Old and New London, A Narrative of its History, its People and its Places. Illustrated with Numerous Engravings from the Most Authentic Sources. vol 4
Thornbury, Walter
1872-78
Berkeley Square, and its Neighbourhood.
Berkeley Square, and its Neighbourhood.
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Undoubtedly there is a natural pleasure in a , which has no counterpart in any . It is this feeling to which must be ascribed the fact that in the most crowded parts of this great metropolis we leave open spaces, and plant them with trees, and rejoice to live in if our means will allow us. Still it was long before Nature asserted her sway. The majority of our squares, except those of Tyburnia and Belgravia, are the growth of the last century; and few of them existed before the accession of George III., their sites up to that time being mostly sheepwalks, paddocks, and kitchen-gardens. | |
Mr. Timbs tells us, what few of us remember or know, that it was at attempted to call the squares by the strange and uncouth name of ; and Maitland, in his retains the term, with only a slight alteration, when he mentions This name is probably known to few except very learned antiquaries, so wholly has it passed out of use. | |
We wish that we could endorse the words of Mr. John Timbs when he calls the garden spaces or planted squares the most feature of our metropolis. At all events, to the multitude the recreation is that of the eyes alone; for, except , not of them is accessible to the weary working man, the public being allowed only to stare at them through the iron railings selfishly set round them. | |
But to proceed. Again bending our steps towards the west, we pass in a parallel line with , but in a somewhat Leaving , which was our point of divergence at the conclusion of our last chapter, we step across into , which leads direct into . derived its name from Lord Berkeley of Stratton, whom we have already mentioned in connection with , and whose ancestors were known as the Berkeleys of Bruton. This street has had some distinguished residents in its time; among others, John, the and Duke of Argyll, who in the reign of William III. was Ambassador in Spain, and, after the Peace of Utrecht, Commander of the Forces in Scotland. He took part in the suppression of the rebellion of -. - | |
p.327 | Thisduke is the same who is immortalised by Pope in the following lines:--
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It may be remembered also that Sir Charles Hanbury Williams in his poems identifies the duke with this street :
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Sheridan also was living in this street in . At this period his house was so beset with duns that, in spite of his seat in Parliament, even the provisions for his family had to be let down the area between the railings, as he was afraid to open the front door. Sir N. W. Wraxall tells a capital story of this house and its occupant in that year :-- he writes,
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In this street, for a time, resided Lord Brougham, when Lord Chancellor. No. was the town house of the late and present Lord Granville, and at time that of Lord Chancellor Cottenham. It passed afterwards into the hands of another well-known statesman, Lord Carnarvon. In No. was the residence of Sir Matthew Tierney, the favourite physician of George IV. | |
In was formerly the Museum of the Zoological Society, before or about the time of the establishment of its gardens in . The studio of Mr. Mark Noble, the sculptor, is in this street. | |
, which we now enter on its eastern side, was built in , and named after John, Lord Berkeley, of Stratton, whose [extra_illustrations.4.327.1] and grounds we have already described as situated on the north side of . From the rear of they extended back to , in the south-east corner of the square. In the centre of the square, which contains about acres of ground, are some fine, tall, and shady plane-trees, which impart an air of cheerfulness and picturesqueness to the spot. Within the enclosure there was formerly an equestrian statue of George III., erected by the Princess Amelia. The statue, which was executed by Wilton, stood on a clumsy pedestal, and represented the king in the character of Marcus Aurelius. At time this square was the most fashionable locality in London. The houses are rather heavy and monotonous in appearance; and a few link-extinguishers may still be seen flanking the doorways, reminding us of the days of sedanchairs and cumbrous family coaches. | |
