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  [Illustration: No. 13. QUEEN'S HEAD INN, SOUTHWARK.]




     VICTORIA & ALBERT MUSEUM CATALOGUES

     DRAWINGS OF OLD LONDON

     BY
     PHILIP NORMAN, LL.D., F.S.A.

     ILLUSTRATED

     LONDON
     PUBLISHED BY HIS MAJESTY'S STATIONERY OFFICE
     1913
     Crown Copyright Reserved

     Price Sixpence




     FIRST PRINTED              MAY 1900.

     REVISED AND REPRINTED      JULY 1913.




NOTE.


The Drawings of Old London, which form the subject of this Catalogue,
were made by Mr. Philip Norman, LL.D., F.S.A., in almost every case
from the actual buildings, many of which have since been demolished
or essentially altered in appearance. They form, consequently, an
important record of characteristic examples of Old London architecture,
chiefly domestic; and, from this point of view, may be recommended to
the attention of students. The collection was purchased for the Museum,
in January 1896, on the recommendation of Professor W. Middleton and
William Morris.

The thanks of the Board are due to Mr. Norman for his courtesy in
providing the whole of the descriptions of the drawings; and also for
revising the proofs of the present edition and lending the block of No.
6, "The Old Houses, White Hart Inn."

The drawings can be seen by visitors, in the Students' Room of the
Department of Engraving, Illustration and Design (Room 71), at any
time when the Museum is open, except on Sundays. The Department
also contains other drawings and prints of a similar nature; and a
Topographical Index referring thereto.

     CECIL SMITH.

     Victoria and Albert Museum,
     July 1913.




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.


                                                                  Page

     QUEEN'S HEAD INN, SOUTHWARK                          frontispiece

     OLD HOUSES, WHITE HART INN, SOUTHWARK                   facing  2

     NAG'S HEAD INN YARD, SOUTHWARK                            "     4

     KING'S HEAD INN, SOUTHWARK                                "     6

     ENTRANCE TO GREAT ST. HELEN'S                             "    12

     VIEW FROM PAUL'S PIER                                     "    22

     COCK AND PIE, DRURY LANE                                  "    30

     EMANUEL HOSPITAL, WESTMINSTER                             "    32




CATALOGUE OF DRAWINGS OF OLD LONDON. BY PHILIP NORMAN, LL.D., F.S.A.


_The dimensions are in inches, the height being given first._


1. Old Elephant and Castle, Newington Butts (Sepia).

The famous tavern so named is situated about a mile south of London
Bridge, at a place where several important roads meet. In the coaching
days it was passed by every traveller going south-east from London,
and it is now a well-known halting station for omnibuses and tramcars.
A writer in a famous publication has asserted that this was the house
referred to by Shakespeare, as follows:—

     "In the South Suburbs, at the Elephant,
     Is best to lodge."—Twelfth Night; Act iii., Sc. 3.

In fact, the Elephant and Castle at Newington Butts did not come into
existence until long after Shakespeare's time. The ground on which
it stands was not yet built upon in 1658, being then granted as a
charitable donation to the poor of Newington parish. The grant was
renewed and confirmed in 1673, when the structure here represented
may already have come into existence, for we are told that building
operations had then lately taken place. The sign may be derived from
the crest of the Cutlers' Company. Close to the Elephant and Castle,
during the construction of a new sewer in 1823, some piles, posts, and
rings for barges were found imbedded in the soil. Hard by, in the early
part of this century, that strange fanatic, Joanna Southcott, set up
a meeting-house for her followers. Newington Butts was so named from
the exercise of archery at the butts, which was practised here by the
parishioners in Tudor times. The inn was rebuilt in 1824. Of late there
has been another rebuilding on the same site. The view is founded on an
old drawing in the Gardner collection.

A house called the "Oliphant," previously the "Red Hart," is mentioned
in the vestry proceedings of St. Saviour's parish, Southwark, in 1598,
and an "Elephant Alley" near the Globe theatre comes to light in the
St. Saviour's sacramental token book for 1600. Shakespeare may have
had in his mind the building thus indicated, when he made the allusion
quoted above.

     (6-5/8 × 10-1/8)                               D. 82-1896.

  2. White Hart Inn Yard, Southwark, 1884 (Water-colour).

     (13-1/4 × 17-3/8)                              D. 7-1896.

  3. Back of White Hart Inn, Evening, 1884 (Black and white).

     (9-3/8 × 13-9/16)                              D. 8-1896.

  4. In the Gallery of the White Hart, 1884 (Water-colour).

     (11-5/8 × 8-13/16)                             D. 9A-1896.

  5. In the Gallery of the White Hart, 1884 (Black and white).

     (11-1/4 × 8-5/8)                               D. 9B-1896.

  6. Old Houses in Inner Yard of the White Hart, 1884
    (Water-colour).

  [Illustration: No. 6. OLD HOUSES. WHITE HART INN. SOUTHWARK.]

Southwark being on the high road to the coast and to Canterbury, which
contained the famous shrine of St. Thomas à Becket, was for centuries
occupied by inns in number out of all proportion to ordinary shops and
dwellings.

The Borough, according to a State Paper of 1619, "consists chiefly of
inn-keepers." John Stow, in his Survey (1598), says, "from thence (the
Marshalsea) towards London Bridge on the same side, be many fair inns
for the receipt of travellers; by these signs: the Spurre, Christopher,
Bull, Queen's Head, Tabard, George, Hart, King's Head," etc. Of older
date (about 1542) is a map of Southwark, to be found among the Duchy
of Lancaster Records in the Record Office, which shows almost all the
more important Southwark inns. They were grouped together chiefly on
the east side of what is now called the Borough High Street, the most
distant not being more than a quarter of a mile apart. These inns had
a gateway from the street, which was closed at night. Passing through
this gateway one entered a yard, round which ran the galleries where
the guests were housed. Beyond this again there was a larger yard,
which contained the stabling, and where there were often various
tenements. This was approached by a passage from the outer yard, and
generally there was also access to it from behind.

The White Hart was perhaps the largest Southwark inn, and appears to
have dated from the latter part of the 14th century, the sign being
the badge of Richard II., derived from his mother, Joan of Kent. In the
summer of 1450 it was Jack Cade's headquarters whilst he was striving
to gain possession of London. Hall, in his Chronicle, thus speaks of
him:—"The capitayn being advertized of the kynge's absence came first
into Southwarke, and there lodged at the White Hart, prohibiting to
all men Murder, Rape, or Robbery; by which colour he allured to him
the hartes of the common people." It must have been by his orders,
if not in his presence, that "at the Whyt harte in Southwarke,
one Hawaydyne of sent Martyns was beheaded," as we are told in the
Chronicle of the Grey Friars. Here, too, Sir John Fastolfe's servant,
Payne, was despoiled and threatened with death. Cade's success was of
short duration: his followers wavered; he said, or might have said,
in the words of Shakespeare (2 Henry VI., act iv., sc. 8), "Hath my
sword therefore broke through London gates that you should leave me
at the White Hart in Southwark?" The outbreak collapsed, and our inn
is not heard of again for many years. In 1529 a message was sent to
Thomas Cromwell, the notorious minister of Henry VIII., by some one
asking for an interview at the White Hart. In 1669 the back of the
inn was burnt down; and on May 26, 1676, a most destructive fire
occurred in Southwark, when according to the best authorities, no
fewer than 500 houses were either burnt or blown up. The White Hart
was quite destroyed, but was rebuilt shortly afterwards on the old
foundations, at a cost of £2,400. In 1720 Strype describes it as "very
large and of a considerable trade, being esteemed one of the best inns
in Southwark," and it so continued until the early years of the 19th
century. Charles Dickens, in the tenth chapter of Pickwick, has given
us the following graphic description of the house when something of its
old prosperity still clung to it:—

"In the Borough especially, there still remain some half dozen old
inns, which have preserved their external features unchanged and
which have escaped alike the rage for public improvement and the
encroachment of private speculation. Great, rambling, queer old places
they are, with galleries, and passages, and staircases, wide enough
and antiquated enough to furnish material for a hundred ghost stories.
It was in the yard of one of these inns—of no less celebrated a one
than the White Hart—that a man was busily employed in brushing the
dirt off a pair of boots, early on the morning succeeding the events
narrated in the last chapter. The yard presented none of that bustle
and activity which are the usual characteristics of a large coach inn.
Three or four lumbering wagons, each with a pile of goods beneath
its ample canopy, about the height of the second floor window of an
ordinary house, were stowed away beneath a lofty roof, which extended
over one end of the yard; and another, which was probably to commence
its journey that morning, was drawn out into the open space. A double
tier of bedroom galleries, with old clumsy balustrades, ran round two
sides of the straggling area, and a double row of bells to correspond,
sheltered from the weather by a little sloping roof, hung over the door
leading to the bar and coffee-room. Two or three gigs and chaise-carts
were wheeled up under different little sheds and penthouses; and the
occasional heavy tread of a cart-horse, or rattling of a chain at
the further end of the yard, announced to anybody who cared about the
matter, that the stable lay in that direction. When we add that a few
boys in smock frocks were lying asleep on heavy packages, woolpacks,
and other articles that were scattered about on heaps of straw, we have
described as fully as need be, the general appearance of the yard of
the White Hart Inn, High Street, Borough, on the particular morning in
question."

In 1865-66 the south side of the building was replaced by a modern
tavern, which appears to the right of drawing No. 2. Some years
previously the yard had been disfigured by a penthouse or lean-to (also
shown in this drawing), which was used for the business of a bacon
dryer. The old galleries on the north and east sides were let out in
tenements. In the inner yard were some quaint old houses crowded with
lodgers (_vide_ No. 6). From here, looking back, one often saw the
smoke of the bacon curer's furnaces curling out of the windows of the
main building (as shown in drawing No. 3). The remains of the old White
Hart were pulled down in July 1889, and hop factors' rooms built on
the site, the yard being very much curtailed. The modern tavern on the
south side was closed some time ago. It is now used for the storage of
goods. The only trace of its former associations (October 1912) is a
painted board, still to be seen through one of the windows, with the
following words painted on it:—THE SAM WELLER (Social) CLUB.

     (14-1/8 × 10-1/8)                              D. 10-1896.

  7. The Tabard Inn, Southwark, 1810 (Water-colour).

The Tabard is perhaps the most famous of all Southwark inns, owing to
the fact that Chaucer has selected it as the starting point for his
Canterbury Pilgrims:—

     "Byfel that in that sesoun on a day,
     In Southwark at the Tabard as I lay."

He even mentions the name of the jovial landlord, Henry Bailly, a real
personage, who represented Southwark in the Parliament held at
Westminster, A.D. 1376.

It is recorded that in 1304 the Abbot and Convent of Hyde purchased
here from William de Lategareshall two houses, held of the Archbishop
of Canterbury. On this site the abbot built himself a town dwelling,
and at the same time probably a hostelry for the convenience of
travellers. In 1307 he obtained licence from the Bishop of Winchester
to build a chapel at or by the inn. In a later deed occur the following
words: "The Abbott's lodgeinge was wyninge to the backside of the inn
called the Tabarde and had a garden attached." Stow, in his Survey,
puts the matter clearly when he says, "Within this inn was also the
lodging of the Abbot of Hide (by the City of Winchester) a fair house
for him and his train, when he came to that city to parliament." A
lease of the Tabard dated 1st April, 31 Henry VIII., has been found
by Mr. G. Rutter Fletcher, F.S.A., and was printed, with notes by
the present writer, in the "Collections" of the Surrey Archæological
Society, 1896, Vol. XIII. Its chief interest lies in the enumeration
of the rooms and their fixtures, given in the schedule, which may not
unlikely represent the house much as it was in Chaucer's time. At the
dissolution this inn, with other possessions of Abbot Salcote or Capon,
was surrendered, and granted by the king to Thomas and John Master. The
sign of the Tabard (or sleeveless coat, like that worn by heralds),
sometimes the Syrcote, was used till about the end of the sixteenth
century, when it was little by little changed to Talbot, perhaps
through fancy or carelessness. Aubrey says, "the ignorant landlord
or tenant, instead of the ancient sign of 'The Tabard,' put up 'The
Talbot,' a species of dog." Be this as it may, in certain Chancery
proceedings of 27th June 1599, both names are used. About this time
there were large additions to the building. We are told by Speght in
his second edition of Chaucer (1602) that:—"Whereas through time it
has been much decaied, it is now by Master J. Preston, with the Abbot's
house thereto adjoined, newly repaired, and with convenient rooms much
increased for the receipt of many guests." In 1676 occurred the great
Southwark fire, when "the Talbot, with its backhouses and stables, &c.,
was burnt to the ground." It was, however, rebuilt on the old plan,
as depicted in drawing No. 7, and continued to be a picturesque and
interesting example of seventeenth century architecture until 1875-76,
when the whole was swept away. Hop merchants' offices and a modern
"Old Tabard" occupy the site. Here Roman objects were found in 1912.
This drawing was copied from one by George Shepherd (1810) which is in
private hands. It formerly belonged to the late Mr. R. P. Evans, hop
merchant, who occupied rooms in the George Inn Yard.

     (7-3/4 × 10-3/4)                               D. 11-1896.

  8. The George Inn, Southwark, 1884; also seventeenth century
    Trade Token issued from here (Black and white).

     (13 × 9-3/4)                                   D. 12-1896.

  9. Interior of Taproom, George Inn, 1886 (Black and white).

The George Inn, or what is left of it, stands between the sites of the
Tabard and the White Hart. It seems to have come into existence in the
early part of the sixteenth century, and is mentioned by the name of
"St. George" in 1554;

             "St. George that swinged the Dragon,
     And sits on horseback at mine hostess' door."

The owner in 1558 was Humfrey Colet or Collet, who had been member
of Parliament for Southwark. In 1634 a return was made that the inn
had been built of brick and timber (no doubt rebuilt) in 1622. Soon
after the middle of that century, in a book called Musarum Deliciæ or
the Muses' Recreation, compiled by Sir John Mennes (admiral and chief
comptroller of the navy), and Dr. James Smith, appeared some lines
"upon a surfeit caught by drinking bad sack at the George Tavern in
Southwark." Perhaps the landlord mended his ways; in any case the rent
was shortly afterwards £150 a year, a large sum for those days. Two
seventeenth-century trade tokens of the house exist; an illustration of
one is given, which reads thus:—

     O.—ANTHONY BLAKE. TAPSTER. YE. GEORGE. INN. SOUTHWARKE
     R.—(No legend.) Three tobacco-pipes and four pots.

