London, Volume 3
Knight, Charles
1842
LVIII. Blackfriars Bridge.
LVIII. Blackfriars Bridge.
In our account of we have shown the strenuous opposition offered by the City authorities to every proposal for that structure: it seems something strange, therefore, as well as amusing, to find their opinions undergo so sudden a change as is apparent in the history of their acts only years after its erection. About that time, finding no hapless victims in the shape of Westcountry bargemen had been drowned, and that the Thames, however it might sympathise in the civic feelings, had eschewed all violent proceedings, and rolled along with its burdens as placidly as ever beneath even the very arches; finding no news come that the Docks or the had performed the miracle predicted of them, an peared fine morning off , the City took the idea which had made the innovation seem so peculiarly terrible--the impossibility of saying where such proceedings would stop-grew less and less formidable; so all of a sudden it determined not merely to be even with its late antagonists, but to steal a march upon them: it very wisely resolved to have a new bridge of its own. This was towards the close of the year . We may imagine how the City's former coadjutors, in the course of things as they were, were confounded. It was not merely the great diminution of strength for opposition, but the quarter from whence the proposal came that was to be | |
114 |
opposed:--So, after gallant struggle in the enemy's own quarters in , when they obtained a favourable committee of the Common Council, who reported that the construction of a new bridge would prejudice the navigation, and be very injurious to the interests of the City, but whose report was condemned by a majority of to , their movements were but of a faint and melancholy character. They appear to have been led on this occasion by the Company of Watermen, who, when the proposed Act was before Parliament, once more mustered the West-country bargemen, now re-inforced by the market-gardeners, and a number of other witnesses, in order to make as goodly a show as possible in support of the allegations of its petition; which declared, as in the previous instances (with a constancy of purpose we cannot too much admire when we consider how peculiarly vexatious the had since proved), that all sorts of dangers to the navigation were to be apprehended. But the opposition had little of the warmth that had characterised the previous case: the Company was, in all probability, shrewd enough to see that the measure would be successful, but then another and more valuable Sunday ferry was about to be destroyed; so, as it was also shrewd enough to see the utility of a bold front, it demanded more than was expected, and was thus enabled to retire from the contest with a very handsome compensation. The Act passed in . of the reasons which induced the City to adopt this unexpected course was the dangerous condition of , and the possibility of its being shut up for a considerable period, of course to great and general inconvenience and loss. Another reason was the advantages anticipated from the increase of good houses, and consequent improvement in the value of the land around the extremities of the proposed bridge, which would tend to enable it the better to bear its quota of the land-tax ( the assessment of the whole kingdom). But the moving impulse, we suspect, is to be found in the jealousy of the growing prosperity of . In an able scheme for the general improvement of the City published in the year , and which is given at large in Maitland, the writer, in part, says, the business of erecting a new stone bridge; and, in another part, in enumerating the advantages of such a structure, says, The citizens determined that no blame for want of speed should apply to them; a few weeks after the appearance of this document proceedings were commenced. The spot chosen was a memorable in the history not only of London, but of our country generally. Often, no doubt, has the question arisen in the minds of persons unversed in metropolitan historical lore, as the appellation of the bridge they were crossing struck their attention, whence the nature of the connection between things raising ideas so strangely constrasted as monasteries and friars, and bridges, omnibuses and cabs? We can only answer |
115 | that was of the most magnificent of the great religious establishments which formed, at period, so marked a and that it has left to the locality a long train of the most interesting and important recollections, of which the name given to the district, the bridge, and the adjoining road, is now the only existing memorial. |
The order of Black Friars came into England in , the year of their founder Dominic de Guzman's death. Their house was at Oxford, their in London at , or Oldbourne, on the site now occupied by . The cause of their removal from thence does not appear; but in Gregory Rocksley, then mayor, in conjunction with the barons of the city, gave to Robert Kilwarby, Archbishop of Canterbury, a cardinal of Rome and an ecclesiastic, eminent not merely for his rank, for the erection of a house and church for the Black Friars; and there they settled. The materials of the Castle of Montfichet, which had been built by and derived its name from a relative and of the followers of the Conqueror, were used for the new church, which Kilwarby made a magnificent structure. A striking instance of the favours shown to the brotherhood was given in the permission of Edward I. for the taking down of the city wall from Ludgate (standing just above the end of the ) to the Thames for their accommodation, which had then to be rebuilt so as to include their buildings within its shelter. The expenses of this rebuilding and of a wherein the king might be to his ease and satisfaction in his comings there, were defrayed by a toll granted for years on various articles of merchandise. Nor did Edward's liberality rest here. Every kind of special privilege and exemption was granted to the house and the precincts. Persons could open shops here without being free of the City; malefactors flying from justice found sanctuary within the walls; and the inhabitants were governed by the prior and their own justices. | |