The magnificent mansion standing within its garden and gates, which occupies the southern side of the square, and has been for generations the town-house of the Marquises of Lansdowne, was originally built by Robert Adam, the architect of the , for John, Earl of Bute, the favourite Premier of George III. in his early days. It was scarcely finished when, in , after an administration of about years, during which he had brought the war with France and Spain to a close by the Treaty of Fontainebleau, Lord Bute suddenly threw up the reins of government, and retired into private life. The act was most unpopular. This magnificent residence, just completed and newly occupied, exposed his lordship to the most malignant comments; and his enemies asserted that he could not possibly have erected such a mansion by honest and fair means. They concluded, therefore, that he had either received large presents from the Court of France for signing the treaty, or had made large purchases in the public funds, previous to signing its preliminaries. The accusation was made publicly by others as well as by | |
p.328 | who in the plainest terms accused the earl of selling his country. It is not a little singular that, when some years later the house passed by purchase into the hands of Lord Shelburne, afterwards Marquis of Lansdowne, the same accusation was revived, the public again raising an outcry to the effect that it could not have been bought except by moneys paid to his lordship for concluding the peace of . Lord Shelburne, however, took no notice of the cry, for, according to Jeremy Bentham, he
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Lord Bute was known to be, or at all events to have been, a poor man until called to the post of Premier; and his enemies were not slow to draw attention to the fact, that he could never have afforded to build such a house either from his patrimony or from his marriage with the daughter of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. The is recorded in the gossiping pages of Sir N. W. Wraxall, who adds, with that country. Whatever may have been the real solution of the mystery, there can be no doubt that the mansion brought nearly as much of public odium on Lord Bute as the building of Clarendon House, as we have already seen, had entailed a century before upon Lord Chancellor Hyde. | |
The story of Lord Bute's introduction to royal circles is told at considerable length by Sir N. W. Wraxall. The substance of it is that in , whilst living, from motives of economy, at a villa on the banks of the Thames, he was at Egham races, and that a shower coming on, and the Prince of Wales, accidentally finding him without a conveyance, offered to give him a seat in his own carriage, and took him to Cliefden, near Maidenhead, where he stayed the night. He rendered himself extremely acceptable to their royal highnesses, and thus laid the foundation, under the succeeding reign, of his elevation to the premiership--a promotion which may be said to have been a consequence of this turn in the chapter of accidents. When young he had a very handsome person; and long after he became a constant visitor and almost an inmate of Leicester House and of Cliefden, he would frequently play the part of in the private theatricals exhibited by the Duchess of Queensberry for the amusement of those royal personages--a fact to which Wilkes alludes more than once with a sly in of his publications. If this be really the true history of the rise of Lord Bute to place and power, it is but a modern instance of the Latin satirist's remark,
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In Dr. Johnson waited here on Lord Bute to thank him for the literary pension which, at his recommendation, the King had settled on him. Lord Bute on this occasion said to him expressly that this mark of royal favour was As Boswell remarks, Lord Bute on this occasion behaved in a very handsome manner.
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Lord Bute does not appear to have long resided here, for very soon after the mansion was completed it was sold to the Earl of Shelburne, afterwards Marquis of Lansdowne. John Timbs tells us that He also mentions the which was current in the last century with respect to the house, namely, that
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In the spring of , on the failure of his publisher, Mr. H. Payne, of , George Crabbe, poor and unknown, came to this house, in order to ask for temporary aid; but he was refused by Lord Shelburne once and again. Crabbe's son tells us in his that
writes the poet, in his in . The only wonder that feels in reading such an episode, even in a poet's life, is that he could condescend, when his name was known as the author of to enter the doors of that Maecenas from which he was so rudely repulsed when he needed temporary assistance. | |
With respect to the history of this house and its noble owners, we may be pardoned for drawing largely here upon of the literary articles of the ;--
