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301 | sen, for even now, all
surrounded by houses, the hill is so steep and conical, that a very
extensive view is still obtained. The site of the semaphore station is
now a level green for lawn tennis. On the other side of the roadway,
the descent is steep into the valley, and there are two small ponds at
the bottom. The cliffs are covered with turf, interspersed by the usual
meaningless clumps of bushes, and a few nice trees.
SOUTHWARK PARK
Southwark Park lies far away from Southwark, beyond Bermondsey, in
Rotherhithe. It was in the parliamentary borough of Southwark, hence
the misleading name. The Park is a gloomy enough place when compared
with the more distant or West End Parks, but a perfect paradise in
this crowded district. Between its creation in 1864 and its completion
in 1869, a great reformation was worked in the district. Close to the
docks, and intersected by streams and canals, with the poorest kind
of rickety houses so vividly described by Dickens in “Oliver Twist,”
the su |
302 | rroundings were among the most dismal imaginable. The actual
site of the Park was partly market-gardens, which had for long been
established in this locality owing to the fertility of the alluvial
soil. Vines were grown here for wine with success in the first half
of the eighteenth century, when there was a revival in grape-growing,
and vineyards were planted at Hoxton and elsewhere. Over 100 gallons of
wine were made in a year in Rotherhithe. Some of the earth excavated
from the Thames Tunnel was put on the ground covered by the Park before
the laying out commenced. When the land, 65 acres, was bought, only 45
were to be kept for the Park, and the rest were reserved for building.
But when the day of building arrived there was such an outcry that the
whole plan was remodelled, the drives which encircled it done away
with, and tar-paved paths substituted, only one driving road crossing
it being left, and the ponds added. It is more the want of design, than
any special style, that is con |
303 | spicuous, and a good deal more could have
been done to make the Park less gloomy. An avenue is growing up, but
it will never have the charming effect of the one across Battersea, as
the line is neither straight nor a definite curve. The wild fowl on
the pond are such an attraction, that perhaps it may be that the wire
netting and asphalt edges they apparently require are not drawbacks,
but they are not beautiful. The gateway into the Park, near Deptford
Station, has rather the grim look of a prison, and yet, with the forest
of masts behind, all it requires is a climbing plant or two to make
a picture. On the opposite end of the Park runs Jamaica Road, which
perpetuates the name of a well-known Tea Garden, Jamaica House. Pepys
records a visit there, on a Sunday in April 1667. “Took out my wife,
and the two Mercers, and two of our maids, Barker and Jane, and over
the water to Jamaica House, where I never was before, and there the
girls did run for wagers over the bowling-green; and there |
304 | , with much
pleasure, spent little and so home.” Pepys’ home in Seething Lane near
the Tower would be an easy distance from the Tea Gardens of Redriff, as
Rotherhithe was called then, and in the days when Swift made Gulliver
live there. There were other well-known Tea Gardens near, the “Cherry
Garden,” “Half-way House,” and at a much later date “St. Helena’s
Gardens,” which were only closed in 1881. The disappearance of all the
Tea Gardens and open spaces made the necessity of a Park very obvious,
and it was to meet this want that Southwark Park was made.
MARYON PARK
There is one more small Park to complete the line of South London
Parks, for which the public is indebted to Sir Spencer Maryon-Wilson,
the lord of the manor of Charlton, in which parish it is situated. It
lies between Greenwich and Woolwich, and the South-Eastern Railway
skirts the northern side. The ground was chiefly large gravel pits, and
has a hill in the middle partly caused by the excavations. This hill
has some |
305 | pretty brushwood still growing on its slope, showing it was
once joined to Hanging Wood, a well-known hiding-place of highwaymen.
It was conveniently thick, and there are many tales of pursuit from
Blackheath which ended by losing the thieves in Hanging Wood. The hill
in the Park is locally known as Cox’s Mount, having been rented by an
inhabitant of that name in 1838, who built a summer-house there and
planted poplars. The area of the Park is about 12 acres, and except
for one or two trees on the Mount and patches of brushwood, it is open
grass. The boys on the _Warspite_ training ship anchored near are
allowed to play cricket there, provision for this having been made by
the generous donor of the Park in the deed of gift to the London County
Council in 1891.
Quite outside these crowded districts, yet within the County of London,
lie three more Parks maintained by the County Council. The one nearest
the heart of London is Manor Park, or Manor House Gardens, between the
High Road, Lee |
306 | , and Hither Green Station, opened in 1902. There are
8¾ acres here attached to the Lee Manor House, a substantial building
in the Adams style, now used as the Public Library. The Gardens slope
gently away from the house to a large pond--or lake as the Council
would prefer to call it--and beyond to a rapid little stream, the
Quaggy, a tributary of the Ravensbourne. Beyond the Quaggy’s steep
banks, well protected by spiked railings, is a flat green devoted
to games. The chief beauty of this little Park is four magnificent
old elms and a few other good trees--beech, chestnut, _Robinia
speudo acacia_, &c. In the spring of 1907 the pond was in process of
cleaning, so no rooks had ventured to build within the Park, but just
at the gates a large elm in a small garden had been favoured by these
capricious birds, and their hoarse voices were making a deliciously
countrified sound.
The other London County Council Parks are in what is still nearly open
country, although rows of villas are being |
307 | rather rapidly reared in
the district. Eltham is one of these. It is at present not enclosed
with massive iron railings, but the wide, flat stretch of smooth
turf, studded with patriarchal trees, is left untouched, except that
a few spaces have been levelled for games. This Park of 41 acres
was bought in 1902, the Borough of Woolwich paying half the cost of
purchase--£9600--with the Council.