In 1670, Mark Wayland and Mary his wife, held the George at a rent of
£150 a year. It was then partly burnt down, and Wayland rebuilt it.
In consequence, his rent was reduced to £80, and a sugar-loaf. In the
Great Southwark Fire of 1676, the house was totally destroyed, and
was again rebuilt by the tenant, a further reduction of the rent and
an extension of the lease being granted. The present structure dates
from this rebuilding. It was a great coaching and carriers' inn; only
a fragment, but a picturesque one, now exists, the rest having been
pulled down in 1889-90. The yard is used for the purposes of the Great
Northern, the Great Central, and the Great Eastern Railway Companies.

     (7 × 10-1/2)                                   D. 13-1896.

  [Illustration: No. 10. THE NAG'S HEAD INN YARD, SOUTHWARK.]

  10. The Nag's Head Inn Yard, Southwark (Black and white).

In the map of Southwark dating from about 1542, this inn is called the
Horse Hede. In 1720 Strype says that "the buildings are old and sorry
with inhabitants answerable." The inn standing in 1886, of which only
a small part is shown to the right of the drawing, looks as if it were
built not much more than a hundred years ago, but it will be seen that
the tenements on the same side next the High Street were much older.
Here Andrew Ducrow, the great equestrian performer, is said to have
been born, May 12, 1796. His parents had just arrived from Germany.
George Colman, the younger, in his "Poor Gentleman," a comedy produced
at Covent Garden in 1801, makes a farmer say:—"I be come from Lunnon
you see. I warrant I smell of smoke, like the Nag's Head chimney in
the Borough." The inn was well spoken of in a little book called the
Epicure's Almanac, published in 1815; there were balls here sometimes
in the earlier half of the last century. The tavern business is no
longer carried on, the yard and premises being in the hands of the
Great Western Railway Company. The building over the entrance to this
yard remains, but all those on the north side, that is to spectator's
right, including the inn, disappeared some years ago.

     (9-3/4 × 6-3/4)                                D. 18-1896.

  11. Remains of the King's Head Inn, Southwark (Water colour).

     (7-3/16 × 10-1/2)                              D. 14-1896.

  [Illustration: No. 12. THE KING'S HEAD INN, SOUTHWARK.]

  12. The last of the Old King's Head (Water-colour).

This inn was originally the Pope's Head, and the name was changed at
the time of the Reformation. In 1534 the Abbot of Waverley, whose town
house was not far off, writes, apparently on business, that he will
be "at the _Pope's Head_ in Southwark." This was the very year of the
separation of the Church of England from Papal headship. Eight years
afterwards the house is marked in the Record Office map as the "Kynge's
Hed." That the two were one and the same is proved by a deed of 1559,
that belonged to the late Mr. G. Eliot Hodgkin, F.S.A., whose family
at one time possessed the property. This deed is between John Gresham,
uncle of Sir Richard and Lord Mayor in 1547, and John White, Lord Mayor
in 1563, on the one side, and Thomas Cure, a notable inhabitant of
Southwark, on the other; and the inn is here described as having been
"formerly known as the Pope's Hed and now as le kynge's hed abutting on
the highway called Longe Southwarke." In 1588 the house came into the
possession of the Humble family. John Taylor mentions it as frequented
by carriers in 1637; ten years afterwards it belonged to Humble, Lord
Ward. A seventeenth-century trade token which was issued from here,
reads thus:—

     O.—AT . THE . KINGS . HEAD . IN = Bust of Henry VIII.
     R.—SOUTHWARKE . GROCER = W. P.

The King's Head was one of the inns burnt down in the fire of 1676, but
was rebuilt immediately afterwards. The last fragment of the structure
then erected was pulled down in January, 1885. The back of it is shown
on the right of drawing No. 3, as the building actually touched the
White Hart Inn Yard. Mr. John Timbs, in his "Curiosities of London,"
remarks that within his recollection the sign was a well-painted
half-length of Henry VIII.

     (14-1/8 × 10-5/8)                              D. 15-1896.

  13. The Queen's Head Inn, Southwark, 1883 (Water-colour).

     (10-9/16 × 7-1/4)                              D. 16-1896.

  14. Back of the Queen's Head from the Inner Yard, 1884
    (Water-colour).

The Queen's Head is on the site of a house called the Crowned or
Cross Keys, which belonged to the Poynings family. In 1529 it was
used as an armoury, or store place for the King's "harness." In 1558
it still retained its old sign, for Richard Westray, ale brewer,
bequeaths to his wife Joane his messuage on this site, "called
the Cross Keyes with the brewhouse garden and stable as it is now
newly builded by his son Thomas." In 1634 the house had become the
Queen's Head, and the owner was John Harvard, of Emmanuel College,
Cambridge, who afterwards migrated to America and gave his name to
Harvard University, Massachusetts. About this time it was frequented
by carriers, as we learn from John Taylor, "the water-poet." The
Queen's Head seems to have escaped the fire of 1676, perhaps owing to
the fact that, by way of precaution, a tenement was blown up at the
gateway. The main building was pulled down towards the end of 1895. It
was then found to be of half timbered construction, dating possibly
from the time of Richard Westray. A carved oak mantelpiece in a room
on the first floor appeared to be of the early seventeenth century.
The galleried portion of the inn, also of considerable age, which had
been partly let out in tenements, though much dilapidated, was still
standing in June, 1900, but it was all cleared away before the end of
the year. A goods yard for the Great Central Railway was then made, but
at the time of writing this, though still in use, was to let. The inner
yard was then being built over for the purposes of Guy's Hospital.

     (14 × 10-1/8)                                  D. 17-1896.

  15. The Sieve Public-house, Church Street, Minories, 1865 (Black
    and white).

     (5-3/8 × 6-5/8)                                D. 19-1896.

  16. Back of Sieve Public-house, 1885 (Black and white).

     (6 × 7-3/4)                                    D. 20-1896.

  17. Taproom of Sieve and Trade Tokens issued from here, 1885
    (Black and white).

     (7 × 10-9/16)                                  D. 21-1896.

  18. Chimney-piece in Taproom of Sieve, 1885 (Black and white).

The Sieve, close to Holy Trinity Church, Minories, was one of the
oldest public-houses in London. Underneath, there were crypt-like
cellars, the material used in their construction being of the nature
of chalk. It is possible that originally they had some connection with
the adjoining convent of nuns of St. Clare, for Mr. J. T. Smith, who
in 1797 sketched the remains of the conventual buildings, then laid
bare by a fire, and published the results in his "Ancient Topography
of London," tells us that their walls were of chalk and Caen stone. The
parish of Holy Trinity is all included within the ancient precincts of
the convent, and in the early days of the Reformation the gates were
still kept up. In the parish records, under date 1596, there is mention
of the appointment of a "vitler to the parish." He was also to have the
custody of the keys, and was to close the gate "in the sommer at night
at tenne of the clocke, and in the winter at nyne, and at noe other
hour, except the necessary and urgent occasions of the inhabitants of
the said parish doe require the contrarie." Later extracts speak of
vestry meetings at the Sieve; for instance, on February 13, 1705-6,
"about agreeing to pull down the churchyard wall," when matters were
facilitated by the expenditure of six shillings on refreshment. A
seventeenth-century trade token issued from this house, of which a
drawing is given, reads thus:—

     O.—RICHARD . HARRIS . AT . YE SEV = a sieve.
     R.—IN . TRINITY . MINORIES = HIS HALF PENY. R. R. H.

It is mentioned among public-houses of note in the "Vade Mecum
for Malt-worms" (1715?). The sign is a rare one; in 1669, however,
there was also a Sieve in Aldermanbury, from which a trade token
was issued. In the eighteenth century the Sieve in the Minories
appears to have been much curtailed, for in a deed of 1762 it
is described as "all that messuage or tenement now divided into
three," and an old drawing shows adjoining shops similar in style,
which no doubt originally formed part of it. For many years the
house belonged to the Byng family, and at last came into the hands
of the Metropolitan Railway Company, by whom it was closed in 1886,
but not entirely destroyed until 1890. The parish of Holy Trinity is
now annexed to that of St. Botolph, Aldgate. The church, within a few
yards of the old Sieve, is a plain little structure, but has various
interesting features and associations, which have been described in
two publications, by the last vicar, the late Rev. Samuel Kinns. The
previous incumbent, the Rev. E. M. Tomlinson, has also written an
interesting book about it.

     (7-1/8 × 5-1/4)                                D. 22-1896.

  19. Old houses in Aldgate, 1886 (Black and white).

On the south side of Aldgate High Street a few seventeenth century
houses still survive, chiefly butchers' shops, to remind us that even
in Strype's time (1720) they plied their trade here, because, as he
tells us, this region lies "conveniently for driving and carrying
cattle from Rumford market." One of these shops is shown in the
drawing, and to the right of it the Hoop and Grapes tavern, better
known as Christopher Hill's. The posts at the door, handsomely carved,
seem coeval with the house; and inside there is an archaic board for
chalking up the score, with an inlaid frame.

     (8-13/16 × 7-1/4)                              D. 23-1896.

  20. Remains of the Bull Inn, 25, Aldgate High Street, 1886 (Black
    and white).

Aldgate and Whitechapel, being on the high road to Essex, had in old
days several famous inns; among others the Three Nuns, the Crown,
the Blue Boar, and the Black Bull. This last, afterwards known as the
Bull, is the house a small part of which appears in the drawing. It
was at its zenith shortly before the advent of railways, when Mrs. Anne
Nelson, coach proprietor, was the landlady. It has been said that she
could make up nearly 200 beds there, and she lodged and boarded about
three dozen of her guards and coachmen. Most of her business was to
Essex and Suffolk, but she also owned the Exeter coach. She must have
been landlady on the memorable occasion when Mr. Pickwick arrived in a
cab, after "two mile o' danger at eightpence," and it was through this
very archway that he and his companions were driven by the elder Weller
when they started on their adventurous journey to Ipswich. The house is
now wholly destroyed, and the yard built over.

     (9-7/8 × 5-5/16)                               D. 24-1896.

  21. 5, 6, and 7, Aldgate High Street, formerly Saracen's Head
    Inn, 1887 (Black and white).

On the opposite side of the way, some distance west, just within
the original limits of the City, an old block of buildings is still
(1912) to be seen, which once formed the original front of another
well-known coaching inn—the Saracen's Head. The name in 1887 could be
dimly observed on the right-hand house, beneath the paint. The carved
pilasters to the left must have been the work of an artist. The back of
the inn was once galleried, and coaches plied from here to Norwich as
long ago as 1681. In the yard, at the time of the drawing, there was
still a carriers' booking office, but that came to an end many years
ago.

     (9-3/4 × 7-5/16)                               D. 25-1896.

  22. Almshouses of the Skinners' Company, Mile End Road, 1892
    (Sepia).

     (6-13/16 × 10-9/16)                            D. 26-1896.

  23. Almshouses of the Skinners' Company, Mile End Road, from the
    Garden, 1892 (Water-colour).

They were immediately west of the famous Trinity Hospital, which was
threatened with destruction some years ago. Their narrow frontage to
the road did not prepare one for the picturesque view within. Over the
gate were the Company's arms and two statuettes of cripples. There were
also two inscriptions, one of them setting forth that these almshouses
were founded in 1688 during the mastership of Benjamin Alexander; the
other ran thus:—

     THE GIFT OF MR. LEWIS NEWBURY.
     BUILT BY
     THOMAS GLOVER ESQ.,
     his Executor, committed
     to the management of the
     COMPANY OF SKINNERS,
     LONDON.

The houses, twelve in number, were for poor widows. There was a
chapel and a garden at the further end. In 1892 the Skinners' Company
invited tenders for the purchase of the property, and about two years
afterwards the old buildings here represented were swept away.

     (7-3/16 × 5-3/8)                               D. 27-1896.

  24. The Old George Inn, Trinity Square, 1890 (Black and white).

This was a picturesque building, but with no special history. A drawing
of it in the Crace collection shows trees in front and a horse-trough.
To the gallery, people may have flocked to see executions on Tower
Hill, for instance, those of the rebel lords in 1746 and '47. The house
was burnt down early in 1894.

     (8-5/8 × 11-3/8)                               D. 28-1896.

  25. Gateways on the east side of College Hill, 1891 (Black and
    white).

College Hill is so named because Richard Whittington, the famous Mayor
of London, here founded a College of St. Spirit and St. Mary. He was
buried in St. Michael's Church hard by, which was destroyed in the
Great Fire and rebuilt by Wren. A view of its tower is given in this
drawing, and here in the foreground appear two gateways with sculptured
pediments which are quite in the style of the same great architect. It
is worthy of remark that on College Hill was the house and courtyard of
"Zimri," the second and last Duke of Buckingham of the Villiers family,
who, as Strype tells us, lived in this street for some time "upon a
particular humour." Hatton in his "New View of London," 1708, says that
this is "a spacious building on the east side of College Hill, now or
late in the possession of Sir John Lethieullier," and as regards the
position of the house he is followed by Peter Cunningham. However, in
Ogilby and Morgan's map of 1677, and in the map attached to Strype's
edition of Stow, the Duke's dwelling is distinctly shown on the west
side of College Hill.

At present the gateways shown in the drawing are incorporated in
a frontage which in old leases is always called "the stable"; they
form the means of access to two houses joined together; that to the
south—No. 21, College Hill, being a capital specimen of a merchant's
dwelling of the early part of the eighteenth century, with a handsome
staircase, carved over-doors, and a finely panelled room on the first
floor. The other has been rebuilt of late years. They stand back
some distance from the street, and have no special relation with the
gateways, which are older in style. Underneath both houses run, or ran,
very large cellars, connected, and within memory there was a small
garden at the back of No. 21. In 1746 this house belonged to Charles
Lethieullier, and was then tenanted by Sir Samuel Pennant, the previous
occupant having been Sir Robert Godschall. The house afterwards passed
by marriage to the Hulses; for many years it has been in the hands of
the Wilde family, which has produced two eminent judges—Lord Truro and
Lord Penzance.