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It may recall with some vividness the fashion of those times if we record a little incident connected with this portrait. During the short-lived Ministry of the Whig leaders celebrated their return to power by a continual round of festivities, in which Sheridan outvied all his colleagues. Sunday () he gave a grand dinner; on the Monday following a supper and ball, at which the dancing was prolonged to past o'clock next morning; on the Tuesday a christening, a masque, and another ball, the Prince being present on each occasion, and the Lord Chancellor Erskine, and the young Chancellor of , Henry Petty, being conspicuous among the dancers. On the occasion of this dinner, the portrait of Mrs. Sheridan was redeemed for night only from the pawnbroker's, and exhibited in its place in the dining-room. When poor Sheridan died, it was still in possession of the pawnbroker; it then fell into the hands of Sheridan's solicitor, and from him it was purchased for by Lord Lansdowne. In this little incident we get some glimpses of that conviviality for which the Whigs were distinguished. says Balzac; and the truth of the remark is especially illustrated in that social influence which the Whigs have always cultivated. | |
The name of Petty was assumed by the Hon. John Fitzmaurice, son of Thomas, twentyfirst Lord Kerry, and of Anne, only daughter of Sir William Petty, on inheriting the Petty estates on the death of his maternal uncle, Henry Petty, Esq., of Shelburne. He was created a peer of Ireland as Viscount Fitzmaurice, and soon after promoted to the Earldom of Shelburne. His son and successor, William the earl, and the purchaser of , was advanced to the Marquisate of Lansdowne in . The above Sir William Petty, of whose talents and public services we have spoken in a previous chapter (page ), is styled by Aubrey Sir William was of the members of the or Coffee Club, to which John Milton and Pepys also belonged. The character of the club may be inferred from the lines in
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Continuing our account of the mansion, we may simply state that it is large and of somewhat heavy proportions, and that the front is of white stone, ornamented with Ionic pillars and a pediment; but it is almost shut out from view by the rich foliage by which the mansion is surrounded; upon the gate-piers is a beehive, of the crests of the house of Lansdowne. The pictures mentioned above are, for the most part, hung in a gallery of fine proportions (being feet long by wide); and besides these there is in the ante-room a copy of Canova's The house also contains some fine specimens of antique busts and statues collected by Gavin Hamilton. The diningroom served for many years, with Holland House and , to bring together the principal leaders of thought and action belonging to the old Whig Here the Russells and Greys, and Sir James Mackintosh, would often meet around the hospitable table of Henry, the marquis, so long the venerated of the Liberal party, who divided his time between this house and his seat of Bowood, in Wiltshire, till his death in . Mr. Rush, the American Minister, was a frequent guest here in the days of the Regency, and he speaks of the hospitality of its dining-room in most glowing terms. We learn from Brougham's that cabinet councils were occasionally held here. | |
Among the most constant and most welcome guests here was Moore- as he was often called, in allusion to his light and sparkling verses. | |
Horace Walpole lived for the last years of his life at No. on the east side of this square, | |
and here he died on the , a few years after succeeding to the Earldom of Orford, a title he scarcely ever cared to assume, preferring to be called plain to the end. He thus writes to the Countess of Ossory, under date , which fixes the date of his removal hither from , where we have already been introduced to him :-- (he is referring, of course, to )
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Walpole was attacked at Strawberry Hill by the cold, about the close of , and at the end of that month he removed to his house in , which he never left again. On this cold supervened an attack of gout. He still amused himself with writing and dictating brief notes, instead of letters, and with the conversation of his friends; and, exhausted by weakness, sunk gradually and died painlessly, on the of the following March. On the death of Horace Walpole, the house passed to his niece, Lady Waldegrave, who was living here at the beginning of the present century. | |
It has been said of Horace Walpole, with some justice, by Mr. Charles Knight:
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The house No. , doors further to the north, was at time occupied by the late | |
p.331 [extra_illustrations.4.331.1] | , who kept here the nucleus of the fine gallery of paintings now at Hertford House, . |
