are covered with white marble, edged with gilt borders. | |
are laid out in the taste, the vistas terminated by a temple, obelisk, or some similar ornament, so as to produce the most agreeable effect. At the end opposite the house are wolves by Scheemakers; the other exhibits a | |
563 | large lioness and a goat. The view is terminated by fine antique statues, dug up in Adrian's garden at Rome, with stone seats between them. Along the ornamental waters we are led to an inclosure, where are a Roman temple and an obelisk; and on its banks stands an exact model of the portico of , Covent Garden, the work of Inigo Jones. The pleasure-grounds and park include about acres, together with an orangery, conservatory, and range of forcinghouses feet in length. |
Horace Walpole, being a , must needs find fault with something. He desired that the lavish quantity of urns and statues behind the garden front should be and this might be desirable if these urns and statues were not exquisite gems of art, and individually of great beauty and value, demanding a more undivided attention than would be given them if considered merely as ornamental appendages to the grounds. The bronze statues of the Gladiator, Hercules with his club, and the Faun, are worthy a place in any gallery. colossal statues, removed hither from Rome, although mutilated, are very fine, as are also the profusion of minor marbles scattered throughout the grounds. Nothing can be more exquisite than the taste that presides over the Versailles in little. The lofty walls of clipped yew, inclosing alleys terminated by rustic temples; the formal flower-garden, with walks converging towards a common centre, where a marble copy of the Medicean Venus woos you from the summit of a graceful Doric column; the labyrinthic involution of the walks, artfully avoiding the limits of the demesne, and deceiving you as to its real extent; the artificial water, with its light and elegant bridge, gaily painted barges, and wildfowl disporting themselves on its glassy surface; the magnificent cedars feathering to the ground; the temples and obelisk, happily situate on the banks of the river, or embowered in wildernesses of wood; the breaks of landscapes, where no object is admitted but such as the eye delights to dwell upon; the moving panorama of the Thames removed to that happy distance where the objects on its surface glide along like shadow the absolute seclusion of the scene, almost within the hum of a great city, make this seat of the Duke of Devonshire a little earthly paradise. The house, notwithstanding Lord Hervey's sarcasm (who said that it was ), is a worthy monument of the genius and taste of the noble architect. Nowhere in the vicinity of London have wealth and judginent been so happily united; nowhere in the neighbourhood of the metropolis have we so complete an example of the capabilities of the Italian or classic style of landscape gardening. | |
of the principal objects of interest in the garden is an arched gateway, designed by Inigo Jones, which was originally erected at , on the premises which once belonged to the great Sir Thomas More, but were afterwards known as Beaufort House, from being occupied by the head of that family. The gate subsequently belonged to Sir Hans Sloane, but as he neglected it Lord Burlington begged it from him. Its removal hither occasioned the following lines by Pope :
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Again, it will be remembered that in his poem on Thomson thus apostrophizes Lord Burlington :
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Dr. Waagen, who visited Chiswick House for the special purpose of art criticism, reports in his that he adds, Among the pictures are several of Vandyke, Gaspar Poussin, Paul Veronese, Titian, Tintoretto, C. Maratti, Sir Godfrey Kneller, Cornelius Jansen, Holbein, &c., and very exquisite miniature portrait of Edward VI., after Holbein, by Peter Oliver, son of Isaac Oliver, of the favourite painters of Charles I. Perhaps the finest of all the paintings is of Charles I. and his children, by Vandyke, as to which it is uncertain whether it is a duplicate or the original of the picture in Her Majesty's collection at Windsor. Another | |
564 | celebrated picture is by J. Van Eyck, which Horace Walpole mentions in his book on painting in England- as representing in the figures which it contains several members of Lord Clifford's family (from whom the Earl of Burlington was maternally descended); though the statement was controverted at considerable length by an eminent antiquary and genealogist in the for . |
Among the other articles of in Chiswick House is a present from the late Emperor of Russia to the late Duke of Devonshire; a magnificent clock in a case of malachite, surmounted with a representation of the Emperor, Peter the Great, in a storm, who is standing in a boat, with his hand upon the helm, in a firm and defiant attitude. The boat itself, which is about a foot long, is of bronze. | |
The grounds of Chiswick House were considerably enlarged by the late Duke of Devonshire. In Miss Berry's under date of , is the following entry respecting them:-- | |
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In the Emperor Alexander I. of Russia and the other allied sovereigns visited the Duke of Devonshire here, and the open-air entertainments which were given at Chiswick by the duke in subsequent years were among the chief attractions of the Sir Walter Scott, in his , tells us how that, after paying a visit to the Duke of Wellington, he drove to Chiswick, where he had never been before. | |