A surprising list of names of eminent personages is given by our historians as having been buried in the church of the Black Friars; and the circumstance is not to be wondered at if, as Pennant observes, Here lay the ashes of Hubert de Burgh, the great Earl of Kent, translated from the church at Oldbourne, and his wife Margaret, daughter of the King of Scotland; quoteueen Eleanor, whose heart alone was interred here, with that of Alphonso her son; John of Eltham, Duke of Cornwall, brother of Edward III.; Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, so distinguished for his intellectual accomplishments, who was beheaded in , of the victims to the wars of the Roses; Sir Thomas Brandon, , the uncle of the Duke of Suffolk, who took Henry VIII.'s beautiful sister Mary into France as the bride of the French king, and after the death of the latter, a few months later, brought her back as his own; Sir Thomas and Dame Parr, the parents of Henry VIII.'s last wife; and earls, knights, ladies, and other persons of rank too numerous to mention. But historical memories of still greater moment belong to the church of the Black Friars. Here, in , met that famous Parliament of Henry VI., in which his queen's favourite, Suffolk, was impeached, and was about to be tried, when by a manoeuvre | |
116 | previously arranged between him and the weak king, he preferred placing himself at
the disposal of Henry, by whom he was banished for years. Suffolk
hugged himself too soon on his escape. Encouraged by the general detestation in which he was
held, some of his rivals about the court most probably, (for it was never exactly known who,)
caused him to be waylaid as he was crossing from Dover to Calais by a great ship of war, the
captain of which greeted his appearance on his deck with the significant salutation
days after he was, as is well known, executed in a cock-boat by the ship's side. It is a startling illustration of a man's character, as well as of a time, to find no inquiry, much less punishment, following such an act. In this church another Parliament made itself noticeable by its daring to have a will of its own in opposition to that of VIII, when that monarch, in , demanded a subsidy of some to carry on his unmeaning wars in France, but was obliged to content himself with a grant cut down into much more reasonable limits. Of this Parliament Sir Thomas More was speaker, and to his honour be it said, that although he was a great personal favourite with the court, and treated there with extraordinary marks of respect and affection, he acted with admirable firmness and dignity both towards his overbearing royal master, and that master's equally overbearing servant, the Chancellor Wolsey. In answer to the latter's application, More thought it would not to receive the Chancellor as he desired, who accordingly came into the house with his maces, poleaxes, cross, hat, and great seal, and with a retinue which filled every vacant part of the place. But when Wolsey, after explaining his business, remained silent, expecting the discussion and business to proceed, he was surprised to find the assemblage silent too. He addressed of the members by name, who politely rose in acknowledgment, but sat down again without speaking: another member was addressed by Wolsey, but with no better success. |
At last the great Chancellor became impatient; and looking upon him who was to be his still greater successor, said, More immediately rose, and, with equal tact and courage, said the members were abashed at the sight of so great a personage, whose presence was sufficient to overwhelm the wisest and most learned men in the realm; but that that presence was neither expedient nor in accordance with the ancient liberties of the House. They were not bound to return any answer; and as to a reply from him (the Speaker) individually, it was impossible, as he could only act on the instructions' from the House. And so Wolsey found himself necessitated to depart. Although much modified, the demands of the King were still so heavy that the people were. dissatisfied. They were indeed greatly distressed, and no doubt thought the paying of any taxes to be but a dark piece of business: so, as the Parliament had commenced among the Black Friars, and ended among the Black Monks (at ), they kept the whole affair in their recollection by the name of the Black Parliament. | |
The next event, in the order of time, is of the deepest interest in the history | |
117 | of the place. It was here that, on the , Wolsey and his fellow Cardinal, Campeggio, appointed by the Pope
to act with him in the matter of the proposed divorce of Henry and Catherine, sat in judgment,
with the King on their right, and Catherine, accompanied by bishops,