Still further into the country is Avery Hill, with the large house
and grounds, extending over 84 acres, built and laid out by Colonel
J. T. North. The London County Council were offered this estate in
1902, if purchased within a certain limit of time, for £25,000. Usually
the Council, in making a purchase, have ascertained beforehand what
contributions the local Boroughs were prepared to subscribe towards the
total cost, but, on this occasion, the Boroughs were invited to share
the expense after the purchase had been made, with the result that
all those concerned--Camberwell, Lewisham, Greenwich |
308 | , Deptford, and
Woolwich--refused; so the whole of the purchase and upkeep devolved on
the London County Council. The large mansion is now used as a teachers’
training college for girls, but the greater part of the grounds, and
the immense winter gardens are open to the public. It is still so
far from the centres of population that the public who make use of
these spacious gardens is very limited. The nearest railway station,
New Eltham, is three-quarters of a mile distant from the Park, and
half-an-hour or more by train from Charing Cross. Although it is now
so far into the country, and some people would deprecate the purchase,
it is only fair to remember that most of the crowded districts were
also country not long ago, and that when land is dear and houses being
built is not a favourable moment to purchase. As a rule it is want of
foresight that is the complaint, and not excess of zeal, as in this
case. The garden is made use of to furnish supplies of plants to some
of the smaller p |
309 | arks, and a portion is being reserved for growing
specimens for demonstration in the Council Schools. On the west side
of the house there are three terraced gardens, prettily planted with
roses and fruit-trees. In front of the house a sloping lawn, with
a few large beds, touches the park-like meadows studded with trees.
Sheep feeding with their tinkling bells gives a rural appearance. To
the large, modern, very red brick house is attached a huge winter
garden. This is on a very large scale, with lofty palms, date, dom, and
cocoa-nut growing with tropical luxuriance in the central house, with a
large camellia house on one side and a fernery with rock-work, pools,
and goldfish on the other. All this requires a good deal of keeping
up--nearly £3000 a year--and although it has been open now some five
years, it has been enjoyed by few. It is greatly to be hoped that it
has a much-appreciated future before it.
Such is a slight sketch of some of London’s Parks. No doubt there
is much that co |
310 | uld be changed for the better, both in design and
planting: less sameness and meaningless formality without true lines
of beauty in design would be an improvement. In planting, there might
be more variety of British trees--alder, oak, ash, and hawthorn; and a
wider range of foreign ones--limes, American or Turkey oaks, and many
others; more climbing plants, such as Virginian creepers, more simple
herbaceous borders and fewer clumps of unattractive bushes, and more
lilacs, laburnums, thorns, almonds, cherries, and medlars in groups
on the grass. If greater originality was displayed and a thorough
knowledge of horticulture were shown, especially by the authorities
that supervise the largest number of these parks, many improvements
in existing ones could be easily achieved, and in forming new parks
the same idea need not be so rigidly followed. But, in spite of small
defects, the Parks as a whole are extremely beautiful, and Londoners
may well be proud of them.
CHAPTER VIII
COMMONS A |
311 | ND OPEN SPACES
_’Tis very bad in man or woman
To steal a goose from off the common,
But who shall plead that man’s excuse
Who steals the common from the goose?_
--AN OLD DITTY.
It was only fifty years ago, when the want of fresh air and room
for recreation was being realised, that people began to wake up to
the truth that there were already great open spaces in London which
ought to be cared for and preserved. It was brought home by the fact
that over £1000 an acre was being paid to purchase market-gardens or
fields so as to transform them into parks, while at the same time land
which already belonged to the people was being recklessly sold away
and built over. All through the history of most of the common lands
encroachments of a more or less serious nature are recorded from time
to time. The exercise of common rights also was often so unrestrained
as to inflict permanent injury on the commons. The digging for gravel
was |
312 | frequently carried to excess, whins and brushwood were cut, and
grass over-grazed until nothing remained. At last, in 1865, a Commons
Preservation Society was formed with the view of arousing public
attention to the subject. As is often the case, some people ran to
the opposite extreme, and wished to transform the commons into parks
without giving compensation to the freeholders and copyhold tenants,
who thereby would lose considerable benefits. In some cases after the
Metropolitan Commons Act of 1866 was passed, the Lord of the Manor, on
behalf of all the freeholders, disputed the right of the Metropolitan
Board of Works to take the land without compensation to the owners. The
lord of the manor was considered unreasonable by some of the agitators
for the transference of the common lands to public bodies, but he was
fighting the battle of all the small owners. The freeholders in some
cases were as many as fifty for some 40 acres. Many of the commons were
Lammas Lands. The freeholders, |
313 | of which there were a large number, had
the use of the land from the 6th of April until the 12th of August,
and the copyhold tenants of the manor had the right of grazing during
the remainder of the year. The number of cattle each could graze
was determined by the amount of rent they paid, and the grazing was
regulated by the “marsh drivers,” men elected annually by the courts
of the Manor for the purpose. A curious incident in connection with
these rights happened on Hackney Downs in 1837. The season was late,
and the steward of the Manor put up a notice to the effect that as the
freeholders’ crops were not gathered the grazing on the Downs could not
begin until the 25th, instead of the usual 12th of August. The marshes
and other common lands in the parish were open, so there was actually
plenty of pasture available for those entitled to it. There was a fine
crop of wheat on some plots on the Downs, and on the morning of Monday
the 14th August, “a few persons made their appearance and |
314 | began to help
themselves to the corn.” Summoned before the magistrates, the bench
decided that after the usual opening day the corn “was common property,
and could be claimed by no one parishioner more than another.” On the
strength of this decision the whole parish turned out, and a terrible
scene of looting the crop took place, while the poor owners vainly
tried to save what they could. The freeholder with the most wheat, a
Mr. Adamson, lost over £100 worth, although he worked all night to
save what he could. A case followed, as Mr. Adamson prosecuted Thomas
Wright, one of the many looters who thought they had a right to it,
for stealing his wheat. This time the magistrates fined the man twenty
shillings, and half-a-crown, the value of the wheat he had actually
taken, as he had no right to take away the crop, although he had a
right to put cattle on the Downs. Further trials for riot before the
Court of Queen’s Bench resulted in the prisoners being discharged after
they had pleaded |
315 | guilty. It appeared both the looters and Mr. Adamson
were in the wrong. They had no right to remove the corn, neither had
he, after the 12th August, and those who had grazing rights could have
turned on their cattle to eat the standing corn. This incident just
shows how the right of freeholders and copyholders could not lightly be
trifled with.