565 | he adds, This elephant occupied a paddock near the house; her intelligence, docility, and affection were remarkable; she died in the year . [extra_illustrations.6.565.1] |
In , Her Majesty and the late Prince Consort visited his grace at Chiswick; and in the month of , the duke gave here a magnificent entertainment to the Emperor (Nicholas) of Russia, the King of Saxony, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, and about of the nobility and gentry. | |
It may be added that several of the finest trees in these gardens were planted by royal hands, to commemorate the visits of the Emperor Nicholas, | |
| Queen Victoria, and other sovereigns and illustrious persons to the head of the ducal house of Cavendish. | |
Chiswick has witnessed the death of more than political celebrity. At the end of , the great statesman, Charles James Fox, was in his last illness removed to the Duke of Devonshire's villa, where he died a fortnight later. The bed-chamber which he occupied opens into the Italian saloon, and before the window grew a mountain-ash, which appears to have been to him an object of great interest. | |
The following anecdotes rest upon the authority of Samuel Rogers :--
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Undoubtedly, Fox was a great orator. Horace Walpole wrote:-- Burke once called him and Mackintosh described him as
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years afterwards there came hither to die, in the same villa and the same room, and nearly at the same age, the classic and witty and brilliant George Canning. He died on the . The apartment in which the statesmen breathed their last is thus sketched by Sir Henry Bulwer (Lord Dalling), in his :--
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Of late years Chiswick House has been used as a suburban nursery for the children of the Prince and Princess of Wales; and occasionally, during the summer season, the Prince and Princess have taken up their residence here, and given gardenparties, which have perhaps even excelled in brilliancy those given in former years. | |
Corney House, which was pulled down in , originally belonged to the Russell family, who were seated here at the commencement of the century. In Queen Elizabeth paid a visit to its then owner, William, Lord Russell, whose son Francis, Earl of Bedford, afterwards lived here, and took an interest in the concerns of the parish, as is evident from the inscription on the churchyard wall already mentioned. The house was for some time the residence of the Earl Macartney; but, like most of the property in the immediate neighbourhood of Chiswick House, it has passed into the hands of the Duke of Devonshire. On the demolition of the mansion the grounds were added to those of Chiswick House; its name, however, is preserved in Corney Reach, a bend of the river between Chiswick and Mortlake Bridge, which has become familiarized in aquatic annals in connection with the University boat-race. | |
It appears by the Court Rolls that Sir Stephen Fox, in the year , purchased a copyhold estate at Chiswick, on which he built a mansion, which he made his principal residence after he had retired from public business. William III. was so pleased with it that he is said to have exclaimed to the Earl of Portland on his visit, --a compliment which he never paid to any other place in England except Lord Exeter's mansion at Burleigh. The staircase of Sir Stephen Fox's house was painted by Verrio. , as we learn from Evelyn's (), were laid out by the architect, whose name was May:-- he quaintly adds, Sir Stephen Fox, who died in , was the father of Henry, Lord Holland, and grandfather of Charles James Fox. | |
In , the gardens of the Horticultural Society were established on that part of the grounds of Chiswick House lying between the mansion and Turnham Green. Up to this time, few of the inhabitants of London even visited the village; but when the Horticultural Fetes were held here Chiswick achieved some notoriety: it rose to be a place of popular resort, and had even its steamboat pier. | |
Other attractions, however, sprang up and threw Chiswick into the shade; and when, as we have stated in a previous volume, the head-quarters of the Horticultural Society were removed to South Kensington, the visitors to Chiswick became with the solitary exception of the day of the University boat-race, when the Chiswick bank of the Thames annually receives its moiety of eager and expectant sight-seers. | |
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The Horticultural Society's grounds are now used as nursery and fruit gardens, for the culture of the seeds and rare plants collected by the society from all parts of the world; as a school of horticulture; and for raising plants and flowers for the conservatory and gardens at South Kensington, and for distribution among the Fellows of the Society. The number of plants transferred from Chiswick to South Kensington up to , was nearly . | |
Footnotes: [extra_illustrations.6.549.1] Ice on Thames near Chiswick [extra_illustrations.6.550.1] parish church [] See ante, p. 545. [] See Vol. V., pp. 212, 251. [] See ante, p. 180. [] See Vol. III., p. 167. [] See Vol. III., p. 30. [extra_illustrations.6.556.1] William Hogarth's Tomb [] See ante, p. 509. [] See Vol. III., p. 164. [] See ante, p. 502. [] See Vol. III., p. 37. [] See Vol. IV., p. 538. [] See Vol. V., p. 53. [extra_illustrations.6.565.1] Statue of Fox, Bloomsbury Square [] See ante, p. 555 [] See Vol. V., p. 116. |