on their left. When the King's name was called, he answered but the quoteueen remained silent when hers was pronounced. Then the citation being repeated, the unhappy quoteueen, rising in great anguish, ran to her husband, and prostrating herself before him, said, in language that would have deterred any less cruel and sensual |
nature from the infamous path he was pursuing, At the conclusion of a most admirable, womanly, and yet dignified address, she rose, left the court, and never entered it again. She died at Kimbolton in , heart-broken, but refusing to the last to renounce her rights and title of quoteueen. Even in that period, which so often awakes the injurer to a sense of the wrongs he has committed, and crowds into a few hours or days a world of unanticipated and then useless anguish, her royal husband remained consistent in cruelty, refusing her permission even to see her daughter once-but once before she died. of Catherine's judges had scarcely less reason than herself to remember that eventful day in the Black Friars. Wolsey, unable to prevail with Campeggio to give a decision at the time, seems to have been suspected by Anne Boleyn (then waiting the quoteueen's degradation to fill her place) to have acted but lukewarmly in the matter. Henry, too, had grown tired of his gorgeous Chancellor, and began to think of the value of his trappings. To sum up shortly the result: in that same Black Friars, where he had endeavoured to bully Parliament, the sentence of was passed against him by another; and the man who had there sat in judgment upon Catherine, and been throughout the chief instrument in Henry's hands to doom that noble and virtuous lady to a lingering death, found that day's proceedings the immediate cause of his own downfall, and still speedier dissolution. The blow which Catherine's innocence, and moral fortitude and pious resignation, enabled her for a time to bear up against, killed Wolsey at once. | |
Such are the chief historical recollections of the great House of the Black Friars. There are some minor matters connected with its history, which are also deserving of notice, as bearing indirectly on the subject of our paper. The privileges before mentioned, it appears, produced continual heart-burnings between the city and the inhabitants of the favoured part, and violent quarrels were the consequences. We have an illustration of the feelings which prevailed in the circumstance that of the priors having found himself obliged to pave the streets without the wall joining to the precinct, and a cage or small prison being afterwards there set up by the city, the prior pulled it down, saying, At the dissolution, Bishop Fisher, who held it , resigned the house to the king. The revenues were valued at the very moderate sum of The prior's lodgings and the hall were granted to Sir Francis Bryan in . We need scarcely add that these, with the church, and all the old privileges, have long since been swept away; although in a protracted, and for a time successful, struggle was maintained for the latter, by the inhabitants both of the Black and the White Friars (adjoining) in the courts of law in opposition to the city. or passages of the statements made on this occasion will not be without interest for our readers. The city claimed the liberties, on the ground that the precincts were in London, offering, as a kind of proof that their right had been acknowledged, the circumstance that divers felons had been tried by the city for crimes committed within the precincts during the friars' time. Accordingly they now claimed from the crown all waifs, strays, felons' goods, amercements, escheats, | |
119 | &c., the execution of all processes, the expulsion of all
foreigners, the assize of bread, beer, ale, and wine, the wardmote-quest, and such other
jurisdictions as they had in the rest of the city. The answer was very long and elaborate. With
regard to the felons it was observed, that they were probably apprehended in London with the
stolen things on them, and, therefore, were properly arraigned: in Among the other arguments used were the loss to the crown-- [this looks a little like spite :] and a bold answer to the allegations of the city as to the social state of the neighbourhood in question:-- The respectability here claimed for the neighbourhood of the Black Friars in does not appear to have been a mere counsellor's flourish, for among other residents about the period were Lord Herbert, son of the Earl of Worcester, to whose mansion, on the occasion of his marriage with an heiress of the house of Bedford in , quoteueen Elizabeth came as a visitor. She was met at the water side by the bride, and carried to her house in a lectica[n.119.1] by knights, where she dined. |
Lord Cobham also, it appears, had a house in the neighbourhood, with whom her Majesty supped the same day, when a characteristic incident occurred, in connexion with Essex, then fast losing ground in the favour of his royal mistress. It appears from the Sydney Papers, transcribed in Pennant, that The French ambassador also resided in Blackfriars during the succeeding reign, as we learn from the record of a terrible accident which happened | |
120 | in his house, and which seems to hay sadly alarmed honest Stow with the idea that it was not merely a kind of judgment for our national sins, but a warning to be heedfully observed, lest still worse should follow. It appears that a celebrated Jesuit preacher, Father Drury, addressed a large audience in a room in the upper part of the house, and that during the sermon, the place being badly built or decayed, fell, and nearly a persons perished. |