The report of the Select Committee on Open Spaces in 1865 pointed out
in the same way, that although the right to these common lands had
been enjoyed from time immemorial, the rights were vague as far as the
public at large were concerned. They were probably limited to a certain
defined area or body of persons, as the inhabitants of a parish, and
it was doubtful if the custom would hold good at law for such a large
place as London. Thousands of people from all parts of London trampling
over a common was a very different thing to the free use of it by
the parishioners. This report led to the passing of the Metropolitan
Commons Act of 1866. Both |
316 | before and after this Act there were several
others for the maintenance and regulation of the commons and all the
parks, gardens, and open spaces too numerous to mention.[9]
Under the present system most of the metropolitan commons and heaths
are in the hands of the County Council, and in some cases considerable
sums have been spent on them. Among the smaller ones is London Fields,
Hackney, the nearest open space to the city. This was in a very untidy
state when first taken in hand after 1866. The grass was worn away, and
it was the scene of a kind of fair, and the resort of all the worst
characters in the neighbourhood. It used to be known as Shoulder of
Mutton Fields, and the name survives in a “Cat and Mutton” public-house
on the site of a tavern which gave its name to the fields. It was in
the eighteenth century a well-known haunt of robbers and footpads, and
in spite of a watch-house and special guard robberies were frequent.
The watch must have been rather slack, as about 1732 a |
317 | Mr. Baxter was
robbed about five in the morning “by two fellows, who started out on
him from behind the Watch-House in the Shoulder of Mutton Fields.”
Hackney is rich in open spaces, as besides London Fields there is
Hackney or Well Street Common, near Victoria Park, Mill Fields, Stoke
Newington and Clapton Commons, Hackney Downs (over 40 acres) on the
north, and Hackney Marshes (337 acres) on the east. These were Lammas
Lands, and the marshes were used for grazing until within the last few
years, when the rights were bought up and the land finally thrown open
to the public in 1894. The river Lea skirts the marsh, and used not
unfrequently to flood, doing considerable damage. The London County
Council have made four cuts across the bends of the river, forming
islands. The water now can more easily flow in a wet season, and the
periodical inundations no longer occur. The planting of these islands
has not been carried out at all satisfactorily. An utter want of
appreciation of the habit |
318 | s of plants or the localities suited to them
has been shown. A stiff row of the large saxifrage, _S. cordifolia_,
charming in a rock garden or mixed border, has been put round the
water’s edge, and behind it, berberis, laurels, and a few flowering
bushes suited to a villa garden shrubbery. The opportunity for a
really pleasing effect has thus been missed, and money wasted. A few
willows and alders, with groups of iris and common yellow flags, and
free growing willow herb, and purple loosestrife, would soon, for much
less expense, have made the islands worthy of a visit from an artist.
Instead, an eyesore to every tasteful gardener and lover of nature has
been produced. The beauty of the marsh has always been appreciated by
the dwellers in Hackney and Clapton. The view over the fertile fields
from the high land was one of the attractions since the time when Pepys
wrote, “I every day grow more and more in love with” Hackney.
Hackney Downs now form a large open area for recreation, but t |
319 | hey were
fruitful fields sixty years ago. An engraving, from a drawing by W.
Walker, dated 1814, represents a “Harvest Scene, Hackney Downs, with
a View of the Old Tower, and Part of the Town of Hackney,” and gives
a delightful picture of harvesters reaping with sickles, and binding
up sheaves of the tall, thick-growing corn. That some of the Downs
were arable land was a grievance to those who had grazing rights, and
there was a considerable agitation to get the freeholders to lay it all
down in grass, after the incident of looting the corn in 1837, already
referred to. The Downs continued rural within the memory of many still
living. The Lord of the Manor remembers that an inhabitant stated that
she had, whilst walking across the Downs, startled a wild hare from
her form. This would be about the year 1845, and for ten or twelve
years later there were partridges in the larger fields of turnip and
mangold-wurzel which adjoined the Downs. The rural character has quite
changed, and now th |
320 | e Downs are a large open space, with young trees
growing up to supply shade along the roads which encircle the wide
grassy area.
Highbury Fields, although much smaller than Hackney Downs, being
only 27 instead of 41 acres, play as important a part in the north
of London, as the Downs do in the north-east. They are not, however,
Common Lands, but until recently were actually fields with sheep
grazing in them. Tradition points to Highbury Fields as the site of
the Roman encampment during the final struggle with Boadicea. In the
Middle Ages they belonged to the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, and
there the rebels of the Wat Tyler rising, headed by Jack Straw, camped
after leaving Hampstead. There are a few old trees still standing in
the Fields, which were formerly within the grounds of two detached
residences, one of them the Manor House. An old “moated grange,”
or barn, belonging to the ancient Priory, gives its name to the
public-house, Highbury Barn, the goal of motor omnibuses. The |
321 | moat was
only filled up fifty years ago, and the old buildings pulled down,
after enjoying some notoriety as a Tea Garden for over a century. A
part of the present Fields was called “the Reedmote,” or “Six Acre
Field,” and is also shown on old maps as “Mother Field.” When Islington
Spa was a fashionable resort, and Sadler’s Wells at the height of its
prosperity, the houses facing the Fields were built. On the north-west
the row is inscribed in large letters, “Highbury Terrace, 1789,” and
this, according to old guide-books, “commands a beautiful prospect.” On
the east lies another substantial row of eighteenth-century mansions,
and the inhabitants are proud to point out to strangers No. 25 Highbury
Place as the house in which Mr. Chamberlain lived, from the age of
nine until he was eighteen, when he went to live in Birmingham. His
present home, now so well known, was built in 1879, and was named in
remembrance of Highbury Place. In the early years of the nineteenth
century several well- |
322 | known people were living in these houses. John
Nichols, the biographer of Hogarth, who was for fifty years editor of
the _Gentleman’s Magazine_, died there in 1826. A few years later a
historian of Islington describes Highbury Place as “thirty-nine houses
built on a large scale, but varying in size, all having good gardens,
and some of them allotments of meadow land in the front and rear. The
road is private, and is frequented only by the carriages passing to and
from the several dwellings situated between the village and Highbury
House.” This description draws a very rural picture, of which nothing
now remains but the name. The Fields were turned into a public Park in
1885, and now consist of wide open spaces for games, with intersecting
paths well planted with limes, elms, chestnuts, and planes, and an
abundance of seats. Near the point where Upper Street, Islington ends
and Holloway Road joins it, a memorial to the soldiers and volunteers
of Islington who fell in the Boer War has be |
323 | en erected, and the figure
of Victory stands conspicuously facing the approach from the city.