No. , on the west side of the square, was the house of the [extra_illustrations.4.331.2] , the founder of our Indian Empire-- as Horace Walpole styles him. Sated with success and honours, his restless spirit seems to have enfeebled his nervous system, and there is too much reason to fear that he fell by his own hand, in . Lord Clive in Dr. Johnson's opinion, was a man who, though loaded with wealth and what the world called honours, had yet The house now belongs to his nearest representative, the Earl of Powis, who, though a Herbert by birth, bears the name of Clive. | |
An amusing story, showing how Lord Clive obtained his wife, is thus told by Sir Bernard Burke in his --
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In another house in this square died, in , Martha Blount, the friend and correspondent of Pope. At No. resided Earl Grey for several years both before and after his premiership. In this square numbered among its residents Sydney Smirke, the architect, and Sir John Cam Hobhouse, afterwards Lord Broughton. | |
Another celebrated house in this square is No. , for half a century or more the residence of the Earl of Jersey. Here the celebrated Lady Jersey, the widow of the earl- of the female favourites of George IV., in the old days of Carlton House, and in after time of the most omnipotent and imperious queens of held her receptions. Half the fashionable world had the to these, and the other half sought the privilege in vain, with watering lips. Lady Jersey was the daughter and heiress of Mr. Robert Child, the banker; and her large interest in the bank of Messrs. Child, at , and the income which she drew from it, threw a halo around her which blinded the upper to the facts of her early married life. | |
A curious story which connects this square with a turn-though only a temporary turn--in the fortunes of Brummell, of whom we have spoken in our chapter on Carlton House, is told by Mr. Raikes in his --
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The blind god, or goddess, of gain, however, appears speedily to have deserted him, for in he was obliged to fly the country on account of debt, and to retire to Calais, between which place and Caen, where he ultimately became English Consul, he spent his latter days. | |
Brummell outlived most of the Carlton House set: he died in . Mr. Raikes describes him as tall, well-made, and of a good figure, and a general favourite with ladies' society. he writes,
Brummell, indeed, has never been equalled or paralleled since, not even by Count D'Orsay, whom he in some respects resembled. | |
In this square died, towards the close of the last century, the eccentric son of Sir John Barnard, sometime alderman of and M.P. for London, and of those few members whose even Sir Robert Walpole could not find out. This was the more remarkable in his case, as he was extremely penurious. Lord Chatham called him probably in jest; but it is recorded that more than high Minister of State constantly consulted him on all measures of finance, and that once, at least, he was offered the Chancellorship of . His son inherited his penurious tastes. The circumstances of his death were singular. Monday morning he woke, having dreamed that he should die in the course of the week. He used to have a cup of chocolate for breakfast daily, and every Monday morning he gave his housekeeper the money for the weekly supply. He was so impressed with his dream, however, that he told her on this occasion to get only half the quantity. Before the morning came he was found dead. | |
In the days of the Regency probably vied with in being the most fashionable spot in the West-end, and the neighbourhood of both was constantly spoken of in the last century as the very type of London wealth, taste, hospitality, and luxury. Hence the sarcastic remark of Cawthorne- Nevertheless, in spite of its wealth and luxury, the locality seems to have had its drawbacks, for it enjoyed the unenviable distinction of being infested with highwaymen and footpads. According to Dr. Doran, the district around the square, , , &c., continued to be a dangerous down to the middle of the reign of George III. Lord Cathcart, in an unpublished letter to his son William, dated , affords an instance of the peril which people ran on their way to the houses of Mrs. Montagu, Lady Clermont, Lady Brown, and other residents of that neighbourhood. Lord Cathcart tells his son that as his sisters and Mr. Graham (afterwards Lord Lynedoch) were going to Lady Brown's in a coach, they were attacked by footpads on . opened the door and demanded the company's money. The future Lord Lynedoch showed the stuff of which that gallant soldier was made. He upset the robber who addressed them, then jumped out and secured him. The confederate took to his heels. We may add, on the authority of Walker's that George IV. and the Duke of York, when very young men, were stopped night by highwaymen on , whilst riding in a hackney coach, and robbed of what valuables they had about them. | |