Seeing, then, that Blackfriars was a place of such repute in the beginning of the century, would hardly expect to find it by the latter part of the eighteenth so altered, that of the recommendations of the new bridge should be the certainty of its working a purification of the district, and redeeming it from the state of poverty and degradation into which it had fallen. In a pamphlet the site of the approach on the Middlesex .shore is described as being occupied on both sides of the Fleet-ditch by a And a builder examined before a committee of the House expressed his opinion that the houses and ground included were not worth years' purchase. A question put to another witness examined on the same occasion seems to show the cause of this state of things. He was asked whether, in case the bridge was built as desired, the vicinity of the Fleet, Ludgate, Newgate, and would not be an objection to the building better houses? and he owned in some parts it might. The Fleet and Newgate prisons are subjects too large to be touched upon here; the others we shall have occasion to mention in a subsequent part of our paper. We close this part of our subject, therefore, with a picturesque glimpse of the predecessor of , at a time when the ditch yet reached up to the foot of ; and beyond, the old Market extended through the centre of the present area to the bottom of . says Pennant, [n.120.1] We have noticed the most thriving trade of the district, that of the in our last number. | |
At the extremity of this street the City then determined to build its new bridge. On the other side of the river the aspect of affairs was still more favourable. In the maps of the reign of Elizabeth we perceive opposite the Black Friars, on the Surrey shore, long but single line of houses, with handsomely laid-out gardens at the back, and here and there a few other scattered habitations, surrounded by extensive fields, with trees, &c. And although, no doubt, this as well as every other part in the immediate neighbourhood of the City had become much more populous a century later, when the Bridge was built, yet the amount of the purchase-money for houses and land, on the Surrey as compared with the Middlesex | |
121 | side, shows how much the Bridge has done for all this part: for the , was paid ; for the last, ; whilst the ferry alone cost The step taken by the committee to whom the direction of the new work was intrusted was that of advertising for plans; and there was no lack of communications. They were for a time fairly puzzled between the different schemes laid before them, and had a heavy task to investigate the separate claims of bridges with semioval, and bridges with semi-circular arches; bridges with iron railings, and bridges with stone balustrades. They had every possible motive to decide carefully; for not only was the good taste and judgment of the City at trial-as, according to their choice, the attempt might end in failure and disgrace, or in success and honour--but the competitors were evidently the of their class, and the affair altogether was attracting much attention. It may be sufficient to say that Smeaton was among the rejected, and that Samuel Johnson engaged in the controversy raised upon the merits of the different kinds of arches. The plan which roused the opposition of the learned moralist was that of a young man of -and-, named Mylne, who was unknown to most, if not all, of the chief persons of influence connected with the management of the affair, but who, it was said, possessed unusual ability and attainments. His father was an architect of Edinburgh, descended from a family who had been master-masons to the sovereigns of Scotland for several generations. At an early period he had been sent to Rome to pursue his studies, where he had gained the prize in the architectural class, and had subsequently made the tour of Europe, from which he was but now returned. His plan described a bridge of elliptical arches, the centre a feet wide, and the others on each side decreasing towards the extremities of the structure, till the breadth of the last should be feet. The length of the bridge was to be feet, the breadth . In general form, the whole bridge presented ,continuously rounded line or arch, which had a particularly beautiful effect, and which was still further enhanced by the double Ionic columns adorning the face of every pier, though their introduction may be thought an architectural license barely admissible, considering how little the duty they had to do--that of supporting small projecting recesses, evidently placed there for the purpose. No sooner was it known that this plan had been received with the greatest favour by the judges (to whose credit be it recorded that, whilst Mylne's talents alone pleaded for him, there were among the other competitors men whose cause was forwarded, as much as it was possible, by noblemen and others of the highest personal influence) than assailants rushed forward from all quarters, who were as spiritedly met by defenders; and a paper war raged, which, commencing with the form of the arches, ended with the propriety of the sentiments and the accuracy of the Latinity of the inscription placed beneath the work on the occasion of laying the stone. Johnson, as we have said, was an opponent of Mylne's; and answer and counter-answer came thick and fast. We should have been glad to have transcribed a passage from Johnson's part of the controversy; but it is so entirely technical in its tone, as well as scientific in its nature, that we can find nothing of sufficient interest. We need only therefore say, that, in his accustomed vigorous style, he proved so completely the evils of the elliptical arches of Mylne, that does not know whether to be most surprised at the |