Taking into consideration the fact of the property having belonged
to the Lethieullier family, from its ground plan, and from the style
of the gateways themselves and of the building to which they belong,
it seems not improbable that here were the stables of Buckingham
House with a garden at the back. The house between the gateways and
the church was built for the Mercers' School, being opened by the
Master and Wardens, June 6th, 1832, and is said to occupy the site of
Whittington's dwelling. The school has of late years, in its turn,
been removed to Barnard's Inn, of which there are drawings in this
collection. The school building on College Hill at the time of writing
remains.

     (11-1/4 × 7-11/16)                             D. 30-1896.

  26. Staircase of House in Botolph Lane, 1887 (Black and white).

This house stood in a quiet courtyard opening into Botolph Lane
with a second entrance in Love Lane, and had been used since 1859
for the Billingsgate and Tower Ward School. The front, plain but
well proportioned, was built of remarkably small bricks with stone
facings. It had a projecting cornice and flat lead-covered roof. The
doorway was approached by a double flight of steps, beneath which
an opening had been left, once used as a dog kennel, to judge from
the little hollow for water scooped out in front. Entering a hall
which extended right through the house and was paved with alternate
chequers of black and white marble, one saw in front a handsome
staircase, part of which is shown; the date 1670 appeared on the
plaster. Upstairs, the structure had been mutilated, the greater
part of the landings on the first and second floors being latterly
included in the schoolrooms, but a marble chimney-piece, fine cornices
and plaster-work, evinced the taste of former possessors. Perhaps
the most interesting part of the house was a small room immediately
to the left of the main entrance. It was panelled throughout, and
painted from ceiling to floor with strange designs, among which one
could dimly discern the figures of Indians, a rhinoceros, antelopes,
palm trees, and other signs of tropical life as it represented itself
to the imagination or memory of the artist. According to some, the
history of the tobacco plant was here depicted, but of this there was
no sign. Fortunately we know the name of the painter of this curious
series of pictures, one of the panels being signed "R. Robinson,
1696." The other decorations of the room were a carved mantelpiece
and a panelled cupboard. The house is charmingly described in the late
Mrs. Riddell's novel "Mitre Court," and she made it the home of
her heroine. There is, however, no authority for her statement that
Sir Christopher Wren was its architect and first inhabitant. This
interesting old building was pulled down in 1905-6, although great
efforts were made to induce its owners to preserve it.

     (11-9/16 × 9-5/8)                              D. 29-1896.

  27. Staircase of No. 9, Great St. Helen's, 1891 (Black and
    white).

During the early part of the year 1892 a large mansion was destroyed
on the south side of Great St. Helen's, Bishopsgate Street. Latterly
divided into two, being numbered 8 and 9, it was of brick, having
engaged pilasters, which were furnished with stone bases and capitals.
They also had bands, on two of which appeared in relief the initials
L/AI and the date 1646. The projecting sills or cornices and the
deep keystones on the first floor windows gave a striking appearance
to the house. It was also memorable as an early specimen of brickwork
in London, and as dating from a period before the formal conclusion of
the Civil War, when building operations were almost at a standstill.
No. 9 had, in a room on the first floor, a wooden seventeenth century
mantelpiece, behind which, on its removal, were found traces of an
older mantelpiece of marble, and evidence of the former existence
of a large open fireplace. The beautiful staircase, or portion of a
staircase, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, of which a slight
drawing is here given, may from its style be Elizabethan. A blocked-up
window with wooden transoms for casements was also discovered; so it
seems likely that, some years after the date of the original building,
considerable alterations took place. The façade has been attributed
to Inigo Jones, but it had not his classic symmetry, and looked like
the work of a less instructed native genius. Besides Inigo Jones, a
Royalist and Roman Catholic, was taken prisoner in October, 1645, at
the storming of Basing House, having been there during the siege, which
had lasted since August, 1643. He was apparently not free to return
to his profession until July 2nd, 1646, when, after payment of a heavy
fine, his estate, which had been sequestrated, was restored to him, and
he received pardon by an ordinance of the House of Commons. It is hard
to believe that whilst he was passing through such a crisis, or in the
few months succeeding it, he would have been superintending a work in
the Puritan City. At the time of his release the great architect was
seventy-four years of age, and, as far as we know, he hardly practised
his profession afterwards. The division of Nos. 8 and 9, Great St.
Helen's, into two, took place in the course of the 18th century;
probably about 1750, to judge from the style of the fanlights and
projecting hoods to the front doors, and from the staircase of No. 8,
the upper portion of which, however, was much more archaic, and might
have served as part of the back-staircase to the original building.

The initials on this house have generally been considered to relate
to Sir John Lawrence, who was Lord Mayor in the year of the Great
Plague, and to Abigail, his wife, but they were really those of his
uncle and aunt—Adam and Judith Lawrence, who were of Flemish or Dutch
origin. From the former, Sir John inherited this house with other
property in the parish. It does not, however, appear that he ever
lived there. He kept his mayoralty in a house of totally different
appearance, an illustration of which by T. Prattent, published in
1796, forms the frontispiece to Vol. XXIX. of the "European Magazine."
As there shown, it had elaborate plaster decorations in front with
the City arms and the arms of Lawrence, and last, not least, with
the inscription Sr J L—K & A. 1662. That undoubted residence of Sir
John Lawrence is marked by name in the map of Bishopsgate Street Ward
accompanying Strype's edition of Stow's Survey, where a slight sketch
of it is also given. The present Jewish synagogue in Great St. Helen's
is rather west of the site.

     (6-7/8 × 3-3/4)                                D. 34-1896.

  [Illustration: No. 28. ENTRANCE TO GREAT ST. HELEN'S.]

  28. Entrance to Great St. Helen's from Bishopsgate Street, 1891
    (Black and white).

When this view was taken, the passage from Bishopsgate Street to
Great St. Helen's passed under old buildings which had escaped the
Great Fire. The structure on spectator's right was Sir Andrew Judd's
almshouse, founded by him in 1551, and rebuilt by the Skinners' Company
in 1729. Sir Andrew, who was Lord Mayor and belonged to the Skinners'
Company, seems, in this benefaction, to have been merely acting as
executor to his cousin Elizabeth, widow of Sir William Hollis. Stow,
however, does not mention her name in connection with the charity. Sir
Andrew also founded and endowed Tunbridge Grammar School. The almshouse
was destroyed about the year 1892, and the old buildings by Bishopsgate
Street did not long survive. The building on spectator's left was the
modern part of Crosby Hall, swept away in 1907-8.

     (11-1/2 × 8-3/16)                              D. 35-1896.

  29. No. 10, Great St. Helen's, 1891 (Black and white).

At the corner of Great St. Helen's, opposite the pretty south porch of
the church, by some attributed to Inigo Jones, which has on it the date
1633, stood a quaint old house constructed of wood and plaster, with
projecting upper stories and massive timbering, which dated from long
before the Great Fire, and at the time of this sketch was, perhaps, the
oldest domestic building in the City except Crosby Hall; the inside,
however, had been modernised. Tradition boldly asserts that Anne
Boleyn's father, Sir Thomas, afterwards Viscount Rochford and Earl of
Wiltshire, once lived here. It is an undoubted fact that a kinsman of
his name, was intimately connected with St. Helen's, for "on the 24th
December, 26th Hen. VIII., 1534, the Prioress and Convent appointed
Sir James Bolleyne, Knt., to be steward of their lands and tenements
in London and elsewhere, the duties to be performed either by himself
or a sufficient deputy during the life of the said James, at a stipend
of forty shillings a year, payable at Christmas. If in arrear for six
weeks the said James might enter and distrain." This was most likely
Sir Thomas Boleyn's elder brother. The house, No. 10, had been much
shaken by the removal of Nos. 8 and 9 adjoining. It was propped up for
some time, and destroyed in the course of 1894.

     (12-5/16 × 5-5/16)                             D. 33-1896.

  30. Old Houses, Great St. Helen's, Bishopsgate Street, 1862
    (Black and white).

This drawing was made from the passage between Bishopsgate Street
and St. Helen's, the view being the reverse of No. 28. The strip of
building to the extreme right belonged to the modern part of Crosby
Hall, a Gothic mansion unrivalled in its day; but its entrance—No. 1,
St. Helen's, is not shown, nor is No. 2—a well-proportioned house
with a pretty doorway, dating from the earlier part of the eighteenth
century which has also disappeared. The three plastered houses
adjoining were pulled down many years ago. The high brick house
immediately to their left has so far been spared, and deserves a visit
for the sake of its good Georgian staircase. Part of Nos. 8 and 9,
already described, is dimly seen through the trees on the left. No. 10
is not visible, being chiefly round the corner, in the lane leading to
St. Mary Axe. There was a right of way through here for the public from
quite early times; for Dugdale tells us that in the Hundred Roll of 3rd
Edward I. several entries occur relating to an attempt which the nuns
made to stop up the lane or passage through the court of their priory
from Bishopsgate Street to St. Mary Axe. Since 1862 a large piece
has been taken from the churchyard, with no apparent advantage to the
public.

     (8-7/16 × 6-5/8)                               D. 89-1896.

  31. Crosby Hall Chambers, Bishopsgate Street, 1891 (Prout's
    brown).

     (7-7/16 × 4-3/8)                               D. 87-1896.

  32. Mantelpiece in Crosby Hall Chambers, Bishopsgate Street, 1891
    (Pen and ink).

At No. 25, Bishopsgate Street Within, until 1892-93, a house was
standing which had been known for years as Crosby Hall Chambers. The
front towards the street had no marks of antiquity except two carved
festoons of flowers much blocked up by paint, between the first floor
windows. The north side, as seen from a passage which is here depicted,
appeared to be externally more or less in its original state. Its base
was composed of rustic work, the wall being relieved by pilasters.
There was a room on the first floor looking out on this passage, which
was adorned by a very beautiful carved chimney-piece shown in the
second drawing, and now in the Board room of the Bank of Scotland,
which stands on the site. It bears the date 1633; the lower part is of
stone, the overmantel of oak. Students of work of this period should
compare it with a somewhat earlier chimney-piece now in the Guildhall
Museum, which was removed from an old mansion in Lime Street now
many years ago. There was also at Crosby Hall Chambers a fragment of
decorative plaster ceiling. This was acquired by the authorities of the
Victoria and Albert Museum. They also have a cast of the chimney-piece.

     (11 × 9-7/16)                                  D. 31-1896.

  33. Garden of No. 4, Crosby Square, 1891 (Black and white).

Crosby Square, built about the year 1678, is on the site of the
offices of Crosby Hall, which had been destroyed by fire. No. 3
was formerly a good specimen of a house of that date. It has been
recased with brick, but the handsome doorway is preserved. No.
4 has a fine staircase; its chief distinction, however, was the
charming garden at the back, with its fig trees, its thorns, and
fountain—a veritable oasis in this wilderness of bricks and mortar.
Unfortunately, soon after the removal of Crosby Hall, it was destroyed,
and the garden built upon. The south wall of this was mediæval,
being composed of good rubble, 3 feet thick, and extending from
the present ground level to a depth of 14 feet of made earth. It
was part of the original boundary wall of the Crosby precinct. Dr.
Nathan Adler, Chief Rabbi, lived here for some years, from 1847
onwards; the garden and basin are marked distinctly in Strype's map of
1720.

     (7 × 10-3/4)                                   D. 32-1896.

  34. Sir Paul Pindar's House, No. 169, Bishopsgate Street Without,
    1890 (Black and white).

In 1890-91 the Great Eastern Railway Company cleared a great space
near the Liverpool Street terminus, which involved the removal of
the remains of Sir Paul Pindar's house, a beautiful work of art and
a unique relic of a great city residence at the beginning of the
seventeenth century. The oak front, with its elaborate carved work, is
now to be seen in the Museum (West Hall, R. 48). One is thankful that
it exists, but of course it was far more interesting while still in its
original position. The decorated plaster ceiling from the first floor
is also in the Museum. There is a view of the room which contained this
ceiling, drawn by J. T. Smith in 1810, which also shows a fine though
somewhat grotesque chimney-piece, having on it the date 1600. With
other decorative work, it was removed early in the last century, when
the room was made what the possessors called "a little comfortable."
Doubtless the original mansion included the adjoining house, or its
site, and much more besides. This latter house to the left or south,
destroyed about the year 1877, contained a good plaster ceiling of
more modern style than that already referred to; it is also now in
the Museum. There must have been gardens at the back, and a building,
with handsome decoration, called "the Lodge," which formerly stood in
Half Moon Street, and is figured in Wilkinson's "Londina Illustrata,"
was said by tradition to have been occupied by the gardener. Sir Paul
Pindar was an eminent merchant and diplomatist, who lent great sums
of money to Charles I., and gave at least £10,000 for the rebuilding
and embellishment of old St. Paul's Cathedral. A tablet to his
memory was formerly on the north side of the chancel of St. Botolph's
Church, Bishopsgate Street, but of late years it has been banished
to an obscure corner in the north vestibule. The inscription runs as
follows:—

     Sir Paul Pindar Kt
     Her Majesty's embassador to the Turkish Emperor
     Anno DM 1611 and 9 years resident
     Faithful in negotiations foreign and domestick
     Eminent for piety charity loyalty and prudence
     An inhabitant 26 years and a bountiful benefactor
     To this Parish
     He dyed the 22d August 1650
     Aged 84 years.

From 1787 or earlier the main portion of Pindar's house, here depicted,
was used as a tavern.

     (10-1/4 × 7)                                   D. 36-1896.

  35. The One Swan Inn, Bishopsgate Street Without, 1890 (Black and
    white).

Another house destroyed by the Great Eastern Railway Company,
about the same time as that last described, was the One Swan Inn,
Bishopsgate Street Without. It had no special history, but was
an old place of call for carriers and waggons, and survived its
companions, the Two Swans hard by, and the better-known Four Swans,
Bishopsgate Street Within, the site of which is now marked by a modern
tavern. The yard of the One Swan Inn was of considerable size. A
picturesque wool warehouse had stood on the vacant space shown in the
sketch, to the left-hand side. This latter building had been destroyed
in 1886.

     (9-3/8 × 5-3/8)                                D. 37-1896.