Then, again, this neighbourhood has more than once been the scene of civil strife and bloodshed; and Mr. Planche tells us, in his agreeable that he remembers seeing artillerymen standing with lighted matches by the side of their loaded field-pieces in in the days of Lord Liverpool's ministry. | |
, which connects the south-east angle of the square with Grafton and Dover Streets, is a steep slope, and covers part of the site of the gardens belonging to Berkeley House. It is generally thought to derive its name, like , on the other side of the square, from the rural manor of which it once formed a part. But Peter Cunningham considers it is a corruption of the or a brook which ran at its foot from Tyburn, which he supposes to be a corruption of or
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Near this, in the reign of Queen Mary, as already mentioned, a skirmish took place between a party of insurgents, under Sir Thomas Wyatt, and a detachment of the royal army, in which the former were repulsed. After the subsequent defeat and capture of Sir Thomas Wyatt at Ludgate, he was executed, and, as Stow tells us, his head set up on a gallows at this very place. | |
According to the for ,
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At the foot of , in a lane leading towards Bruton Mews South, is a small publichouse called the pointing back to the days when sedan chairs were in fashion. | |
A narrow passage between the gardens of Lansdowne and Devonshire Houses leads to and . It is sunk below the level of the ground, and at end is a flight of steps, with an upright iron bar in the centre. It is said that this bar was put up because a highwayman who had done some deed of violence in May Fair rode his horse through the defile, much to the | |
p.334 | danger of the foot-passengers. In , in the early part of the present century, resided Mr. Henry Angelo, the noted teacher of the noble art of fencing, who lived all his life in the world of fashion, and whose occupy large volumes. |
and , both on the western side of the square, are handsome thoroughfares; and the houses in both have always been tenanted by the highest and noblest families. In Hayes Mews, running northwards between these streets, there is a public-house bearing the sign of the much frequented by the servants of the neighbouring gentry. Upon the sign-board is represented a tall, agile man in gay attire, and with a stick having a metal ball at top; he is engaged in running, and underneath are the words, We have given a copy of this curious sign on page . It is obvious that the very word still in constant use for a man-servant, implies the original purpose for which such a servant was kept-namely, to run alongside his master's carriage. | |
Chambers tells us in his that the custom of keeping running footmen survived to such recent times that Sir Walter Scott remembered seeing the state-coach of John, Earl of Hopetoun, attended by of the fraternity, It is believed that the Duke of Queensberry--the already mentioned--who died in , kept up the practice longer than any other of the London grandees; and Mr. Thoms tells an amusing anecdote of a man who came to be hired for the duty by that ancient but far from venerable peer. The duke was in the habit of trying the pace of candidates for his service by seeing how they could run up and down , watching and timing them from his balcony. They put on a livery before the trial. On occasion, a candidate presented himself, dressed, and ran. At the conclusion of his performance he stood before the balcony. said the duke. replied the man, and gave the duke a last proof of his ability as a runner by then running away with it. | |
In , at No. , lived the Duke and Duchess of Clarence, prior to the accession of the former to the throne as King William IV. In this street, too, have resided at time or another, the Earl of Ellenborough, some time Governor-General of India; Mr. James R. Hope-Scott, of Abbotsford, who came into possession of that property through his marriage with the grand-daughter and heiress of Sir Walter Scott; Mr. Thomas Baring, M.P., the distinguished master of finance, whose house was noted for its fine gallery of paintings; Admiral Sir Edward Codrington, the victor of Navarino, and subsequently M.P. for Devonport; Lady Grenville, sister of Lord Camelford, and widow of the Premier of -, the head of the she lived till , and died at the age of upwards of . | |
Of , which connects the western end of with , there is little or nothing to say, beyond the fact that it bears the Christian name of Lord Berkeley of Stratton, whom we have already mentioned. At the junction of these streets stands Berkeley Chapel, of the many proprietary chapels in the parish of , , to which a conventional district out of that parish has been attached. It dates from about . Sydney Smith, at time, was its officiating minister. Externally, it has as little to recommend it as most West-end proprietary chapels; but in - its interior was decorated in good ecclesiastical taste. | |