122 | audacity
of the architect in thereafter going on to erect them, or at the presumption of the arches
themselves in venturing to stand for so many centuries, as they yet promise to do, in
opposition to such an expression of opinion. These debates, it appears, led very properly to an
impartial examination of the subject by competent gentlemen, who, in
, reported in favour of the plan. [n.122.1] |
The pile was driven in the middle of the Thames on the in the same year, and was broken in the course of the ensuing week by of our old friends, a West-country bargeman. As it appeared, however, to be from neglect only that his barge had been allowed to drive against it, he was let off with a fine. The foundations of every pier were to be piled, in order to guard against the recurrence of such accidents as the sinking of the pier at a few years before. Mylne, like Labelye, built his piers with caissons; and it appears the latter were laid somewhat carelessly, as they are now in a very distorted position. There is lying in the (the gift of the architect himself) a model of a part of his bridge, representing the plan of his centre frames (the wood-work on which the stone is laid during the formation of the arch), which shows that in this part of his work he was original and eminently happy. The caisson was on the , but the tide was not high enough to float it off to its destined station, and the populace assembled were greatly disappointed. On the it was conveyed to its moorings within the piles, and duly descended to its place. The stone was laid on the by the Lord Mayor, Sir Thomas Chitty, attended by the members of the Committee, and a brilliant assemblage of other personages, when various coins were deposited in the proper place, and certain large plates, of pure tin, with an inscription in Latin stating that the work was undertaken and ending with the following glowing eulogy on the minister: Among the other medals deposited in the stone was a silver , which had been cherished as the memorial of the young architect's triumph, the medal given him by the Academy at Rome. Should some future antiquary, say in the year of Our Lord , have the rummaging of these stores, we may imagine the delight with which he would arrive at this. | |
We have little more to say concerning the erection of the Bridge.. It appears, | |
123 | from the that on the , the great arch was opened, and that the Lord Mayor, Sheriffs, Aldermen, &c., in the City barge, It was opened for foot passengers in , a temporary footway having been made across the arches; for horses in ; and completely on the . The embankments and approaches, which were works of considerable difficulty, occupied some years longer. The funds for the work had been raised by loan, on the security of the City, the loan to be repaid by tolls levied on the bridge. These were very successful, producing, in the weeks, , and in a subsequent year (from Lady-day, , to Lady-day, ) above : ultimately Government bought the tolls, and made the bridge free. The entire expense was nearly , but it is greatly to the credit of the architect that he built the bridge itself for some less than his estimate: he said the expense should not exceed ; it was just Our readers, after this statement, will be surprised to hear how shabbily he was treated. He had been engaged during the progress of the work at a salary of a-year, with the promise of a further remuneration of per cent. on the money laid out. Some honest gentlemen, however, objected to the payment of the per centage; and Mylne was obliged to assume a hostile position before he could obtain it in . |
So entirely is this gentleman's name now connected with , that we shall make no apology for giving or further notices of his career. The Bridge, of course, brought him into great repute; and among many other agreeable proofs of public estimation was that of his filling the post once occupied by Wren, the Surveyorship of . He has left there a memorable record of himself. He it was who suggested the placing over the entrance into the choir the magnificent epitaph or inscription on Wren, . Here, too, lie his remains, near the tomb of him he so much revered. He died on the . Having mentioned his controversy with Johnson, it is pleasant to have to add that the latter afterwards acknowledged his full merit, and they became intimate. With an interesting anecdote we conclude these brief notices of an able architect and high-principled man: [n.123.1] | |
124 | |