  36. Staircase of No. 10, Austin Friars, 1895 (Water-colour).

Early in 1896 the interesting house, No. 10, ceased to be. It was in
the precinct of Austin Friars, on the north side of the Old Friars'
Church, the nave of which has for centuries been handed over to the
Dutch congregation in London. As appeared from a date on a rain-pipe,
it had been in existence at least as early as the year 1704. The porch
was approached by steps; ascending these, one saw in front a spacious
staircase, so typical of the period that it is here portrayed. This
staircase was panelled throughout, and was especially noticeable from
its ceiling, which was painted on plaster with allegorical figures, in
the style of Sir James Thornhill. The house No. 11 formed part of the
same block of buildings. While these were in process of destruction a
Gothic arch was exposed to view, the upper part of which had been in
a room on the ground floor of No. 10, incorporated in the east wall of
the house. From the character of the mouldings it appeared to date from
the fifteenth century, and had no doubt belonged to the cloisters of
the Augustine Friars. Other mediæval remains were found, and a paper
on the subject was read by Mr. Allen S. Walker, before the London and
Middlesex Archæological Society.

     (9-7/8 × 7-3/8)                                D. 77-1896.

  37. Arms of the Olmius Family on Mantelpiece at No. 21, Austin
    Friars, 1888 (Black and white).

The house to which these arms belonged had been built in the latter
part of the seventeenth century, possibly before the great fire, which
did not extend so far north. In the year 1705 it came into the hands
of Herman Olmius, merchant, descended from an ancient family of Arlon
in the Duchy of Luxembourg, and naturalised by Act of Parliament,
29 Charles II. He was a member of the French Protestant Church in
Threadneedle Street, and made a large fortune; he died in 1718. His
eldest son was a deputy-governor of the Bank of England, and his
grandson was raised to the Irish peerage as Lord Waltham, but the
title became extinct in the next generation. For many years, beginning
in 1783, the well-known Huguenot family of Minet occupied the house,
and in 1838 Messrs. Thomas, Son & Lefevre were established here, the
last-named being a brother of the late Lord Eversley. This house,
a drawing of which the writer hopes at some future time to add to
the collection, was remarkable as having come down to us in almost
unchanged condition from its earliest time. To the west it formerly
overlooked the Drapers' Garden, and it had a garden of its own about
half an acre in extent, with brewery, coach-house, and stables. Inside,
there was a good staircase, some of the rooms were charmingly panelled,
a strong room and parts of the kitchen were lined with Dutch tiles,
and in front of a Purbeck marble mantelpiece there was a coat of arms
in white marble (No. 37), with various foreign quarterings. It may be
described as follows:—

     Quarterly: 1. Per fess azure and argent,
     a fess counter embattled or; in chief a
     mullet of six points of the second; in base
     on a mount vert an elm tree proper. OLMIUS.

     2. Sable, a dexter hand proper, issuing out of a cloud
     and grasping five wheat ears or. GERVERDINE.

     3. In chief a deer's head couped azure, crowned argent;
     in base six besants or. REYNSTEIN.

     4. Azure, a goat erect argent, hoofed and horned or,
     browsing on a vine proper. CAPPRÉ.

     On an escutcheon of pretence sable, a herring or in
     bend. DRIGUE.

These are the arms of Herman Olmius, whose name was the Latinised form
of the Flemish or Dutch word for elm. The Gerverdine arms are those of
his mother Margareta; the arms on the escutcheon of pretence are those
of his wife Judith. No. 21, Austin Friars was swept away in 1888. The
boundary at the end of its garden had been formed by one side of the
premises known as No. 23, Great Winchester Street, to which allusion
will next be made.

     (4-3/4 × 4-1/4)                                D. 38-1896.

  38. Kitchen Range in No. 23, Great Winchester Street, 1889 (Black
    and white).

     (10 × 12-1/2)                                  D. 40-1896.

  39. Chief Reception Room, No. 23, Great Winchester Street, 1889
    (Black and white).

The fine old mansion in which these drawings were done stood back
from the street, and was approached through a paved yard with a lodge
on each side of the entrance. Outside, its chief characteristics
were a somewhat high pitched roof, and wings projecting forward.
Within, the staircase with its plaster decorations, was handsome. The
well-proportioned room of which a drawing is here given (No. 39) was on
the first floor. There were other panelled apartments, and the kitchen
range (No. 38) was very old-fashioned. After the dissolution, the
house and gardens of the Augustine Friars had passed into the hands of
William Paulet, first Marquis of Winchester, hence the name Winchester
Street. From a date carved on a grotesque bracket, formerly to be seen
at the north-east corner, it appears that the street was constructed,
partly at least, in the year 1656, during the government of Cromwell.
Strype, writing in 1720, says that here was "a great messuage called
the Spanish Ambassador's house, of late inhabited by Sir John Houblon,
Knight and Alderman, and other fair houses." Even down to our time it
was a remarkably picturesque specimen of a London street. No. 23, Great
Winchester Street was destroyed in 1890.

     (10-1/8 × 12-1/2)                              D. 39-1896.

  40. The City Greenyard, No. 18, Whitecross Street, 1895 (Black
    and white).

This was formerly the place to which stray horses or cattle found
in the City were taken for safe custody. It is stated in an Act of
Parliament, May, 1765, that "The Commissioners appointed to remove
nuisances may seize the waggon, cart, dray, or other carriage
so placed, together with the horse or horses, etc., etc., and to
remove the same to the Common Pound of the City, commonly called
the Greenyard." Here are now (and have been for many years) the
Lord Mayor's stables, his wonderful State coach, and the carriage
he uses on ordinary occasions, which is shown in the illustration;
the figure of the Lord Mayor's coachman may also be seen standing
in a doorway. Between the open space and Whitecross Street were the
Gresham almshouses, removed to Brixton in 1883. They had been
originally at the back of old Gresham College, between Broad Street and
Bishopsgate Street. The almshouses in Whitecross Street were, after
1883, for a time utilised as quarters for married men in the City
Police.

     (8-1/8 × 11-7/16)                              D. 78-1896.

  41. Bunyan's Monument, Bunhill Fields, 1894 (Black and white).

Bunhill Fields Burial Ground in the City Road, near Finsbury Square,
described by Southey as the "Campo Santo" of the Dissenters, was one of
the three great fields, namely "Bonhill Field," "Mallow Field," and the
"High Field or Meadow Ground, where the three windmills stand, commonly
called 'Finsbury Field.'" As early as the year 1315 it seems to have
been let to the City authorities, and in 1553 a lease was granted to
the Corporation of this with other land, being a part of the church
property of the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's, and the lease was again
and again renewed. In 1661 the ground was underlet to a person of the
name of Tindal for fifty-one years. In the deed it is described as
meadow land, and the citizens are to be allowed to use it for purposes
of recreation. Up to that date, therefore, it does not appear to have
become a burial ground; but it was probably set apart for the burial of
victims of the Great Plague, although not so used. It is a mistake to
connect it with "the Great Pit in Finsbury" mentioned by Defoe in his
Memoirs of the Plague, which was situated near the upper end of Goswell
Street. However, about this time Tindal turned it into a burial ground.
For many years called by his name, it was adopted as their place of
interment by several Dissenting sects, and from 1665 to 1852, when all
City cemeteries were closed, no fewer than 123,000 burials took place
here. For some years after this the place was neglected, but in 1867-68
it was put in order and opened to the public October 14th, 1869. In
Bunhill Fields there are now about six thousand tombs; a record of them
is kept in the Surveyor's Office, Guildhall. Among eminent persons
here buried are General Charles Fleetwood (Cromwell's son-in-law),
Defoe, Susannah Wesley, mother of John and of Charles, Dr. Isaac Watts,
Joseph Ritson, the antiquary, William Blake, painter and poet, Thomas
Stothard, R.A. But perhaps the most widely known is John Bunyan, who
wrote "The Pilgrim's Progress." He died at the house of his friend, Mr.
Strudwick, a grocer at the Star on Snow Hill, and was buried in that
friend's vault. The monument was restored by public subscription, under
the presidency of the Earl of Shaftesbury in 1862; a drawing of it is
here given.

     (6-1/2 × 8-1/8)                                D. 79-1896.

  42. Chimneypiece and part of room in No. 4, Coleman Street, 1892
    (Water-colour).

Until a few years ago a house was standing on the west side of
Coleman Street, near the north end, which, like houses innumerable,
was reputed to have been a residence of Oliver Cromwell; at first
sight it appeared to date from the earlier part of the eighteenth
century. There was in it a good eighteenth century staircase with
a skylight above, and one of the rooms had a handsome mantelpiece,
also apparently Georgian. Another room, on the first floor, was
distinguished by very remarkable features: it was panelled with
cedar, and, as will be seen, the style of this panelling and of the
handsome carved chimneypiece are distinctly Jacobean. The house,
therefore, was much older than appeared at first sight, or else it
had been rebuilt early in the eighteenth century, the chimneypiece and
panelling being insertions from an older building. The houses at the
north end of Coleman Street were not destroyed in the Great Fire. In
1891-92 the cedar room was used as an office by Mr. H. S. Foster, then
Sheriff of London. In 1896 the house was pulled down by Messrs. Colls
and Son, whose offices adjoined, and in clearing away the foundations
the workmen came upon three ancient wells—two of them went down 20 ft.
below the pavement level. The following is quoted from an illustrated
article in the "City Press" for June 6th, 1896:—"The construction of
these wells or elongated water-butts was simplicity itself. Tubs or
casks, bound with wooden hoops, were sunk into the ground and banked
up with puddled clay to keep them water-tight. The clay remains to
this day, as also do the wooden hoops (or did till very recently), but
the latter are as soft as touchwood." The description of these casks
reminds one of casks somewhat similar which have been found in Roman
wells at Silchester, and were exhibited in the rooms of the Society of
Antiquaries at Burlington House. In the wells beneath No. 4, Coleman
Street, were discovered various pieces of pottery in remarkably good
preservation, which are now in the Guildhall. The collection represents
types ranging from the beginning of the fifteenth to the end of the
seventeenth century. The soil in which these old wells were sunk was
dark and peaty, like that of Moorfields, on the other side of the City
Wall.

     (12 × 9-13/16)                                 D. 84-1896.

  43. Interior of The Two Brewers Public-house, No. 27, London
    Wall, 1886 (Black and white).

The Two Brewers Public-house, at the entrance to Fox and Goose Yard,
London Wall, destroyed a few weeks after the completion of this
drawing, was evidently a very old building. The sign was in former days
a common one, being usually represented by two brewers' men carrying
a barrel of beer slung between them on a pole. It is curious that a
sign of a similar description was used by the Romans; one representing
two men carrying between them an amphora was found at Pompeii. It is
figured in Larwood and Hotten's "History of Signboards," that of the
Two Brewers being placed alongside for comparison.

     (7 × 9)                                        D. 41-1896.

  44. Part of the Chapter Coffee House, from Paul's Alley, 1887
    (Black and white).

The Chapter Coffee House in Paternoster Row (No. 50) and also opening
into Paul's Alley, a passage from St. Paul's Churchyard, was noted
in the 18th century as a house of call for London publishers. In
the "Connoisseur," No. 1, January 31st, 1754, is the following
notice of it:—"And here my publisher would not forgive me was I to
leave the neighbourhood without taking notice of the Chapter Coffee
House, which is frequented by those encouragers of literature,
and, as they are styled by an eminent critic—'not the worst judges
of merit'—the booksellers. The conversation here naturally turns
upon the newest publications, but their criticisms are somewhat
singular. When they say a _good_ book they do not mean to praise
the style or sentiment, but the quick and extensive sale of it." Late
in the 18th century and early in the 19th, several clubs met here,
of which an account is given in the "Curiosities of London," by John
Timbs. Goldsmith appears to have known it well. Chatterton says, in
a letter to his mother, "I am quite familiar at the Chapter Coffee
House." And here Charlotte and Anne Brontë stayed on their first visit
to London in June, 1848. It had been visited by their father, and
thus they gained their knowledge of it. The late Mr. George Smith, the
famous publisher, remembered calling on them there, and Mrs. Gaskell
gives a graphic description of the low ceilings, the wainscotted rooms,
and the high narrow windows. After the death of the proprietor, Charles
Faithfull, in November, 1853, the house became an ordinary tavern; it
was rebuilt before 1890, there are now no rooms over the passage. From
the Chapter Coffee House were issued in the seventeenth century two
leathern trade tokens, specimens of which are preserved in the Beaufoy
Collection at the Guildhall Museum. The larger one, representing a
groat, has on it:—

     O.—CHAPTER COFFEE HOUSE (4)—In the field, a mitre.
     R.—Blank.

The leather appears to have been gilded.

     (8-3/4 × 4-1/4)                                D. 44-1896.

  45. Royal Mail Tavern, from Fitchett's Court, Noble Street, 1889
    (Black and white).

This house, on the south side of Noble Street, from the style of the
brickwork must have been built in the early part of the eighteenth
century, but little is known of its history. The sign was comparatively
modern, suggested, no doubt, by the proximity of the General Post
Office, which was moved from Lombard Street to St. Martin's-le-Grand in
1829. The Royal Mail Tavern was destroyed in May, 1897.

     (8-3/4 × 5-3/8)                                D. 42-1896.

  46. Reminiscence of the Oxford Arms, Warwick Lane, 1875
    (Water-colour).

The structure, of which a small part is here shown, was approached by
a passage from Warwick Lane, being bounded on the west by the old wall
of the cathedral precinct and touching Amen Corner on the south. It was
a fine example of its kind. As was said by a writer in the "Athenæum"
of May 20th, 1876:—"Despite the confusion, the dirt, and the decay,
he who stands in the yard of this ancient inn may get an excellent
idea of what it was like in the days of its prosperity, when not only
travellers in coach or saddle rode into or out of the yard, but poor
players and mountebanks set up their stage for the entertainment
of spectators who hung over the galleries or looked on from their
rooms—a name by which the boxes of a theatre were first known." The
house must have been rebuilt after the Great Fire, which raged over
all this area. That it existed before, is proved by the following odd
advertisement from the "London Gazette" for March, 1672-73:—"These
are to give notice that Edward Bartlet, Oxford Carrier, hath removed
his Inn in London from the Swan at Holborn Bridge to the Oxford
Arms in Warwick Lane, where he did Inn before the Fire. His coaches
and waggons going forth on their usual days, Mondays, Wednesdays
and Fridays. He hath also a hearse and all things convenient to carry
a corps to any part of England." In the palmy days of coaching, just
before the advent of the railways, the Oxford Arms was in the hands
of Mr. Edward Sherman, who carried on the chief coaching business
at the Bull and Mouth, St. Martin's-le-Grand. After 1868 many of
the rooms were let out in tenements, but the inn still did a good
carriers' business, carts leaving daily for Oxford and other places.
It was closed in 1875 and pulled down in the following year. Views
of this house formed the first of a series issued by the Society for
Photographing Relics of Old London. The late Mr. Alfred Marks, the
accomplished secretary, wrote useful accompanying notes. Another old
galleried house, which long lingered on the east side of Warwick Lane,
was the Bell Inn, where Archbishop Leighton died in 1684. As Burnet
tells us, he had often said that "if he were to choose a place to
die in it should be an Inn; it looked like a pilgrim's going-home, to
whom this world was all as an Inn, and who was weary of the noise and
confusion in it." Thus his desire was fulfilled.