, so called from some trifling ascent on the farm of Lord Berkeley already mentioned, was erected in the early part of the last century. It comprises none but fine and handsome houses, and has always been inhabited chiefly by titled families, or, at all events, those of high aristocratic connections. Amongst its former residents Mr. P. Cunningham enumerates the Lord Lyttelton; Mrs. Montagu, before she became a widow and removed to her more celebrated house in ; the Lord Malmesbury; and Lord Chief-Justice Camden, who died here in . In this street the late Lord De Tabley, better known by his former name of Sir John Leicester, made his fine collection of paintings of the English school. In , it counted among its residents Mr. Henry Brougham, M.P. for Winchelsea; he lived at No. , the same house where, in , resided Lord Albert Conyngham, afterwards Lord Londesborough. At No. lived Mr. N. Ridley Colborne, afterwards Lord Colborne; both the latter were known for their galleries of pictures. At No. , in , resided Admiral Sir Philip Durham, the last survivor, it is supposed, of those who escaped from the , when she went down at Spithead, with Admiral Kempenfelt and
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Sir N. W. Wraxall, in his gives us a most interesting picture of the gatherings of literary celebrities and fashionable ladies under the roof of Mrs. Montagu, which were nicknamed the Blue Stocking Club, | |
p.335 | and into which, he tells us, he was introduced by Sir William Pepys. He describes minutely her dinners, and her evening parties, and the good looks and of the hostess as she was seen in the season of , when verging on . Here frequently came the ponderous and sententious Dr. Johnson, as a satellite attendant on Mr. and Mrs. Thrale; Edmund Burke, grave and reserved, his society being more coveted than enjoyed; Lord Erskine, then just beginning to be known to fame as an orator; Dr. Shipley, the Bishop of St. Asaph, and his daughter, afterwards married to Sir William Jones, the Orientalist; Mrs. Chapone, who concealed the most varied and superior attainments under the plainest of outward forms:; Sir Joshua Reynolds, with his ear-trumpet, prevented by deafness from joining in the general conversation; Horace Walpole, full of anecdote, gathered partly by contact with the world and partly by tradition from his father, the great Sir Robert; the learned and grave Mrs. Carter, the Dr. Burney, and his daughter, afterwards Madame D'Arblay, the author of and David Garrick, whose presence shed a gaiety over the whole room; the Duchess Dowager of Portland, grand-daughter of the Lord Treasurer Harley, Earl of Oxford; and Georgina, Duchess of Devonshire, then in the bloom of youth. [extra_illustrations.4.335.1] |
, which runs from the north-west corner of , across Grosvenor and Brook Streets into , is named after Miss Mary Davies, the rich heiress of Ebury Manor, who carried the estate at by marriage into the house of Grosvenor; or else, as Mr. Peter Cunningham suggests, after Sir Thomas Davies, some time Lord Mayor of London, who inherited a large part of the fortune of whose name is connected with North and South Audley Streets. In this street lived the gun-maker, before his removal to . When in London Byron used to go to Manton's shooting-gallery, to try his hand, as he said, at a wafer. Captain Gronow, in his agreeable anecdotes and reminiscences, tells us that Wedderburn Webster was present day when the poet, intensely delighted with his own skill, boasted to Joe Manton that he considered himself the best shot in London. replied Manton, upon which Byron waxed wroth, and left the shop in a violent passion. | |
The top of runs into , not at right angles, as most of the other thoroughfares, but diagonally, and appears to follow the course of an old and narrow thoroughfare called Shug Lane, which, in the published in , is mentioned as in a line with . The very name of Shug Lane, however, has long since passed away. | |
, for such is the name by which the mews at the rear of the north side of : is dignified, contains the Jesuit Church of the Immaculate Conception, a handsome and lofty Gothic structure of the Decorated style, designed by Mr. J. J. Scoles, and built in -. | |
The fabric is the possessed by the Jesuits in London since the expulsion of the order from and St. James's under the Stuart sovereigns. The front, which looks south instead of west, is a miniature reproduction of that of the Cathedral of Beauvais. The high altar, designed by the late Mr. A. W. Pugin, was the gift of Miss Tempest, and cost . The church has other altars, and dwarf side-aisles. Having houses built up against it on either side, it is lit from a clerestory above. | |