Among the buildings removed in the formation of the approaches to the Bridge were that we must not pass unnoticed. In the periodical publications of the time we read that on the , the Commissioners of City Lands sold Ludgate, near the new bridge, for , or, in other words, for the presumed value of the materials; and it was then taken down. Such is the brief record of the destruction of the once famous gate, said to have been built by the barons during the reign of King John, from the stones of the houses of a number of Jews they caused to be pulled down; but which, if Geoffrey of Monmouth is to be believed, had a right to date its origin from no less a personage than the redoubted British king Lud, who, according to the same particular authority, erected it in the year before Christ. A curious evidence of the truth of the -mentioned circumstance was discovered when the gate was rebuilt in , in the shape of a stone with the following Hebrew inscription: and which had no doubt been fixed originally upon the front of of the Jews' houses. An equally curious evidence of the faith of the City in Geoffrey's story was presented both by the old and the new gate, each of which had on side statues of King Lud and his sons, Androgeas and Theomantius, or Teomanticus. Other authorities think the original name was Fludgate, derived from the Saxon appellation of the Fleet. Ludgate was turned into a prison during the reign of Richard II.; when it was ordained that all free men of the City should, for debt, trespasses, accompts, and contempts, be imprisoned in Ludgate, whilst traitors, felons, &c., were to be committed to Newgate. About the gate was enlarged, and had a chapel added to it by Sir Stephen Forster, who, it is said by Pennant, Maitland, and others, was moved to that work by the grateful remembrance of its connexion with a touching and romantic incident of his own history. According to them he was once a prisoner in Ludgate, and was [n.124.1] when he was by a certain rich widow interrogated what sum would discharge him. He replied , which she generously disbursed, and, taking him into her service, he, by an indefatigable application to business, gained the affections of his mistress to such a degree, that she made him her husband; and, having greatly enriched himself by commerce, amidst his affluence bethought himself of the place of his confinement.[n.124.2] It appears, from the same authority, the merchants and tradesmen were accustomed to place themselves here in their pecuniary misfortunes (to avoid, we presume, being sent to a worse gaol by their creditors); and that, when Philip of Spain came through London on his visit in , the year of his marriage with Mary, there were of these prisoners in confinement, whose united debts amounted to , and who presented to that monarch a remarkably well-written Latin document, begging him to redress their miseries and free them. They asked this The friendly author of this address was no less a person than Roger Ascham. The other building to which we have referred was the beautiful bridge erected by Sir George Waterman, in the year of his mayoralty, | |
125 | , over Fleet ditch, and opposite hospital. This was removed during the formation of the Bridge approaches, , and on the same day that the sewer extending from thence to the Thames was completed. |
Among the public buildings alluded to in the Committee of the as tending to keep respectable persons from the neighbourhood of the Black Friars was that of . It will perhaps be remembered that in our account of we stated that in the comprehensive plan presented by the City to Edward VI. the rioters, vagabonds, strumpets, &c., of the metropolis were to be sent to this place. This was a sad degradation of the once-regal palace, the occasional home of a long succession of monarchs from the very earliest periods. The original building was formed in part from the remains of an old Saxon castle which Stow supposes to have-stood on the same site. The name is derived from a well in the neighbourhood dedicated to St. Bride or Bridget. The place having fallen to great decay, Henry VIII., on the occasion of the announced visit of the Emperor Charles V., rebuilt the whole in the space of , and in a truly magnificent manner. But after all the expense and trouble, the Emperor, when he came in , preferred lodging in the Black Friars, and leaving the new palace to his suite. A gallery of communication was then thrown right across the Fleet from house to the other, and an opening cut through the City Wall. Henry himself subsequently resided here occasionally, and in particular during the period of the trial of Catherine in the Black Friars. When Edward VI. devoted it to the purpose already pointed out, it is said to have been once more in a dilapidated state: if so, we need not much wonder at the speed with which the builders had was thenceforward used as a house of correction for rogues and vagabonds, and for disobedient and idle apprentices, all parties being employed chiefly in beating hemp or picking oakum. The treadmill is now used there, and the silent system has been introduced. It is to be observed that as a prison has the high distinction of having been the place of the kind in England where reformation was a leading object. There were confined in the prison, during the year , males and females. It was also made a house of industry, and a place of education for poor children, who were taught different trades by certain persons dignified by the title of arts masters, but who were merely so many poor broken-down tradesmen. The boys wore a peculiar dress, and in that guise made themselves so great a nuisance to the neighbourhood that in a report was made to the governors. This, be it observed, is almost the precise period when the Act of Parliament for the Bridge was being obtained. From the time of their change of dress an improvement is said to have taken place. The boys are now removed to the near Bethlehem Hospital. The jurisdiction of and of Bethlehem Hospital are in the hands of the same body of governors. The site of is now greatly limited. When Pennant wrote, it appears, much of the original building (by which we presume he means that of Henry VIII.) remained; such as also leading to the Court of Justice, All this has now disappeared with the exception of of the octagonal towers. A dark-coloured stone front about the middle of | |