     (10-9/16 × 7-1/4)                              D. 43-1896.

  47. Deanery of St. Paul's, 1891 (Black and white).

This house was built by Wren, after the Great Fire, on the site of the
former Deanery, but shorn of the chief part of its garden stretching
down to the river, which was portioned off in building leases to
defray the cost of the new structure. In our drawing the high gates
almost concealed the porch, which is ornamented with carved festoons
of flowers. There is also a handsome staircase. Many years ago rooks
used to build in the plane-trees in front. The drawing was taken
from the steps of No. 5 Dean's Court, now destroyed, where was the
Vicar-General's Office for Marriage Licences.

     (8-1/4 × 10-7/8)                               D. 45-1896.

  48. Dean's Court, St. Paul's Churchyard, 1894 (Water-colour).

The Deanery stands in Dean's Court, and the wall enclosing it is here
shown on the left, the artist's standpoint being very close to that
in No. 47. In 1894 great changes took place at this spot, which had
before been singularly quiet and old-fashioned. The entrance from St.
Paul's Churchyard was, before, through an archway, under a house dating
from immediately after the Great Fire, which was said traditionally
to have been used by Wren as an office during the rebuilding of
St. Paul's. This house appears in course of demolition, while the
ground on the right lies vacant, and we are thus enabled to have
a glimpse of the cathedral, soon afterwards again quite concealed.
The buildings to the east, facing St. Paul's Churchyard, together
with the Vicar-General's office and other houses on the same side
of Dean's Court, were cleared away to enable Messrs. Pawson and Co.
to extend their warehouses, the Ecclesiastical Commissioners having
granted them a building lease for that purpose. Dean's Court did
not actually form part of the precincts of Doctors' Commons (finally
cleared away in 1867), but was associated with it and in its immediate
neighbourhood. Sam Weller, in "Pickwick," thus humourously refers
to the entrance:—"St. Paul's Churchyard—low archway on the carriage
side, bookseller's at one corner, hotel on the other, and two porters
in the middle as touts for licences." It was here that his father was
inveigled into matrimony.

     (8-3/4 × 6-3/8)                                D. 74-1896.

  49. St. Paul's Churchyard, laid out as a Garden (Black and
    white).

The present cathedral of St. Paul is the third dedicated to that
Saint and built more or less on the same site. The first was founded
in the early part of the seventh century by Ethelbert, King of Kent;
the second, known as _old_ St. Paul's, was begun A.D. 1087. This,
having been destroyed by the Great Fire, was replaced by the present
marvellous building, which we owe to the genius of Sir Christopher
Wren. It will thus be seen that St. Paul's Churchyard has had hallowed
associations for about 1,300 years. The name, in its fullest sense,
is applied to the irregular area surrounded by houses encircling
the cathedral and including the burial-ground. These houses, before
the Fire and for some time afterwards, were largely inhabited by
booksellers and publishers, who by degrees worked their way into
Paternoster Row, where they still flourish. For many years after
burials had ceased, the burial-ground attached to St. Paul's was in a
somewhat neglected condition. In 1877 an agreement was entered into
between the City Corporation and the Dean and Chapter, by which the
former pledged themselves to lay out a considerable sum on the enclosed
space if they were allowed to convert it into a garden for the benefit
of the public, and on September 14th, 1879, the north-eastern part,
which is here represented, was publicly opened by the Lord Mayor. Here
the weary may sit amidst trees and flowers beneath the shadow of the
great cathedral, and enjoy seclusion from the turmoil of City life. The
scene here represented is, however, a thing of the past. The fountain
has disappeared, and with it most of the pigeons, its place being taken
by a cross erected under the will of the late Mr. H. C. Richards, as a
memento of the old St. Paul's Cross.

     (6-1/4 × 8-5/8)                                D. 75-1896.

  50. The Yard of the Swan with Two Necks, 49, Carter Lane, 1894
    (Water-colour).

There has been more than one hostelry with this sign in the City of
London. The most famous was the Swan with Two Necks in Lad Lane,
at one time owned by Mr. William Chaplin, perhaps the greatest
coach proprietor that ever lived. After the advent of railways,
in partnership with Mr. Horne, he established the great carrying
business which still flourishes on the old site in Lad Lane, now
absorbed by Gresham Street. The Swan with Two Necks, in Carter Lane,
was also a coaching house, but although picturesque, of comparatively
small importance. Outside was a painted sign, placed flat against
the wall, and visible from Dean's Court. Times having changed,
the building in front became an ordinary public-house, while the
galleried portion was occupied by persons in the employment of
Messrs. Pawson, the great warehousemen. This drawing was made in
October, 1894, when the place had just been vacated, having been
taken over by the Post Office authorities. It was shortly afterwards
destroyed, and a Post Office Savings Bank has been built on the
site. The origin of the sign may be thus explained. The swans on
the upper reaches of the Thames are owned respectively by the Crown
and the Dyers' and Vintners' Companies of the City of London, and,
according to ancient custom, the representatives of these several
owners make an expedition each year up the river and mark the cygnets.
The Royal mark used to consist of five diamonds, the Dyers' of four
bars and one nick, and the Vintners' of the chevron or letter V and
two nicks. The word "nicks" has been corrupted into "necks," and as
the Vintners were often tavern-keepers, the Swan with Two Necks became
a common sign. The swan-marks which I have described continued in use
until the year 1878, when the swanherds were prosecuted by the Society
for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, on the ground that they
inflicted unnecessary pain. Although the prosecution failed, the marks
have since been simplified.

     (6-11/16 × 8-5/8)                              D. 72-1896.

  [Illustration: No. 51. VIEW FROM PAUL'S PIER. 1891.]

  51. View from Paul's Pier, 1891 (Black and white).

The spectator may here suppose himself to be standing near the site
of Paul's Wharf, which Stow describes as "a large landing place with
a common stair upon the river Thames, at the end of a street called
Paul's Wharf Hill, which runneth down from Paul's Chain." The bridge in
the middle distance is Southwark Bridge. In the immediate foreground is
a curious riverside dwelling, squeezed in between two great warehouses;
its quaint bay window projecting over a wide doorway for the passage
of goods, which opens on to the Thames. The house, containing nineteen
rooms and two staircases, was, in 1891, still occupied as a private
residence, being let in apartments, and was one of the last of its
kind on the Thames bank in London. It was popularly supposed to be 300
years old, and to have been occupied by James I., an adjoining wharf
being used as a barrack for his soldiers, but, from the architectural
point of view, there was nothing to indicate that it dated from before
the end of the seventeenth, or beginning of the eighteenth century.
East Paul's Wharf, immediately beyond, had been rebuilt in 1890,
but the large warehouse adjoining it on the west, known as Paul's
Wharf, and sometimes called the "barracks," looked as if it had been
built about a hundred years. It ran back some distance, having twelve
gables alongside the way to Paul's Pier. Shortly after the completion
of this drawing, a subterranean brick tunnel (partly under the old
house) was discovered. It began at a distance of about 50 feet from
the Thames, and extended in a northerly direction for about 110 feet.
It was 14 feet wide with a clear way of some 8 feet, after allowing
for a deep deposit of mud along the floor. The arch within was covered
with stalactites, in some cases a yard long; the two ends had been
bricked up. The writer of an article in the "Builder" for August 2,
1891, suggests that "this tunnel may possibly have been made to carry
off some of the torrents that used to run down the steep inclines in
this part of the town after great and sudden rains, sometimes to the
peril of human life, as witness the story told by Stow apropos of
Dowgate (1574)." The old house, the "barracks," and the tunnel were all
destroyed in 1898. During the work of reconstruction, ancient timber
piling came to light, which had been used for the embankment of the
river. Paul's Pier has of late years been abolished. A seventeenth
century trade token, issued from Paul's Wharf, reads as follows:-

     O.—AT . YE . NEXT . BOAT . BY PAVLS = A boat containing
          three men; over it, NEXT BOAT.
     R.—WHARFE . AT . PETERS . HILL . FOOT = M. M. B.

     (10-5/8 × 8-1/4)                               D. 46-1896.

  52. Back of the Green Dragon Inn, St. Andrew's Hill, 1890 (Black
    and white).

This picturesque old house, here shown from Green Dragon Court, had
no special history, but, to judge by its style, must have dated from
immediately after the Great Fire. St. Andrew's Hill was first called
Puddle Hill, and then Puddle Dock Hill, after the neighbouring wharf of
that name. Shakespeare owned a house in Ireland Yard hard by, where,
in 1900, remains of the Blackfriars Priory were brought to light. The
Green Dragon was the badge of William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, who
died in 1570. This house was pulled down in 1896. Its better known
namesake in Bishopsgate Street, an old galleried coaching inn, had
disappeared in 1877.

     (9-11/16 × 5)                                  D. 47-1896.

  53. Interior of the Church of Allhallows the Great, 1893
    (Water-colour).

     (13-3/8 × 16-9/16)                             D. 70-1896.

  54. Carved Emblematical Figures, Allhallows the Great, 1893
    (Water-colour).

The church of Allhallows the Great, Upper Thames Street, is mentioned
in a will of 1259. The patronage of the living was anciently in the
hands of the Le Despencers; it afterwards came to Richard Nevil, Earl
of Warwick, "the King maker." This church had a large cloister on
the south side. The whole was destroyed or very much injured in the
great fire, and rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren, who, according to
his custom, worked in such parts of the walls and foundations as were
available. The tower and north aisle or ambulatory of this structure
(which seems never to have been open to the nave) were removed in
1876 for the widening of Upper Thames Street. Under the Union of
Benefices Act, the church itself was sold by auction March 31st,
1894, and shortly afterwards pulled down, the ground being bought by
the neighbouring brewery. It is now an open space with its fragment
of churchyard. The interior was of singular beauty, and retained its
original fittings to the end, among them the fine open screen shown
in drawing No. 53 and now at St. Margaret's, Lothbury. This screen is
sometimes said to have been made at Hamburg, and given by the Hanseatic
merchants, so long connected with the neighbouring Steelyard. It is,
however, undoubtedly English work. The earlier documents bearing on
the subject make it almost certain that both screen and pulpit were
presented by Theodore Jacobsen, who in 1680 succeeded his brother
Jacob as house-master of the Steelyard, an office which the latter
had held at the time of the Great Fire. It was chiefly through their
efforts that the Steelyard was rebuilt, and the Jacobsen family thereby
acquired claims over it, which, after protracted litigation, were
bought up by the Hanseatic towns in 1748. These retained the Steelyard
and some slight connection with the church until after the middle of
the nineteenth century. It may be observed also that the screen has
on it an eagle "displayed." The beautiful sounding board of the pulpit
also has an eagle. This is now at St. Margaret's, Lothbury; the pulpit
itself has been removed to a church at Hammersmith.

The second drawing represents a carved allegorical group—Charity
trampling on Envy—formerly on the front of the organ gallery,
from which the general view was taken. There, in the place it was
designed for, it had a very telling effect. It is now fastened on to
a lectern in the church of St. Michael, Paternoster Royal, with which
parish that of Allhallows has been united.

     (11-3/8×7)                                     D. 86-1896.

  55. Doorways of Nos. 1 and 2, Laurence Poultney Hill, 1895
    (Water-colour).

These very handsome doorways, of a style which was not unusual in
the reign of Queen Anne, are situated in so narrow a lane that it
was difficult to get an effective view of them. An important brick
mansion, built on this site immediately after the Great Fire, and
occupied by one, "Justus Otgher," so named in an indenture, was taken
down at the beginning of the eighteenth century, and replaced by the
two houses of which these doorways form part. Within one of these
shell-shaped canopies is the date of erection, 1703; in the other is a
representation of two boys playing at marbles. On July 15th, 1704, the
two houses were sold to Thomas Denning, citizen and salter, for £3,190.
The Rev. H. B. Wilson, D. D. and F.S.A., who wrote a history of the
parish of St. Laurence Poultney, was residing in 1831 at No. 1 (which
still has a handsome staircase), while No. 2 was occupied by Mr. Justin
Fitzgerald.

     (10-3/8×7-3/4)                                 D. 90-1896.

  56. Back of the Swan and Horseshoe and of the Admiral Carter
    Inns, from Montagu Court, 1887 (Black and white).

Montagu Court is situated almost at the junction of Little Britain and
Duke-Street. The next turning to the west leads into Bartholomew Close.
The wooden building to spectator's right is the back of the Admiral
Carter, which faces this latter precinct. About the year 1889 it was
modernised. The house took its sign from Admiral Richard Carter, who
was killed at the battle of Barfleur, May 19th, 1692. We may suppose
that it was built shortly afterwards. The Swan and Horseshoe Inn, with
its incongruous double sign, beyond being old and somewhat picturesque,
was of no special interest. Of late years it has been rebuilt, and is
now absolutely commonplace.

     (8-1/2 × 4-3/16)                               D. 48-1896.

  57. Old House at the entrance to Bartholomew Close, 1886 (Black
    and white).

This old wooden house, with its quaint gable and barge-board, was
destroyed early in 1887 for the widening of the entrance from Little
Britain. It was occupied by a greengrocer, whose family had lived there
for nearly half-a-century.

     (8-7/8 × 6-13/16)                              D. 50-1896.

  58. The Blakeney's Head Public-house, 35, Bartholomew Close, 1887
    (Black and white).

A sign derived from a famous commander, like that mentioned in the
note to No. 56, was the Blakeney's Head, 35, Bartholomew Close—a
memorial of the man who so bravely defended Minorca against the
French in 1756. In the year 1890 the house was untenanted. It
remained closed and in a dilapidated condition for some time,
but about 1895 was done up and re-christened the Rahere, after
the founder of St. Bartholomew's Priory and Hospital. In June, 1900,
having changed its name a second time, it was again closed, and was
destroyed soon afterwards.