By far the most beautiful and the most frequented of all London Commons
is Hampstead Heath. The original Heath measured 240 acres, but, with
the addition of Parliament Hill, there are now over 500 acres of wild
open country for ever preserved for the benefit of Londoners. ’Appy
’Ampstead, the resort not only of ’Arrys and ’Arriets, but poets,
artists, and people of every rank in life, is too well known to demand
description. The view from it seems more beautiful every time the
occasional visitor ascends the hill, and gazes down on London and away
over the lovely country of the Thames valley. The County Council, the
present holders of this public trust, have mercifully refrained from
turning it into a park--the original intention of those who first
wished to preserve it. The bracken still flourishes, the gorse still
blooms, and there is yet a wild freshness about it that has not been
“improved |
324 | ” away.
Hampstead has had periods of fashion as a residence. In the eighteenth
century it is described as “a village in Middlesex, on the declivity
of a fine hill, 4 miles from London. On the summit of this hill is
a heath, adorned with many gentlemen’s houses.... The water of the
[Hampstead] Wells is equal in efficacy to that of Tunbridge, and
superior to that of Islington.” These Wells appear to have first
attracted notice in the time of Charles II. In 1698, Susanna Noel and
her son, third Earl of Gainsborough (then the owner of the soil), gave
the Well, with six acres of ground, to the poor of Hampstead. For more
than thirty years the Wells, with all the attendant attractions of
the pump-room, with balls and music, drew the fashionable world up to
Hampstead. It was said to be “much more frequented by good company than
can well be expected, considering its vicinity to London; but such care
has been taken to discourage the meaner sort from making it a place
of residence, that it is n |
325 | ow become ... one of the Politest Public
Places in England.” Here Fanny Burney made her heroine, Evelina, attend
dances, and it plays a part in the fortunes of Richardson’s Clarissa
Harlowe; and here all the wits and poets of the time mingled in the
gay throng. Many have been the celebrated residents in Hampstead--Lord
Chatham, Dr. Johnson, Crabbe, Steele, Gay, Keats, William Blake, Leigh
Hunt, Romney and Constable, John Linnell, and David Wilkie among the
number. The site of the pump-room is all built over, but some fine old
elm trees in Well Walk, still have an air of romance and faded glory
about them. The houses near the Heath--such as Shelford, afterwards
Rosslyn House, with a celebrated avenue of Spanish chestnuts, The
Grove, Belsize Park, the residence of Lord Wotton, and then of Philip,
Earl of Chesterfield--have all been consumed by the inroads of bricks
and mortar. It is more than likely that the Heath would have shared
the same fate, had not the inhabitants taken active step |
326 | s to arouse
public attention to preserve this wild heath, unequalled near any great
city. Already aggressive red villas were making their appearance in
far too great numbers. The western side was dotted over with them.
That the purchase of it for the public benefit has been appreciated
it is not difficult to prove, when over 100,000 visit it on a Bank
Holiday. It was the commencement of building operations near the
Flagstaff by the lord of the manor, Sir Thomas Maryon Wilson, in the
heart of the Heath, that brought things to a crisis in 1866. A case
began against the lord of the manor, but he died before it was ended,
and his brother, Sir John, being willing to compromise, the sum of
£47,000 was agreed on for the sale of the Heath to the Metropolitan
Board of Works. The few houses dotted about on the Heath are those of
squatters, who have established their right by the length of time they
have been in possession. The small hamlet or collection of houses in
the “Vale of Health,” those n |
327 | ear the “Spaniards” and round Jack Straw’s
Castle, have existed from time immemorial, although few old houses of
interest remain, and large, unsightly buildings have taken the place
of the picturesque ones. In the Vale of Health the houses are chiefly
given up to catering for holiday-makers. The “Spaniards,” at the most
northerly point of the Heath, is a genuine old house, and it still
has a nice garden, although all the alleys and fantastic ornaments
which made it popular, in the eighteenth century, have vanished. The
name came from the fact that the first owner was a Spaniard. The next
proprietor was a Mr. Staples, who “improved and beautifully ornamented
it.” The house was on the site of the toll-gate and lodge to Caen
Wood, and its position saved that house from destruction, at the time
of the Gordon riots. The rioters had burnt and wantonly destroyed
Lord Mansfield’s house in Bloomsbury Square. Maddened with drink, and
flushed with triumph at the success of their outrages, they ma |
328 | de
a bonfire in the square of the invaluable books collected by Lord
Mansfield. Their temper may be imagined as they marched by Hampstead to
commit the same violence at Caen Wood, Lord Mansfield’s country house.
The proprietor of the “Spaniards” invited them in, and threw open his
cellars to the mob. Fresh barrels of drink were sent down from Caen
Wood, and meanwhile messengers were despatched for soldiers; so that
by the time all the liquor had been consumed, and the drunken rioters
began to proceed, they were confronted by a troop of Horse Guards,
who, in their addled condition, soon put them all to flight. The name
of the other inn on Hampstead Heath, which stands conspicuously on the
highest point, 443 feet above the sea, is Jack Straw’s Castle, and has
also some connection with a riot. Jack Straw was one of the leaders in
the Wat Tyler rebellion, and after burning the Priory of St. John of
Jerusalem, he came up to Hampstead and Highgate, though there is no
direct evidence to conne |
329 | ct him, in 1381, with any tavern on the spot
on which the inn stands. The addition of Castle to the name is from
the fact, that there was some sort of fortress or earthworks on this
commanding point. The inn on the site was known as the Castle Inn, and
not until 1822 is there any mention of it as Jack Straw’s Castle. The
wood of the gallows on which a famous highwayman was hung behind the
house in 1673 was built into the wall. Jack Straw’s Castle is now quite
modernised, but the view from it, on all sides, is still as lovely as
ever. The Whitestone Pond in front is really a reservoir, and to the
south of that lies the Grove, with fine trees and some old-fashioned
houses. The most picturesque walk is that known as the Judges’ or
King’s Bench Walk, from a tradition that justice was administered under
the trees there, when the judges fled from London at the time of the
Great Plague. This walk is on the south-west side of the Heath, the
Well Walk on the south-east. To the east of the highe |
330 | st point with
Jack Straw’s Castle and the road which runs northwards towards the
“Spaniards” is the Vale of Health, and below are a series of ponds.