, which was built gradually at various dates, between the commencement and the middle of the last century, commemorates in its name a fort or bastion in the line of fortification so hastily drawn round the western suburbs in , by order of the Parliament, when an attack from the royal forces was expected. There was a mount at the west end of this street, on the eastern border of . The eastern entrance to this street is in the corner of , at the south end of . Most of the street consists of shops, irregular in plan and size, and by no means of the calibre. | |
Peter Cunningham tells us that in later times there was in this street a celebrated coffee-house, called It was probably which was frequented by the charming Lawrence Sterne, towards the end of his life, whilst occupying the lodgings in , where he died. From this coffee-house, at all events, many of his love letters to Mrs. Draper and other ladies are dated. | |
In was living, at the commencement of the present century, a singular character, Martin Van Butchell, a quack doctor and dentist of celebrity, who claimed to be able to cure the king's evil, teeth, ruptures, fistula, and every kind of evil to which flesh is heir, and who, consequently, obtained from his patients fees suited rather to the extent of their credulity than to that of his own merits. He applied, through the Lord Chamberlain of the Household, for the post of | |
p.336 p.337 | dentist to George III.; but when the consent of his Majesty was obtained, he said that he did not care for the custom of royalty. His wife having died, he had her body embalmed and kept in his parlour; and he outdid even this act of eccentricity by allowing his beard to grow, which at that time was reckoned sheer madness. He is said to have sold the hairs out of his beard at a guinea each to ladies who wanted to become the mothers of fine children. He described himself in of his printed circulars as He used to ride about the West-end on a shaggy pony, always unclipped, of course, and painted with spots by the hand of its master. Its bridle was of Van Butchell's contrivances, being really a blind, which could be let down over both the pony's eyes in case of the animal taking fright. He lived in the same house for nearly half a century, and never would go to visit a patient. he said and wrote, and he was true to his word, though as much as was offered him to induce him to alter his resolution. And yet, when at home, he would sit and sell oranges, cakes, and gingerbread to the children at his doorstep. He used |
| to make his wife and children dine by themselves, and to come when called by a whistle; he dressed his wife in black, and his in white, never allowing either a change of colour. He was also of the earliest of teetotalers. He died in . | |
No. , now occupied by a detachment of priests of the Order of Jesus, was at time the manor house of an estate extending southwards to the borders of the property of the Berkeleys. In the garden behind it are some fine trees, which once stood, doubtless, in the open fields; and in the rear still serves to keep up the tradition of its former rurality. A few doors west, on the southern side of the street, stands the Workhouse of , , a dingy and gloomy building externally. Nearly opposite to its gates, from the middle of to , runs a short thoroughfare called , of which there is little or nothing to say, beyond the fact that in it is the Coburg Hotel, kept by Francis Grillon, an offshoot of Grillon's Hotel, of . In , the Duchesse d'Angouleme, in her way from Edinburgh to France, held receptions at this hotel. | |
p.338 | |
In this street, during the years -, when, as we have seen, he removed into the artistic neighbourhood of , Josiah Wedgwood had his West-end show-rooms of pottery and porcelain, the royal arms over his door denotingwhat at that time and in his case was no fiction --the patronage and custom of royalty which his firm enjoyed. Hither Queen Charlotte would drive from Buckingham House to see those arttreasures by the production of which Wedgwood was destined in a few short years to make the name of England famous in Continental courts. The fact is that the rooms here were small, and as the patronage of the wealthy classes poured in upon him in a stream, he soon found himself quite at a loss for room when large and handsome vases, as well as dishes and dinner-services, had to be displayed. | |
was probably so called after of the Stuart kings, from whose reign it dates. It may be interesting to record here that in the for there are as many as Charles Streets mentioned as being within the limits of the metropolis, to say nothing of a , Charles Places, and a Charles Mews. | |
Footnotes: [extra_illustrations.4.327.1] mansion [extra_illustrations.4.331.1] Marquis of Hertford [extra_illustrations.4.331.2] great Lord Clive [] See p. 96, ante. [extra_illustrations.4.335.1] Davies Street [] See Vol. III., p. 91. |