     (11-1/4 × 7-7/16)                              D. 49-1896.

  59. The Green Man and Still, Cow Cross Street, Clerkenwell, 1886
    (Black and white).

This picturesque little ale-house had absolutely no history as far as
the writer could discover, but it must have dated from the latter part
of the seventeenth century. It was rebuilt about 1889. Stow says:—"On
the left-hand side of St. John Street lieth a lane called Cow Cross,
of a cross some time standing there, which lane turneth to another lane
called Turnmill Street."

     (11-1/4 × 5-7/8)                               D. 51-1896.

  60. Chimney-piece in the Baptist's Head Public-house, St. John's
    Lane, Clerkenwell, 1889 (Black and white).

On the eastern side of St. John's Lane, Clerkenwell, near the old
Priory Gate, a stuccoed public-house with the above sign stood until
about the year 1895. Though outwardly modern and commonplace, a
fragment of it had once formed part of a mansion which, early in the
sixteenth century, belonged to Sir Thomas Forster, a judge of the
Common Pleas, who died in 1612. The chimney-piece, here portrayed,
was in the taproom. It is of fine Reigate stone, the frieze being
ornamented with fruit and flowers. In the centre are arms, and on each
side a crest, thus heraldically described by Cromwell in his History
of Clerkenwell:—"The arms are quarterly; first and fourth argent;
a chevron vert between three bugle-horns sable, for the family of
Radclyffe with which that of Forster intermarried, the crescent being
introduced as the filial distinction of a second house. The Buck at
one end was the original crest of the Forsters; the Talbot's head
at the other, with the crescent, might be that of this branch of the
Radclyffe's." The frieze was supported by pilasters in the same style,
and one side of the room had panelling of the linen pattern. This
was apparently all that remained of the original house, which, in the
days of its splendour, must have covered a good deal of ground, for
it had another frontage in St. John Street; it was then ornamented
by grotesque carvings, and had bay windows with painted glass. The
sign may have been selected out of compliment to Sir Baptist Hicks,
afterwards Lord Campden, who built a Sessions-house hard by. In the
18th century the Baptist's Head was doubtless resorted to by some of
the literary men who worked for Cave; it also afforded solace to a
very different class, as we learn from a print in the "Malefactor's
Register," which represents prisoners, on their way to Newgate, halting
here for refreshment; the view of the old house is interesting. For
further information on the subject of this chimney-piece and of the
Forster family, see Archer's "Vestiges of Old London (1851)," where
it is also figured. It has now found its way into an upper room of St.
John's Gate, which is occupied by the St. John's Ambulance Association.

     (6-1/4 × 8-3/16)                               D. 52-1896.

  61. Old Bell Inn, Holborn, 1890.

This old galleried inn on the north side of Holborn was of great
interest and picturesqueness. The earliest notice of it which has come
to the writer's knowledge was on the 14th of March, 1538 (30 Hen.
VIII.), when William Barde sold a messuage and garden called the Bell,
in the parish of St. Andrew, Holborn, to Richard Hunt, citizen and
girdler. Richard Hunt, who died in 1569, gave thirty sacks of charcoal
yearly for ever, as a charge on the property, to be distributed on St.
Thomas's Day to thirty poor persons of the parish, one half below and
the other above Bars: now represented by an annual payment of £2 5s.
from the ground landlords to St. Andrew's parish.

On February 20th, 1605, by deed poll, Thomas Hunt, citizen and vintner
of London, son and heir of Richard Hunt, releases to John Corder,
citizen and vintner, all his right in that messuage "called the Bell
with the appurtenances in the parish of St. Andrew, Holborne, in
the suburbes of the cittie of London, between the tenement sometime
of John Davye on the east, and a tenement heretofore of the Prior
and convent of the late dissolved Pryorie or Hospitall of our Ladie
without Bishopsgate" (which must have been the Hospital of St. Mary
of Bethlehem, sometimes called Bedlam) "on the west; one head thereof
extending upon the Kinge's high waye of Holborne, and the other
head thereof upon the garden of Elie place." After various changes
of ownership the property in 1679-80 passed into the hands of Ralph
Gregge, whose family came from Bradley in Cheshire. His grandson,
Joseph, finally parted with it, May 3rd, 1725, to Christ's Hospital,
for £2,113 15s. In the deed of sale three houses are mentioned, so the
various parts were let separately. They are described as "formerly
one great mansion-house or inn, commonly known by the name of the
Bell or Blue Bell Inn." A very short time, probably two years, before
this sale the front of the premises facing Holborn had been rebuilt, a
small part to the west being turned into a shop, latterly occupied by a
silversmith. The sculptured arms, not as sometimes has been asserted,
of the Fowlers of Islington (who had never been connected with the
house), but of the Gregges, then owners, were built into the wall.
These arms are now in the Guildhall Museum.

The inn is mentioned by John Taylor (1637) as a place of call for
carriers. It eventually became a coaching house of considerable
reputation, this part of its business being, about the year 1836,
in the hands of Messrs. B. W. and H. Horne, the most famous coach
proprietors in London, except William Chaplin. For many years until
finally closed, September 25th, 1897, the inn was occupied by the
Bunyer family. Architecturally the Bell was interesting, because, with
one possible exception, it was the last galleried inn in London on the
Middlesex side of the river, though until the advent of railways such
houses were common. The galleries were perhaps as old as the reign
of Charles II. A still older portion was a cellar immediately to the
left of the entrance, which was built of stone with well laid masonry
and might have been mediæval. All the rest of the buildings seem to
have dated from the earlier part of the eighteenth century. There is
a sympathetic reference to the old Bell Inn by William Black in his
"Strange Adventures of a Phaeton."

     (10-1/4 × 7-11/16)                             D. 53-1896.

  62. Part of Barnard's Inn, Holborn, 1886 (Water-colour).

     (15-5/16 × 12-3/8)                             D. 54-1896.

  63. The old Hall, Barnard's Inn, 1886 (Water-colour).

Barnard's Inn, on the south side of Holborn, was originally called
Mackworth's Inn, from having been the residence of Dr. John Mackworth,
Dean of Lincoln in the reign of Henry VI. His successor and the Chapter
of Lincoln leased it to Lyonel Barnard, from whom was derived the
name by which it has so long been known. As early as the middle of
the fifteenth century it was let to legal students, for Stow tells
us that anno 1454 there was "a great fray" in Fleet Street between
"men of court" and the inhabitants there, in the course of which the
Queen's attorney was killed. For this act the principal governors of
Clifford's Inn, Furnival's Inn, and Barnard's Inn, were sent prisoners
to Hertford Castle. Barnard's Inn, like its neighbour, Staple Inn,
was a place of legal study—an Inn of Chancery attached to Gray's Inn.
The establishment was governed by a Principal and various Ancients. A
Reader also was appointed from Gray's Inn, and great respect was shown
to him. The Principal, accompanied by the Ancients and gentlemen in
commons in their gowns, used to meet him on his coming and conduct
him into the hall. Barnard's Inn had latterly no more than a nominal
connection with Gray's Inn, the houses being let out as chambers, and
not occupied by students of the law. In 1854 the Society consisted
of a Principal, nine Ancients, and five Companions. The advantage of
being a Companion was stated to be "the dining," and the advantage of
being an Ancient, "dinners and some little fees." In 1888 the whole was
advertised for sale, and early in the nineties it was bought by the
Mercers' Company and adapted for the purposes of their school, which
was removed thither from College Hill in 1894.

The hall, still in existence, is only 36 feet long by 22 feet
in width, and faces the narrow passage by which one enters from
Holborn. It certainly dates from the foundation of the building in
the fifteenth century, but has been altered and renovated from time
to time. A louvre still adorns the roof, designed doubtless for
the emission of smoke from a central hearth, but it must have been
closed many years ago. There is at each end a projecting fireplace,
apparently Tudor, though the stonework has of late been renewed.
Their carved wooden overmantels have friezes in style belonging
to the sixteenth century, which surmount panelling of the linen
pattern. Similar panelling decorates the walls. Although this has
been much renewed, portions of it are original. The drawing of the
interior (No. 61) shows portraits above the panelling; the full
length over the western mantelpiece, representing Chief Justice Holt,
is now at the National Portrait Gallery. The heraldic glass in the
windows dates mostly from the eighteenth century. The figure seated
at a table is clad in one of the cloaks which were worn on certain
occasions by the Ancients. Beyond the hall was a somewhat irregular
quadrangle; part of it is represented in the painting No. 62. The
quaint gabled houses to the spectator's right, which were close to
the yard of the White Horse Inn, disappeared in the year 1893. Those
in the centre of the drawing, their fronts abutting on Fetter Lane,
remained until quite recently. At No. 2 dwelt Peter Woulfe, F.R.S.,
known as the last true believer in Alchemy, who here strove at the
impossible task of making gold. Sir Humphrey Davy said of him that he
used to hang up written prayers and recommendations of his processes
to Providence. The chambers were then so filled with furniture and
apparatus that it was difficult to reach the fireside. His remedy for
illness was a journey to Edinburgh and back by coach, and a cold taken
on one of these expeditions brought on inflammation of the lungs, from
which he died. Other houses in the quadrangle have been replaced by
the new school buildings. There are various references to Barnard's
Inn, not quite of a complimentary nature, in "Great Expectations," by
Charles Dickens.

     (15-3/8 × 18-5/8)                              D. 71-1896.

  64. Old Butchers' Shops, Clare Market, destroyed 1891 (Black and
    white).

Much property in this neighbourhood was owned by the Earls of Clare
of the Holles Family, and John Holles, second Earl, whose mansion
was at the end of Clare Court, Drury Lane, founded the market soon
after the middle of the seventeenth century. A stone bas-relief of
the Holles Arms, surmounted by an earl's coronet with the date 1659,
was formerly at the corner of Gilbert passage, and afterwards on the
house numbered 8, Clare Street. The butchers of Clare Market were for
years flourishing, and here "Orator" Henley erected his "gilt tub"
commemorated by Pope, and used to preach on such Scripture texts or
subjects as admitted of a burlesque treatment. By degrees the place
degenerated, and in 1891 most of the buildings here were cleared away;
among others, the old "bulk-shop," in the foreground. It stood at the
north-east corner of Holles Street, and adjoining it on the north were
other shops of a similar kind. For some time before their destruction
they had been unoccupied. According to Oldys, Nat Lee, the dramatic
poet, when one night returning overladen with wine from the Bear and
Harrow in Butcher Row, Strand, through Clare Market, to his lodging
in Duke (now Sardinia) Street, "fell down on the ground, as some say,
according to others on a _bulk_, and was killed or stifled in the
snow." He was buried in the parish church of St. Clement Danes, 6th
May, 1692.

     (6-3/8 × 8-1/2)                                D. 88-1896.

  65. The Cheshire Cheese Tavern, Fleet Street, from Wine Office
    Court, 1890 (Black and white).

Now that the Cock in Fleet Street has flown over the way to
comparatively modern quarters, and Dick's is no more, the Cheshire
Cheese, at No. 145, is the most old-fashioned tavern not only in this
neighbourhood, but in all London, and the old style is carefully kept
up. Contrary to general belief, and to many printed statements, there
is no record that the great Samuel Johnson, who so much appreciated
the charms of tavern life, ever frequented it, though this is by
no means improbable, as he lived hereabout for many years. Indeed,
Gough Square, where he compiled his dictionary, is within a minute's
walk, and his friend Oliver Goldsmith wrote the Vicar of Wakefield
at No. 6, Wine Office Court, close to the spot from which the
drawing is taken, at a time when the evening has begun, and "Tavern
lights flit on from room to room." At the old Cheshire Cheese the
Modern Johnson Club has often met, traditions of Johnson's visits
are repeated, and his portrait hangs in a corner of the principal
dining room on the ground floor. This room has been depicted by
various artists of distinction, among others by Seymour Lucas,
R.A., and Dendy Sadler. The panelled walls, the seventeenth century
fireplace, the sawdusted floor, and other quaint survivals, combine to
make a pretty picture. An illustrated "Book of the Cheese," which has
gone through several editions, is, or was, sold at the bar.

     (8-3/4 × 6-1/4)                                D. 55-1896.

  66. Hare Court, Temple, 1891 (Black and white).

Passing out of Fleet Street through the Inner Temple Gateway, under
the old room acquired some years ago by the London County Council,
the first opening on the right leads us into Hare Court, which
"Elia" has described with less than his usual sympathy as "a gloomy
churchyard-like place, with trees and a pump in it." At this pump
he had often drunk when a child, and the contents later in life
he recommends as "excellent cold with brandy." The back of Dick's
coffee-house is here to be seen, nestling against a fine old block
of chambers, and overshadowed on the right by a high modern structure
which seems to have got in there by mistake. Dick's, sometimes called
Richard's, stood on the site of the printing office of Richard Tottel,
law stationer in the reign of Henry VIII.; it got its name, however,
from Richard Torner or Turner, who was landlord in 1680. From the
days of Steele and Addison many eminent men frequented it. As is well
known, coffee-houses for half a century or more had a great influence
on the sale of books; every new poem or pamphlet of any importance was
to be seen in them. Peter Cunningham records that he had several in
his possession bearing in large letters on their title-page "Dick's
Coffee-house." This picturesque old place of entertainment, like the
Rainbow and other houses of a similar description, was approached from
Fleet Street by a long passage. In front it was a wooden structure;
the back was really half-timbered, the timbering concealed by plaster;
inside the original staircase remained. It disappeared in 1899; the
rest of the seventeenth century buildings in Hare Court had been swept
away some years previously.

     (11-3/16 × 7-7/8)                              D. 56-1896.

  67. Sion College and the City of London School, Victoria
    Embankment, 1893 (Black and white).

Sion College, near the north end of Blackfriars Bridge, and next on the
west to the City of London School, was founded in 1623, as a College
and Almshouse, according to the will of Dr. Thomas White, who was Vicar
of St. Dunstan's in the West, and held other clerical appointments. A
library was added by the munificence of Dr. John Simson, rector of St.
Olave's, Hart Street, and an executor of the will. Until of late years,
the home of the College was in London Wall, between Aldermanbury on the
east and Philip Lane on the west, the former site of Elsing Spittal.
The old library was built along the east side of Philip Lane, the hall
stood back in the College garden. Mr. W. Niven, in his volume on London
City churches, gives a good etching of the picturesque gateway. New
Sion College, here shown, was formally opened by their Royal Highnesses
the Prince and Princess of Wales, December 15, 1886.