Hampstead has always furnished a water-supply for the city at its feet.
When more water was required, in the sixteenth century, the Lord Mayor
proposed to utilise the springs there, and convey the water to London
by conduits. A pound of pepper at the Feast of St. Michael annually
to the “Bishop of Westminster,” was the tribute for the use of the
water, as the land belonged to the Abbey of Westminster, having been
granted to it by King Ethelred in 986. The managers of water-supply
in 1692 were a company known as the Hampstead Water Company, which
became absorbed in the New River Company. The lakes are very deep, and
dangerous for boating, bathing, and skating, although used for all
those purposes.
The hill which rises beyond the ponds and stretches away to the east,
is part of the land adjoining the true Heath, which was bought in
1887, so |
331 | as to double the area of open country, and prevent that side
of the Heath being overlooked by houses. The character is quite a
contrast, and lacks the wildness, but it is pretty, park-like scenery,
and Hampstead Heath would have been greatly spoilt had this further
wide space of pasture land not been saved. The first hill to the east
of the Heath is crowned by a mound or tumulus, which was opened a
few years ago; the investigations leading scientists to believe that
it was a British burial-place of the bronze age. This used to be very
picturesque with a group of Scotch firs--now, alas! all dead. The next
hill is Parliament or Traitor’s Hill, and there is no very definite
solution of the name. It may have been a meeting-place of the British
“Moot” or Parliament, or the origin may only be traced to Cromwell’s
time. As if to encourage the tradition being kept up, a stone suggests
that meetings may take place within 50 yards of the spot by daylight.
Below the hill are flat meadows by Gosp |
332 | el Oak, said to be so named from
its being a parish boundary, and the Gospel was read under the tree to
impress the parishioners, with the same object as the other and more
familiar form of beating the bounds. These Gospel Oak fields are the
typical London County Council greens for games, so gradually, after
leaving the summit of the Heath, the descent is made, from the artistic
and picturesque, to the practical and prosaic.
Hampstead was always famous for its wild flowers. The older botanists
roamed there in search of rare plants, and the frequent references in
their works, especially in Gerard’s “Herbal,” show how often they were
successful. Osmundas, or royal ferns, sundew or drosera, and the bog
bean grew in the damp places, and lilies of the valley were among the
familiar flowers. As late as 1838 a work on London Flora enumerates 290
genera, and no less than 650 species, as found round about the Heath.
The soil, the aspect, the situation, are all propitious. Even now it
is so far |
333 | above the densest smoke-fogs that much might be done to
encourage the growth of wild flowers. It is true notice-boards forbid
the plucking of them, and that is a great step in advance--but the
sowing of a few species, which have become extinct, would add greatly
to the charm of the place. It is also still the favourite haunt of wild
birds, and the more the true wildness is encouraged, the more likely
they are to frequent it. It is much to be hoped that the London County
Council will refrain in their planting, from anything but native trees
and bushes which look at home, and which would attract our native
songsters. Within the last ten or twelve years a very great variety of
birds have been recorded either as nesting there or as visitors. The
following list (taken from “Birds in London” by W. H. Hudson, 1898) may
interest bird lovers:--
Wryneck, cuckoo, blackcap, grasshopper, sedge, reed and garden
warblers, both white-throats, wood and willow wrens, chiff-chaff,
redstart, stonechat, |
334 | pied wagtail, tree pipit, red-backed shrike,
spotted fly-catcher, swallow, house martin, swift, goldfinch,
wheat-ears in passage, fieldfare in winter, occasionally redwings, also
redpoles, siskin, and grey wagtail.
This list is certainly a revelation to those who only associate dusty
sparrows and greedy wood-pigeons with the ornithology of London.
No better testimony is wanted to prove that Hampstead is still the
beautiful wild Heath that has given pleasure to so many generations.
The only other large space of common land, north of the river within
the London area, is Wormwood Scrubs, of very different appearance
and associations from Hampstead. The manorial and common rights
were purchased by the War Office, and the ground made over to the
Metropolitan Board of Works in 1879, with reservations for the rifle
range and military exercises. The space is altogether over 200 acres.
The ground in ancient times was a wood, adjoining “Old Oak Common,”
just beyond the London boundary, which w |
335 | as covered with patriarchal
oaks. The last was felled in 1830. The ground, being flat, is admirably
suited for the War Office purposes; it has gone through a process
of draining, and the only part not downtrodden by soldiers has been
“improved” by the London County Council, so there is little wildness
or attraction in the place. The presence of a prison, erected in 1874,
still further diminishes its charm as an open space.
This completes the open large spaces on the north; the south of the
river is even richer in commons. One of the most thoroughly rural spots
within the London area is Bostall Wood. There is nothing to spoil the
illusion, and for quite a considerable walk it would be easy to imagine
that a journey on the magic horse of the “Arabian Nights” had been
taken to some distant forest land, to forget that the roar of the town
was barely out of one’s ears, and that ten minutes’ walk would take
one, out of the enchanted land, back to suburban villas and electric
trams.
Beyond |
336 | the inevitable band-stand, which attracts thousands on a summer
Sunday evening, there is nothing to jar, and spoil the illusion of
real country. The woods, and Bostall Heath which adjoins them, can
be reached from Plumstead or Abbey Wood Station, in twenty minutes’
walk up the steep hill. Pine woods crest the summit, and below them
stretches a delightful thicket, chiefly of oaks and sweet chestnut,
with an undergrowth of holly and a pleasant tangle of bracken and
bramble, where the blackbirds, chaffinches, and robins call to each
other and flit across the path. Steep slopes, and valleys, and hollows
clothed with trees, give possibilities of real rambles, in a truly
sylvan scene. Under the pines, which are tall enough to produce that
soothing, soughing sound even in the most gentle breeze, the carpet of
pine needles is cushioned here and there with patches of vivid green
moss where the moisture has penetrated. Beyond the Wood lies the Heath,
studded with birch trees, among gorse and bra |
337 | cken. There are narrow
gullies and glades, like miniature “gates” or “gwyles” of the sea
coast, and at the foot of the Heath lie the marshes, often in the soft
light as blue as the sea, and the silver Thames, a bright streak across
the picture, chequered with the red sails of the barges, and tall masts
of the more stately ships.