126 | marks the entrance to , with a head of the youthful Edward VI. over the door of the vaulted passage. At the end of this passage a door on the left conducts up to the hall, &c., and the iron gateway in front, down a flight of steps, into the court of the ancient palace, now a large quadrangle,--with of its sides mostly occupied by gloomy prison-walls and barred windows. In corner of this place is the octagonal tower referred to, of brick, which has been newly faced in comparativebly recent times, and which is pierced with narrow slit-holes, giving light to the interior. The top, no doubt, commanded a fine prospect of London in the time of Henry: it is now so surrounded with loftier buildings that sees nothing more picturesque than house-tops and chimneys. |
The hall is entered through or fine apartments, of which it forms the suitable termination. It is a noble room, lighted by a handsome range of windows on each side, the centre windows being set in alcoves. The walls round the lower part of the room, at a certain height, are covered with tablets containing the names of benefactors to the united hospitals. Above these tablets, between the windows, pictures occupy all the vacant spaces, of different degrees of merit, from the worthy alderman on his horse, which forms the subject of the gigantic picture over the fireplace at end of the room, to the Lelys, and the famous Holbein, which occupy the corresponding place at the other extremity. Lely's pictures are portraits of Charles II. and James II., Holbein's represents the grant of the charter of to Sir George Barnes, the then Lord Mayor. Among the other personages introduced are William Earl of Pembroke, Thomas Goodrich Bishop of Ely and Lord Chancellor of England, and the painter himself, whose name, at least, is said to be given to the figure in the right corner. It is uncertain whether this picture was completed by Holbein, as he, as well as the young king, died very soon after the event here represented. The chapel is quite modern, and in no way noticeable. | |
The repair of Blackfriars, like that of , has been of late years a most expensive and laborious business; we scarcely remember the time when or other of these bridges has not been under the hands of the engineers and builders. This arises from the soft nature of the Portland stone of which both bridges are erected, and its peculiar unfitness to resist the action of water. Blackfriars being examined in by Messrs. Walker and Burgess (the foundations by means of Deane's patent helmet), it was found that almost every part of the work required reparation--new piling, for which coffer-dams had to be made, new cutwaters, new arch-stones, &c. The extent of the repair needed may be best understood from--the estimated expense, ! But it was inevitable, so an Act of Parliament was obtained, and the work proceeded with. The foundations of the piers were rendered secure by a casing of sheet piling covered with granite masonnry. The cutwaters were then raised as well as repaired, so as to shorten the Ionic columns above, which is considered to be an improvement in the general appearance of the Bridge. In the way of reparation the accompanying drawing will show at a glance what has been done. The dotted line marks the extent to which decay had penetrated, and the parts that had to be removed. | |
The replacing the old decayed arch-stones with new was a work of considerable | |
127 | difficulty; and most ingenious was the method by which the difficulty was overcome.
In the room of the single stone taken away, were driven in, and the
manner in which these were afterwards united may be best understood from the subjoined cut
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The improvements of the Bridge (only terminated in ), were well purchased at the inconvenience of the latter being rendered for some time impassable except on foot. In the interim it was found that the roadway of the crown had been lowered several feet, and the approaches raised. Those only who have been accustomed to mark the dangers of the old descent in slippery weather, or the severe and painful exertion imposed on horses drawing heavy loads, can fully appreciate the advantages of this change. In architectural beauty, however, the alterations appear to some to have been for the worse. The beautiful arch, extending from shore to shore, formed by the upper line of the bridge, is lost by the raising of its ends: that sacrifice was perhaps necessary, and | |
128 | therefore must be quietly submitted to. But why, it is asked, was the picturesque open balustrade, which gave to the Bridge, as seen from the water or the neighbouring banks, such an inconceivable lightness and grace, why was this to be exchanged for the dull heavy parapet which now usurps its place? Since there was so little regard paid to Mylne's design, the propriety may be doubted of allowing the Ionic columns to remain at the expense of another great improvement that was proposed, the widening of the Bridge; particularly as the columns now seem more out of place than ever. |
Footnotes: [n.119.1] Leetica, a kind of litter, the Roman bier. [n.120.1] Pennant's London, 3rd ed. p. 224. [n.122.1] Condensed account of a Report to the Common Council, 1784 , in Penny Cyclopedia, vol. iv. p. 484. [n.123.1] Chalmers's Gen. Biog. Dictionary, vol. xxii., p. 549. [n.124.1] Most readers will remember the existence of this shameful custom in connexion with the present Fleet prison. [n.124.2] Maitland, vol. i. p. 27. |