The City of London School was established in Milk Street about
the year 1835 for the sons of persons engaged in professional or
commercial pursuits, deriving part of its income from property
bequeathed for educational purposes by John Carpenter, town-clerk
of London in the reign of Henry V. The school had been transferred
to its present site on the Victoria Embankment a short time before this
drawing was made.

     (6-5/8 × 9-1/4)                                D. 76-1896.

  68. The Rising Sun, Wych Street, 1890 (Black and white).

In 1900-01 all the picturesque but dilapidated old houses in Wych
Street and the neighbouring Holywell Street were cleared away. Among
them was the structure here represented on spectator's right which
is at the south-east corner of Wych Street, with a front towards the
church of St. Clement Danes. This public-house, then known as the
Rising Sun, previously the Crooked Billet, stood nearly opposite to the
entrance of Dane's Inn, which was built on the site of a more famous
hostelry—the Angel—destroyed in 1854.

     (9-9/16 × 6-7/16)                              D. 57-1896.

  [Illustration: No. 69. THE COCK AND PIE, DRURY LANE.]

  69. The Cock and Pie, Drury Lane, 1880 (Black and white).

The plastered house which appears to the right of this drawing was for
many years known as the Cock and Pie, or Cock and Magpie, public-house,
but was turned to other uses long ago. Apart from its quaintness, it
is worthy of record as having been possibly, I might say probably, for
a time the residence of Nell Gwynn. Under the date May 1, 1667, Pepys,
after saying how on his way to Westminster, he met "many milk-maids
with their garlands upon their pails, dancing with a fiddler before
them," refers to her in these words:—"Saw pretty Nelly standing at her
lodging-door in Drury Lane in her smock sleeves and bodice looking
upon me; she seemed a mighty pretty creature." Peter Cunningham, in
his "Life of Nell Gwynn," places these lodgings at the top of Maypole
Alley, over against the gate of Craven House, a position which exactly
corresponds with that of the old Cock and Pie, and a view of this house
is used to illustrate his volume. After 1838 the well-known bookseller,
George Stockley, for some years occupied the building. He convinced
himself of Nell Gwynn's connection with it, and his belief was shared
by the late Edward Solly, F.R.S., who wrote an interesting letter on
the subject to "Notes and Queries." The building, most likely, dated
from the time of Charles I., and appears to be marked on Faithorne's
map of 1658. The panelled house next door, which seemed coeval, was of
a kind almost extinct. They stood on the south side of Drury Lane, and
were both destroyed in the autumn of 1890. Messrs. W. H. Smith & Son's
establishment in the Kingsway stands as nearly as may be on the site.

     (10-5/16 × 7-3/8)                              D. 58-1896.

  70. House in Nevill's Court, Fetter Lane, 1891 (Water-colour).

On the east side of Fetter Lane, at No. 32, is the chief establishment
of the Moravians in London; behind is their chapel, and a little
further north is a narrow passage leading to Nevill's Court. Here,
on the south side, stands an interesting old house, which belongs
to the Moravian Society. As long ago as 1744 it passed into their
hands, when it was described as "the great house of Nevill's
Alley." It was the home of the Rev. C. J. la Trobe and of Count
Reuss; and Charles Joseph la Trobe, first Governor of Victoria,
was born here. The earliest account of the Moravian missions was
issued from this house—then as now No. 10—more than a hundred years
ago. There is a quiet dignity about the old place, which bears the
stamp of having seen better days. This site was for some years to let
on building lease, but at the time of writing the house was no longer
threatened. Further east, on the opposite side of the way, were one
or two buildings of still earlier date. These houses just escaped the
Great Fire; they were destroyed in the winter of 1911-12.

     (13-1/8 × 10-3/8)                              D. 73-1896.

  71. New Exchange Court, Strand, 1891 (Black and white).

On the north side of the Strand, between Nos. 418 and 419, is New
Exchange Court, now occupied by that excellent body, the Corps of
Commissioners, who have their headquarters here. Of late years all
the old buildings represented in this drawing have been swept away.
In 1891 they formed an admirable background for the figures of the
veterans who made it their home. The picturesque house behind the
projecting lamp on the left of this drawing was known until about 1886
as the Thatched House Tavern. Earlier in the century it was called Nell
Gwynn's Dairy, and her name had also been connected with a panelled
room (now also destroyed) in a house near Maiden Lane, with which the
court communicates. It is, however, almost certain that Nell Gwynn
never resided here; like Cromwell, if we believe the popular legends
she must have been ubiquitous.

     (9-3/8 × 6-1/2)                                D. 59-1896.

  72. The Nag's Head Inn, Whitcombe Street, 1889 (Black and white).

This drawing represents an old galleried inn on the east side of
Whitcomb Street, once Hedge Lane, which, as its former name implies,
was not always hemmed in by bricks and mortar. It appears from a
manuscript note-book, formerly in the possession of the late Mr. F.
Locker-Lampson, that Hogarth in his later years, when he set up a coach
and horses, kept them at the Nag's Head. He was then living on the east
side of Leicester Square. On an old drawing of the Nag's Head, which
belongs to the writer, it is stated that "this inn did the posting
exclusively for the Royal family from George I. to William IV." It was
latterly used as a livery stable, and, the lease having come to an end,
was closed in 1890. The space remained vacant for many years, and is
now covered by the fine publishing offices of Messrs. Macmillan & Co.

     (9-13/16 × 6-3/4)                              D. 60-1896.

  [Illustration: No. 73. EMANUEL HOSPITAL, WESTMINSTER.]

  73. Emanuel Hospital, Westminster, 1890 (Water-colour).

     (7-5/8 × 12-3/4)                               D. 80-1896.

  74. Old Men's Garden, Emanuel Hospital, Westminster, 1891
    (Sepia).

Emanuel Hospital (sometimes called Dacre's almshouses), on the west
side of James Street, Westminster, was founded pursuant to the will,
dated December 20th, 1594, of Anne, Lady Dacre, widow of Gregory,
last Lord Dacre of the South, and sister of Thomas Sackville,
Earl of Dorset, the poet, "towards the relief of aged people and
bringing up of children in virtue and good and laudable acts in
the same hospital." On the death in 1623 of the last surviving
executor of Lady Dacre, the guardianship of the hospital descended,
by the Charter of Incorporation, to the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of
the City of London. The hospital was rebuilt, as it appears in the
drawings, during the reign of Queen Anne, and afforded protection to a
varying number of old men and women (formerly twenty-four) belonging
to Westminster, Chelsea, or Hayes in Middlesex; the schools had been
disconnected with it, and formed a portion of the Westminster United
School, since 1873. In spite of much opposition from those who loved
the picturesque old group of buildings, Emanuel Hospital was closed
in 1892. The site was afterwards sold for £37,500, a new scheme being
drawn up for the regulation of the charity. The drawing numbered 73
gives a general view of the buildings. In the centre, surmounted by
a little clock turret and showing a pediment with the Dacre arms, is
the chapel from which people are issuing, the front figure with staff
and gown being that of an almsman who officiated as beadle. The master
lived close to the chapel, and the old men in the tenements on the left
side, their garden, shown in No. 74, being at the back. The entrance,
facing James Street, had handsome wrought-iron gates. In the old church
at Chelsea there is a stately monument with recumbent figures to Lord
and Lady Dacre.

     (6 × 8-1/2)                                    D. 61-1896.

  75. No. 10, Downing Street, from the garden, 1888 (Water-colour).

     (7-1/2 × 9-5/8)                                D. 81-1896.

  76. Chief Reception Room, No. 10, Downing Street, 1888 (Sepia).

One of the most historic mansions in London is No. 10, Downing Street,
facing the Foreign Office, which has been the official home of the
first Lord of the Treasury ever since Sir Robert Walpole moved into it
from St. James's Square in 1735. It had belonged to the Crown, and had
been granted by George I. to Baron Bothmar, the Hanoverian minister,
for life. The residence really consists of two houses, with a covered
way between them. That which faces the street is a plain Georgian
structure, resembling No. 11, which forms part of the same block. The
building at the back seems little to accord with its surrounding. It
stands in a garden, much frequented by woodpigeons, which once, no
doubt, formed part of St. James's Park. On a misty morning in spring
one might imagine it to be on the outskirts of some peaceful country
town. The view shows the south side, the part towards Downing Street
being discernible behind a tree on the right: the building to the
left is the Treasury. The artist has ventured to clothe his little
figures in costumes which harmonise more with the old place than the
frock coats and trousers of the present day. The windows opening on
to the terrace belong to the famous old cabinet room, where Pitt
and Sir Robert Peel, Disraeli and Palmerston, have often sat. In
the large reception room on the first floor which forms the subject
of drawing No. 76, are a series of interesting portraits, the best,
perhaps, being that of Richard Weston, Earl of Portland, Lord High
Treasurer in 1633. The portly form of Sir Robert Walpole is in the
place of honour, empanelled above a fine marble mantelpiece. It was
in the ante-room, on the first floor of No. 10, Downing Street, that
on January 12th, 1887, the Earl of Iddesleigh, better known as Sir
Stafford Northcote, breathed his last. This house, although it has
undergone various changes, was originally designed by Sir Christopher
Wren, as is proved in the London Topographical Society's Record, vol.
2, pp. 23-26 (1903).

     (14-7/16 × 18-3/4)                             D. 62-1896.

  77. Schomberg House, Pall Mall, 1894 (Black and white).

Schomberg House, Nos. 81 and 82, on the south side of Pall Mall, is an
interesting specimen of a nobleman's mansion in the late seventeenth
century, though its symmetry has been spoiled by the destruction of
the east wing, about the year 1850. Timbs thought that it dated from
the time of the Commonwealth; it is, however, generally supposed to
have been begun for the famous Duke of Schomberg, the favourite of
William III., who was killed at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, and
not to have been finished until some years after his death. His second
son, Meinardt, the third Duke, died in 1719, when the title became
extinct. The house then came into the hands of Meinardt's daughter,
Frederica, who married first the Earl of Holdernesse, and afterwards
Benjamin Mildmay, created Earl of Fitzwalter in 1730. Thirty years
later, on the accession of George III., the Duke of Cumberland, victor
at Culloden, came here as tenant, from St. James's Palace, but he
did not remain long; the Earl of Holdernesse soon afterwards selling
the mansion for £5,000 to "Beau" Astley, the portrait painter, who
had married Lady Daniell, a wealthy widow. Astley spent a large sum
in converting it into three dwellings, and fitting up the central
part fantastically for his own use. It was probably he who set up the
bas-relief of "Painting" over the doorway, which still remains. He
was succeeded by Nathaniel Hone, R.A., now chiefly remembered by his
picture called "The Conjuror." In 1781 this central portion was let
to Dr. Graham, the notorious quack, who exhibited here his "Temple
of Hymen" and "Celestial Bed," and here "the blooming Priestess of
the Temple endeavoured to" "entertain ladies and gentlemen of candour
and good nature" by reading a lecture on the means of preserving
"health, beauty, and serene mental brilliancy even to the extremest
old age." Soon, however, the farce was played out, and in 1786 Graham
was succeeded by Richard Cosway, the miniature painter, and his
handsome wife. They lived here for some years, and society flocked to
their parties, which were not unfrequently attended by the Prince of
Wales, who had access to them through a private door from the garden
of Carlton House. The western wing of Schomberg House was from 1774
occupied by that great artist, Thomas Gainsborough, and here he died
in 1788. Reynolds had visited him, at his request, a few days before,
when he used the often-quoted words: "We are all going to Heaven
and Vandyck is of the party." And here in the following spring his
widow held an exhibition of his works still remaining on her hands.
In the course of last century Messrs. Dyde and Scribe converted
the east wing into a place of business. They were succeeded by Mr.
Harding, in whose time George III. and the Princesses used to visit
the shop and make their own purchases. Other well-known people have
been connected with Schomberg House. Robert Bowyer, miniature-painter
to Queen Charlotte, here collected a large number of engravings and
paintings to illustrate the history of England, which he called the
Historic Gallery. It proved unsuccessful, and he applied for help
to Parliament, which passed an Act empowering him to dispose of it
by lottery; this he did in 1807. The bookseller, "Honest Tom Payne,"
moved in 1806 to Schomberg House from his old shop at the Mews Gate,
where the National Gallery now stands. Messrs. Payne and Foss succeeded
him, who brought together a matchless collection of old books, and
stayed here until their retirement from business. It had been said
(Smith's Nollekens, Vol. II., p. 398) that Jervais, the portrait
painter, eulogised by Pope, was also for a time a tenant. Schomberg
House, or what remains of it, has for many years been incorporated in
the War Office.

     (14 × 8-5/8)                                   D. 63-1896.

  78. Back of Devonshire House, Piccadilly, from the Garden, 1893
    (Black and white).

Devonshire House stands on the site of Berkeley House, built in 1665
for Sir John Berkeley (created Lord Berkeley of Stratton), which
in its turn was on the site of Hay Hill Farm. The property at first
included the site of Lansdowne House and Garden and Berkeley Square.
Lord Berkeley died in 1678, and in 1684 two new streets (Berkeley
Street and Stratton Street) were built on a portion of the grounds by
his widow. In 1695 the Princess Anne, who was then on bad terms with
her brother-in-law, William III., lived here with her husband till the
death of her sister, Queen Mary, in the same year. William, first Duke
of Devonshire, bought the house in 1697, and the first and second Dukes
both died here. The original mansion was destroyed by fire in 1733,
and the present one—rather a dull piece of architecture—was built from
William Kent's design in 1735, at a cost of £20,000. It has since been
considerably altered. In 1874, as we are told by Sir N. W. Wraxall,
the great rallying points of the coalition against Pitt were Carlton
House, Burlington House, and Devonshire House, where Georgiana, the
charming Duchess of Devonshire, reigned over her brilliant court. In
the ball-room here was acted before the Queen and Prince Albert, on May
16th, 1851, for the benefit of the Guild of Literature and Art, Lord
Lytton's play, "Not so bad as we seem." Among the actors were Charles
Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Augustus Egg, Frank Stone, R. Horne (the
author of "Orion"), Mark Lemon, and John Tenniel. The fine wrought-iron
gate in front of the house, facing Piccadilly, which was placed
there in Queen Victoria's Jubilee year (1897) had stood since 1837
at the entrance to the grounds of Chiswick House, having been brought
originally from Heathfield House, Turnham Green, once the residence of
Lord Heathfield, who, as General Elliot, so bravely defended Gibraltar.
Devonshire House is one of the few London mansions still possessing a
large garden, which is adorned by copies of antique statues.