The whole area of woods and common is only about 133 acres, but the
varied surface, and the distant views from it, make it appear of larger
extent. It is little known to most Londoners, although the Heath was
purchased as far back as 1877, and the Wood bought by the London County
Council in 1891. The place, however, is much frequented and duly
appreciated by the neighbouring population. This peaceful country-side
could be reached within an hour, from any point in the City. It is
attractive at all times of the year, especially in spring, when the
green is pale and the young brackens, soft and downy, are uncurling
their fronds, and the dark firs stand up in shar |
338 | p contrast to the
tender greens. Or, perhaps, still more delightful is it in autumn, when
“Red o’er the forest gleams the setting sun,”
and the oaks have turned a rich russet, and the birches, of brilliant
yellow, shower their tiny leaves on the mossy earth, like the golden
showers which fell on Danaë in her prison.
The attractive wood-clad hills of Bostall are the most remote of
all London’s open spaces. They lie the furthest east on the fringe
of the suburbs. From Bostall westward roofs and chimney-pots become
continuous--Woolwich, Greenwich, Deptford, Bermondsey, Southwark
getting more and more densely crowded. But westward also begins the
chain of commons which circle the town round the southern border--with
breaks, it is true, yet so nearly continuous that from the highest
point of one, the view almost ranges on to the next.
Only a deep valley, with Wickham Lane on the track of a Roman road,
divides Bostall Wood from Plumstead Common. This is open and breezy,
stan |
339 | ding high above what was in ancient times the marsh overflowed by
the Thames. The greater part is, however, used by the military, and the
trample of horse artillery makes it look like a desert. It is a curious
effect to see this part of the Common in winter. It has probably been
used for manœuvring all the week, and by Saturday afternoon there are
pools of mud, and ruts, and furrows, and hoofmarks all over it. On this
dreary waste hundreds of boys and young men, sorted according to age,
play more or less serious football matches. The coats of the players,
in four little heaps, do duty for goal-posts, and these are so thickly
strewn over the surface, and the players so closely mingled, that the
effect is like bands of savages fighting among their slain--the ancient
barrow in the centre of the ground gives colour to the supposition.
A sudden deep valley, called “the Slade,” cuts the Common in two. In
the hollow there are ponds, and on the high ground beyond stood a
windmill, the remains |
340 | of which are embedded in the Windmill Tavern.
The next common west of Plumstead, is Woolwich, maintained by the War
Office and given up to military exercises. The extent is 159 acres.
It is so much absorbed by the requirements of the War Office that it
cannot be classed among London’s playgrounds.
Going westward, the next large space is Blackheath, whose history is
wrapped up with that of Greenwich, the beautiful Greenwich Park having
once been part of the Heath. It is high ground, for the most part bare
of trees, and with roads intersecting it--one of them, the old Roman
Watling Street. The wild, bare summit of the Heath was a dangerous
place for travellers, and many was the highway robbery committed there
in times past. It is of very large extent, some 267 acres, and has been
effectually preserved for public use, for some thirty-five years, since
early in the Seventies.
The Heath has played its part in history--gay scenes, such as when
the Mayor and aldermen of London flocked, wi |
341 | th a great assemblage,
to welcome Henry V. after the battle of Agincourt, or more ominous
and hostile demonstrations, as when Wat Tyler collected his followers
there, or when Jack Cade, some seventy years later, did the same thing.
A few fine old eighteenth-century houses still stand on the edge of
the Heath, and an avenue, “Chesterfield Walk,” perpetuates the name of
one of the distinguished residents. Morden College, at the south-east
corner of the Heath, is a fine old building of Wren’s design, founded
by Sir John Morden, for merchants trading with the East who, through
unforeseen accidents, had lost their fortunes.
To the west of Blackheath there was once a Deptford Common, but it
has long since been built over, and, with the exception of the small
Deptford Park, there is a large district of dense population without
any open space. The nearest is Hilly Fields on the south. This is a
steep, conical hill, with little beauty to recommend it, except its
breezy height, and views over c |
342 | himney-pots to the Crystal Palace. A
large, bleak-looking building, with a small enclosure on the highest
point--at present for sale--marked the West Kent Grammer School, does
not improve the appearance of this open space. There are some 45 acres
of turf, and a line of old elms and another of twisted thorns show that
there were once hedgerows. There is some promiscuous planting of young
trees, and iron railings, and of course a band-stand; otherwise no
particular “beautifying” has been attempted since it was opened to the
public in 1896.
In the valley of the Ravensbourne, below the hill stretches the long,
narrow strip of the Ladywell Recreation Ground. It lies on either
bank of the stream between Ladywell and Catford Bridge stations. It
is intersected by railways, and the pathway passes sometimes over,
sometimes under the lines, and constant trains whizz by. But in spite
of such drawbacks, the place has a special attraction in the stream
which meanders through the patches of grass de |
343 | voted to games. Where
the stream has been untouched, and allowed to continue its course
unmolested between iron railings, even the railings cannot destroy a
certain rural aspect it has retained. Alders and elms, with gnarled
and twisted roots, lean over the banks, and hawthorns dip down towards
the rather swiftly flowing water. When the land was bought for public
use in 1889 the stream frequently overflowed its sandy banks, and
one or two necessary cuttings were made across some of the sharpest
curves, to allow a better flow of water. This has stopped all the
objectionable flooding, but the melancholy part is that, having been
obliged to make these imperative but necessarily artificial cuttings,
the London County Council did not plant them with alders, thorns, and
willows, like the pretty, natural stream; but instead, the islands thus
formed, and the banks, were dotted about with box and aucuba bushes.
The babbling stream seems to jeer at these poor sickly little black
bushes, as if to |
344 | say, “What is the good of bravely playing at being in
the country, and trying to make believe trout may jump from my ripples
and water-ousels pop in and out of my banks, if you dreadful Cockneys
disfigure me like that?” Very likely it does not jar on the feelings
of the inhabitants of Lewisham or Catford, but when public money is
spent by way of improvement, it is cruel to mar and deform instead.
Where the churchyard of St. Mary’s, Lewisham, touches the stream is a
pretty spot, but, in places, untidy little back-gardens are the only
adornment; but that is not the fault of the London County Council.