     (10-7/8 × 15-1/16)                             D. 64-1896.

  79. Lansdowne House, from Berkeley Square, 1893 (Black and
    white).

Dividing the gardens of Devonshire House and Lansdowne House is
Lansdowne Passage, a short cut for walkers from Curzon Street
to Hay Hill. Thomas Grenville records that the iron bars at the
two ends were put up late in the 18th century, because a mounted
highwayman who had committed a robbery in Piccadilly escaped
through this passage by riding down and up the steps. Lansdowne
House, like that last described, is interesting from its connection
with historic personages, as a specimen of the dwelling of a great
nobleman in the 18th century, and from its having a considerable
garden. It was designed by Robert Adam (the most famous of the brothers
who built the Adelphi) about the year 1765, for Lord Bute, then Prime
Minister, whose treaty of peace with France raised such a fury of
opposition that his enemies did not hesitate to say that he had been
bribed. On his fall from power it passed, as yet unfinished, into the
hands of Lord Shelburne, afterwards the first Marquis of Lansdowne, to
whose descendant it still belongs. Embowered in foliage it certainly
has a picturesque effect from the adjoining Berkeley Square.

     (7-5/8 × 10-3/8)                               D. 65-1896.

  80. Library of Chesterfield House, South Audley Street, 1893
    (Black and white).

Whatever may have been their defects, the noblemen's mansions built in
the eighteenth century were mostly distinguished by fine staircases and
reception rooms. A notable specimen is Chesterfield House, which was
planned by Ware, an architect of no mean merit, for Philip, fourth Earl
of Chesterfield, who wrote the famous _Letters to his Son_. Here Samuel
Johnson is popularly supposed to have "waited in the outer rooms" and
been "repulsed from the door;" but this must have occurred not later
than 1747, as is clear from Johnson's own words, and the Earl did not
take possession of his new home in South Audley Street till March 13th,
1749. The ground attached to it has been sadly curtailed since he wrote
to a friend "My garden is now turfed, planted, and sown, and will in
two months make a scene of verdure and flowers not common in London."
Inside, however, there has been comparatively little change. The marble
staircase, with its pillars, has a very stately effect; it was brought
from Canons, near Edgware, the letters on the wrought iron balustrade
being the initials of the "princely" Chandos, whose ducal coronets were
removed by Lord Chesterfield and replaced by his own. On the ground
floor at the back there is a splendid suite of rooms, including the
library, which is represented in drawing No. 80. Its first owner called
it with pardonable pride "the best room in England," and here are
still to be seen under the cornice, in capital letters a foot high, the
Horatian lines:

     "Nunc veterum libris, nunc somno et inertibus horis,
     Ducere solicitæ jucunda oblivia vitæ";

an indication of the life he proposed to lead amidst his books and
pictures. The portraits in framed panels, which decorate the walls,
are a most interesting series, representing, as they do, eminent people
painted by some of the finest artists of the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries. Scattered throughout the mansion there are many other superb
portraits by Reynolds, Gainsborough, and Romney, which were collected
by the late owner, Lord Burton, and are here appropriately housed.

     (18 × 22-1/4)                                  D. 66-1896.

  81. Bourdon House, Davies Street, 1893 (Black and white).

North of Berkeley Square begins the estate of the Duke of
Westminster in this part of London, brought to the Grosvenor family
by Miss Mary Davies, who married Sir Thomas Grosvenor in 1676. And
here, on the east side of Davies Street, named after her, stands
Bourdon House, a pleasant old dwelling, over-shadowed by the trees
which grow in its little courtyard. Inside, the most noteworthy feature
is the carved woodwork, which seems to be French in style, dating,
perhaps, from the early part of the eighteenth century. There is a
strong tradition that this house was originally occupied by the Davies
family; it is certainly one of the oldest on the estate. The name
Bourdon first appears on the parish rate books in 1739. Within the last
few years the house has been enlarged.

     (11-1/16 × 8-1/2)                              D. 67-1896.

  82. Scarsdale House, Kensington, 1892 (2 Water-colours).

Scarsdale House stands—perhaps one should now say stood—a little back,
at the north-east corner of Wright's Lane, within a stone's throw
of the Kensington High Street railway station. Of its early history
little is known, but the main part of the building must have been at
least coeval with Kensington Square; that is, it must have existed
for more than 200 years. It is stated by one of his descendants that
this property first belonged to John Curzon, who is perhaps best
remembered in the family as having owned a horse of Eastern blood,
one of the progenitors of the modern racehorse. For a short time Lord
Barnard occupied the house; in 1721 William Curzon was living here,
and was one of the largest contributors to the parish poor-rate. Early
in the nineteenth century it was a ladies' boarding school, but many
years ago it became the residence of the Hon. Edward Curzon (second
son of Mr. Robert Curzon and Lady de la Zouche), who bought it from
his cousin, Lord Scarsdale. The pair of Jacobean mantelpieces in the
drawing-room once graced a wing, now destroyed, of the historic mansion
of Loseley. The old house in Wright's Lane, with its delightful garden,
is immortalized in Miss Thackeray's novel, "Old Kensington." This
was Lady Sarah's home, "with its many windows dazzling, as the sun
travelled across the old-fashioned housetops," and here was the room
with the blue tiles which Lady Sarah's husband brought from the Hague
the year before he died. The garden is now partly a coalyard, and part
is absorbed by the widening of the roads. The house, wholly transformed
and dismantled, is converted into an annexe of a draper's establishment
in High Street, Kensington.

     (7 × 9-3/4) (6-1/4 × 9-3/4)                    D. 68 A, B-1896.

  83. Turner's House, Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, 1880 (Water-colour).

On the river front beyond Lindsey House, no great distance from the
site of Cremorne Gardens and next but one to a tavern called the
Aquatic Stores, stands a small cottage, one of a pair now joined
together and numbered 118, Cheyne Walk, to which in his old age
J. M. W. Turner, the great artist, used to retire from his house
in Queen Anne Street. He must have loved the Thames, for he had
previously resided first at West End, Upper Mall, Hammersmith, and
afterwards, from time to time, at Sandycombe Lodge, Twickenham. He,
no doubt, selected the humble dwelling at Chelsea chiefly because,
from its low roof, still protected by a wrought-iron railing
which he caused to be placed there, he could get a fine view of
Chelsea reach, now obscured by the modern house next door, which
projects in front. For the sake of privacy he took the name of the
landlady, and was known in the neighbourhood as Mr. Booth, Admiral
Booth, or "Puggy" Booth. The cottage is now somewhat below the
level of the roadway; an old inhabitant, formerly a waterman, told the
writer that in his youth it was only separated from the Thames by a
raised path. Turner died here December 19th, 1851, in a room the window
of which may be seen immediately below the railing or balcony whence
he is believed to have studied the view. Afterwards, for many years,
the place remained outwardly in much the same condition as when he
left it. By degrees it became dilapidated, the little trees in front
disappeared, and in 1895 there was an ominous announcement that the
property was to be sold for building purposes. The late Mrs. Haweis
made efforts to save it; and there was a correspondence on the subject
in the "Times." After remaining empty and dilapidated during many
months, the pair of cottages were bought and judiciously restored by
one who valued the memory of our illustrious landscape painter. A large
studio was then built at the back, where there were formerly other
tenements.

     (8-1/2 × 6)                                    D. 83-1896.

  84. Old Fish Shop, Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, 1887 (Water-colour).

This quaint little house, one of the oldest in the parish, stood in
what used to be known as Lombard Street, but now forms part of Cheyne
Walk. It was four doors west of a tavern called the Rising Sun, and in
old days had been a freehold, with the right of pasturage on Chelsea
Common. In front of the gable was a plaster or terra cotta medallion,
with a head in relief which might have been copied from a classical
coin. This, though a humble specimen of its class, belonged to a style
of decoration common in the seventeenth century. The writer has before
him a view, dated 1792, of a building then on Tower Hill, with similar
medallions. Sometimes the heads of Roman Emperors were thus placed,
sometimes the Cardinal virtues and other emblematic figures. The fish
shop in Cheyne Walk, long kept by Mrs. Elizabeth Maunder, was pulled
down in November, 1892. Mr. Percy Thomas etched it, and there is a
famous lithograph of the lower part, by Whistler, who for years lived
hard by. The medallion is now in the Chelsea Free Library. After the
destruction of the old fish shop Mr. C. R. Ashbee built a house on this
and the adjoining site, numbered 72 to 74, Cheyne Walk, and in that
house Whistler died, July 17, 1903.

     (11 × 6-7/8)                                   D. 69-1896.

  85. Old Thatched Cottage, near Paddington Green, 1895.
    (Water-colour).

This was considered to be the last thatched cottage in London,
though at the time of writing one in Camberwell still survives.
It stood on the west side of the old burial ground of St. Mary's
Church (now a public garden), and behind No. 12, St. Mary's Terrace,
Paddington Green, and in 1895 was occupied by Welsh-speaking people
connected with a temporary Welsh chapel which stood hard by. The
walls of this cottage were composed of pebbles and broken flint
plastered over, and its rural look was enhanced by the surrounding
ground with trees growing thereon. The date of its erection was not
known. In the "Bayswater Annual" for 1885 there was a statement that
in 1820 the cottage belonged to a Mr. Chambers, "a banker of Bond
Street." In those days the occupants commanded an uninterrupted
view of the Harrow Road as it turned northward. Claremont
House, within a short distance of Chambers's Cottage, was remarkable
for the "Claremont Caverns" about which many uncanny tales were told.
They were the work of a Mr. Southgate Stevens who here carried on in
secret processes for extracting gold from quartz and other minerals.
He was said to have spent some £30,000 in this fruitless quest. A
drawing and short account of Chambers's Cottage will be found in the
"Builder" for May 18th and June 8th, 1895; it was demolished a year or
two afterwards, to make room for St. David's Welsh Church.

     (7-3/4 × 10-11/16)                             D. 85-1896.




INDEX.


                                                               No. of
                                                              Drawing.

     Admiral Carter Inn, Montagu Court,                           56

     Aldgate, Old houses in,                                      19

     Allhallows the Great, Church of,                           53, 54

     Austin Friars, No. 10, Staircase of,                         36

     Austin Friars, No.                                         21, 37


     Baptist's Head Public-house, St. John's Lane, Clerkenwell,   60

     Barnard's Inn, Holborn,                                    62, 63

     Bartholomew Close, Old house at entrance of,                 57

     Blakeney's Head Public-house, No. 35, Bartholomew Close,     58

     Botolph Lane, Staircase of house in,                         26

     Bourdon House, Davies Street,                                81

     Bull Inn, Aldgate,                                           20

     Bunyan's Monument, Bunhill Fields,                           41


     Chapter Coffee House, Paternoster Row,                       44

     Cheshire Cheese Tavern, Fleet Street,                        65

     Chesterfield House, South Audley Street, Library of,         80

     Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, Old Fish Shop,                         84

     City Greenyard, No. 18, Whitecross Street,                   40

     City of London School, Victoria Embankment,                  67

     Clare Market, Old Butchers' Shops,                           64

     Cock and Pie, Drury Lane,                                    69

     Coleman Street, No. 4,                                       42

     College Hill, Gateways on the east side,                     25

     Crosby Hall Chambers, Bishopsgate Street,                  31, 32

     Crosby Square, No. 4, Garden of,                             33


     Devonshire House, Piccadilly,                                78

     Downing Street, No. 10,                                    75, 76


     Elephant and Castle, Old, Newington Butts,                    1

     Emanuel Hospital, Westminster,                             73, 74


     George Inn, Southwark,                                      8, 9

     George Inn, Old, Trinity Square,                             24

     Great St. Helen's, Entrance to,                              28

     Great St. Helen's, Old houses in,                            30

     Great St. Helen's, No. 9, Staircase of,                      27

     Great St. Helen's, No. 10,                                   29

     Great Winchester Street, No. 23,                           38, 39

     Green Dragon Inn, St. Andrew's Hill,                         52

     Green Man and Still, Cow Cross Street, Clerkenwell,          59


     Hare Court, Temple,                                          66


     King's Head Inn, Southwark,                                11, 12


     Lansdowne House, from Berkeley Square,                       79

     Laurence Poultney Hill, Nos. 1 and 2,                        55


     Nag's Head Inn, Whitcomb Street,                             72

     Nag's Head Inn Yard, Southwark,                              10

     Nevill's Court, Fetter Lane, House in,                       70

     New Exchange Court, Strand,                                  71


     Old Bell Inn, Holborn,                                       61

     One Swan Inn, Bishopsgate Street Without,                    35

     Oxford Arms, Warwick Lane,                                   46


     Paddington Green, Old thatched cottage near,                 85

     Paul's Pier, View from,                                      51

     Pindar, Sir Paul, House of, Bishopsgate Street Without,      34


     Queen's Head Inn, Southwark,                               13, 14


     Rising Sun, Wych Street,                                     68

     Royal Mail Tavern, Noble Street,                             45


     St. Paul's Churchyard, Dean's Court,                         48

     St. Paul's Churchyard laid out as a garden,                  49

     St. Paul's, Deanery of,                                      47

     Saracen's Head Inn, Aldgate,                                 21

     Scarsdale House, Kensington,                                 82

     Schomberg House, Pall Mall,                                  77

     Sieve Public-house, Minories,                              15-18

     Sion College, Victoria Embankment,                           67

     Skinners' Company, Almshouses of the, Mile End Road,       22, 23

     Swan and Horseshoe Inn, Montagu Court,                       56

     Swan with Two Necks, Carter Lane,                            50


     Tabard Inn, Southwark,                                        7

     Turner's House, Cheyne Walk, Chelsea,                        83

     Two Brewers Public-house, London Wall,                       43


     White Hart Inn, Southwark,                                  2-6