Peckham Rye Common is more or less flat, without any special feature
of interest, except at the southern end, which has been converted
into a Park. The Rye--what a quaint name it is! and there is no very
satisfactory derivation. It may either come from a stream of that name,
long since disappeared, or from a Celtic word, _rhyn_, a projecting
piece of land--Peckham Rye, the village on the s |
345 | pur of the hill, now
known as Forest Hill and Honor Oak. This “Rye” has been a place of
recreation from time immemorial, and at one time must have extended so
as to embrace the smaller patches of common known as Nunhead Green (now
black asphalt), and Goose Green. The Common was secured by purchase
from further encroachments in 1882.
The Park has much that savours of the country. An enclosure within
it, is not open to the public, and for that very reason is one of the
most rural spots. There is a delightful public road across it, known
as “the Avenue.” The old trees form an archway overhead, and on either
side of the fence the wood is like a covert somewhere miles from
London; brambles and fern and brushwood make shelter for pheasants,
and squirrels run up the trees. The farm-house, and its out-buildings
with their moss-grown tiled roofs, have nothing suburban about them.
The front facing the Rye Common has a notice to say it is the Friern
Manor Dairy, but even that is not aggressive, |
346 | as the name carries back
the history to the time of Henry I., when the manor was granted to
the Earl of Gloucester, and on till it was given by his descendants
to the Priory of Halliwell, which held it until the church property
was taken by Henry VIII. and granted to Robert Draper, and so on
till modern days. There is, besides this attractive farm, a regular
piece of laid-out garden, and a pond and well-planted flower-beds;
but the little walk among trees, beside a streamlet which has been
formed into small cascades, and crossed by rustic bridges, is a more
original conception, and is decidedly a success, and a good imitation
of a woodland scene. The contrast is all the greater as Peckham is so
eminently prosaic, busy, and unpicturesque; the old houses having for
the most part given place to modern suburban edifices.
Due west of Peckham lies Clapham, the largest of the South London
Commons, 220 acres in extent; although, being flat and compact in
shape, it does not appear larger than |
347 | Tooting, which is really only
10 acres less, but of more rambling shape. The Common has suffered
much less than most of its neighbours from enclosures. It was shared
between two manors, Battersea and Clapham, and the rival lords and
commonalities, each jealous of their own special rights, were more
careful to prevent encroachments than was often the case. At one time
Battersea went so far as to dig a great ditch to prevent the cattle
of the Clapham people coming into its part of the ground. The other
parish resisted and filled up the ditch, and was sued for trespass
by Battersea, which, however, lost its case--this ended in 1718. The
Common has an air of dignified respectability, and is still surrounded
with some solid old-fashioned houses, although modern innovations have
destroyed a great number of them. A nice old buttressed wall, over
which ilex trees show their heads, and suggest possibilities of a shady
lawn, carries one back to the time when Pepys retired to Clapham to
“a very n |
348 | oble house and sweete place, where he enjoyed the fruite of
his labour in great prosperity”; or to the days when Wilberforce lived
there, and he, together with the other workers in the same cause,
Clarkson, Granville Sharp, and Zachary Macaulay, used to meet at the
house of John Thornton by the Common.
There is nothing wild now about the Common, and the numbers of paths
which intersect it are edged by high iron railings, to prevent the
entire wearing away of the grass. The beauty of the ground is its
trees. They proclaim it to be an old and honoured open space, and not
a modern creation. Only one tree has any pretentions to historical
interest, having been planted by the eldest son of Captain Cook the
explorer, but only a stump remains. The ponds are the distinctive
feature of the Common, and there are several of them dotted about, the
joy of boys for bathing and boat-sailing. The origin of most of them
has been gravel pits dug in early days. There is the Cock Pond near the
church, th |
349 | e Long Pond, the Mount Pond, and the Eagle House Pond, some
of them fairly large. The Mount Pond was at one time nearly lost to the
Common, as about 1748 a Mr. Henton Brown, who had a house close by, and
who kept a boat on the water, obtained leave to fence it in for his own
private gratification. It was not until others followed Mr. Brown’s
example, and further encroachments began to frighten the parish, that
it repented of having let in the thin end of the wedge. A committee was
formed to watch over the interests of the Common lands, and took away
Mr. Brown’s privileges; but in spite of their vigilance other pieces
were from time to time taken away. A little group of houses by the
Windmill Inn are on the site of one of these shavings off the area,
for a house called Windmill Place. The church was built on a corner of
the Common in 1774, and has a peaceful, solid, dignified appearance,
standing among fine old elms and away from the din of trams, which rush
in all directions from the c |
350 | orner hard by. It was built to replace an
older parish church, which was described as “a mean edifice, without
a steeple” by a writer of the eighteenth century, who admired the
“elegant” one which took its place. The present generation would hardly
apply that epithet to the massive Georgian edifice, but it seems to
suit its surroundings: substantial and unostentatious, recalling
memories of the evangelical revival, it seems an essential part of the
Common and its history.
Away to the south-west of Clapham lies Tooting (why does the very name
sound comic, and invariably produce a laugh?), another Common, nearly
as large, and much more wild and picturesque. Clapham is essentially
a town open space, like an overgrown village green; but on Tooting
Common one can successfully play at being in the country. The trees
are quite patriarchal, and have nothing suburban about them, except
their blackened stems. There are good spreading oaks and grand old
elms, gnarled thorns, tangles of brambles, |
351 | and golden gorse. The grass
grows long, with stretches of mossy turf, and has not the melancholy,
down-trodden appearance of Clapham or Peckham Rye.
Fine elm avenues overshadow the main roads, and no stiff paths with
iron rails, take away from the rural effect. Even the railway,
which cuts across it in two directions, has only disfigured and not
completely spoilt the park-like appearance. The disused gravel-pits,
now filled with water, have been enlarged since the London County
Council had possession; and if only the banks could be left as wild
and natural, as nature is willing to make them, they may be preserved
from the inevitable stamp which marks every municipal park. The smaller
holes, excavated by virtue of the former rights of digging gravel, and
already overgrown, assist rather than take away from the charms of the
Common.
Tooting Common consists of two parts, belonging to two ancient manors.
The smallest is Tooting Graveney, which derives its name from the De
Gravenelle fam |
352 | ily, who held the manor soon after the Conquest, on
the payment of a rose yearly at the feast of St. John the Baptist.
The larger half, Tooting Beck, takes its name from the Abbey of Bec
in Normandy, which was in possession of the Manor from Domesday till
1414, when it came to the Crown. Both manors can be traced through
successive owners until the rights were purchased in 1875 and 1873 by
the Metropolitan Board of Works. The avenue of elms which runs right
across the Common divides the two. Tooting Beck is more than twice
the size of Graveney, and has the finest trees. One of the oldest elm
trees, now encircled by a railing, was completely hollow, but now has
a young poplar sprouting out of its shell. Tradition associates this
tree particularly with Dr. Johnson, and though he did not compose his
Dictionary under it, it is more than likely he often enjoyed the shade
of what must have been a very old tree in his day. For fifteen years
he was a constant visitor at Thrale Place close by. |
353 | “He frequently
resided here,” says a contemporary guide-book, “and experienced that
sincere respect to which his virtues and talents were entitled,
and those soothing attentions which his ill-health and melancholy
demanded.” The house stood in 100 acres of ground between Tooting and
Streatham Commons, and has since been pulled down and built over.
During these years, no doubt, Tooting as well as Streatham Common was
often trodden by the brilliant circle who drank tea and conversed with
the accomplished Mrs. Thrale--Sir Joshua Reynolds, Burke, Garrick,
Goldsmith--to all of them the woodland scenes of both Commons were
familiar.
To prevent the too free use of the turf by riders, a special track has
been made for them, skirting the Common, and passing down one of the
finest avenues. It may save the grass from being too much cut up, but
to those who don’t feel called to gallop across the Common, the loss
of the green sward under the tall feathery elms is a cause of regret.
It is such, per |
354 | haps necessary, alterations which spoil the delusion of
genuine country, otherwise so well counterfeited on Tooting Common. A
charming time is when the may is out and the gorse ablaze with bloom,
the chestnuts in blossom, and birds are singing all around; or if one
happens to be there on a winter’s day, when it is too cold for loungers
or holiday-makers, there are moments when the nearness of streets and
trams could be forgotten. The frosty air, and dew-drops on the vivid
green grass, the brown of the fallen leaves, the dark stems clear
against an amber sky, with the intense blue distance, which London
atmosphere produces so readily, combine harmoniously into a telling
picture, which remains photographed “upon that inward eye, which is the
gift of solitude.” The dream is as quickly dispelled. A sight, a sound,
recalls the nearness of London, which makes its presence felt even when
one is trying to play Hide-and-seek with the chimney-pots. How well
Richard Jefferies, that inimitable wri |
355 | ter on nature, describes his
feelings in the neighbourhood of London, in spots only a little further
from Hyde Park Corner than Tooting Beck:--
“Though my preconceived ideas were overthrown by the presence of so
much that was beautiful and interesting close to London, yet in course
of time I came to understand what was at first a dim sense of something
wanting. In the shadiest lane, in the still pine-woods, on the hills of
purple heather, after brief contemplation there arose a restlessness,
a feeling that it was essential to be moving. In no grassy mead was
there a nook where I could stretch myself in slumbrous ease and
watch the swallows ever wheeling, wheeling in the sky. This was the
unseen influence of mighty London. The strong life of the vast city
magnetised me, and I felt it under the calm oaks.”
The most remote of London open spaces in this direction is Streatham,
to the south-east of Tooting, close to Norwood, and on the very
extremity of the County of London. Much smaller |
356 | than the other commons,
it possesses attractions of its own. It is less spoilt by modern
buildings than any of these once country villages, but ominous boards
foretell the rapid advance of the red-brick villa. The houses which
now overlook the upper part are substantial, in the solid, simple
style of the eighteenth century, In those days Streatham possessed a
mineral spring, and for a few years people flocked to drink at it. But
long before the end of the eighteenth century other more fashionable
watering-places had supplanted it, and in 1792 Streatham is described
as “once frequented for its medicinal waters.” The spring was in the
grounds afterwards belonging to a house called the Rookery, and near
the house called Wellfield, on the southern side of the Common. The
waters were said to be so strong that three glasses of Streatham were
equivalent to nine of Epsom. Although so near London, the journey
to the springs presented some dangers, as this was one of the most
noted localities fo |
357 | r footpads and highwaymen. The woods of Norwood,
which came close to the Common, afforded covert and an easy means of
escape. This road from London, which went on to Croydon and Brighton,
had such a bad reputation that the risk of an adventure must have
counterbalanced some of the health-giving properties to any nervous
invalid! The lower part of the Common, near the road, is flat and open,
and not particularly inviting. The charms of the top of the hill are
all the more delightful, as they come as a surprise. There are fine
old trees, and a wealth of fern, thorns, and bramble, and the short
grass is exchanged for springy turf the moment the crest of the steep
hill is reached. But by far the greatest surprise is the glorious view.
Away and away over soft, hazy, blue country the eye can reach. It may
or may not be true that Woolwich, Windsor, and Stanmore can be seen:
nobody will care who gazes over that wide stretch of country bathed
in a mysterious light, perhaps with the rays of the |
358 | sun, like golden
pathways from heaven, carrying the thoughts far from the prosaic villas
or harrowing slums concealed at one’s feet. Only the wide expanse and
the waving bracken and tangled brushwood fill the picture--while one
rejoices that such a beautiful scene should be within the reach of so
many of London’s toilers.
Wandsworth is among the least beautiful and the most cut-up of the
commons. Large and straggling in extent, it has been so much encroached
upon that roads, and houses, and railways cross it. It is narrowed to
a strip in places, and all the wildness and all the old trees have
gone. Some young avenues by the main road have been planted, and no
more curtailments can be perpetrated, as it was acquired for the use
of the public in 1871. For many years the encroachments had roused the
inhabitants, and about 1760 a species of club was formed to protect
the rights of the commoners. When enclosures took place, the members
all subscribed and went to law, and often won their ca |
359 | ses. The head
was called the “Mayor of Garratt,” from Garratt Lane, near the Common,
where a “ridiculous mock election” was held. A mob collected, and
encouraged by Foote, Wilkes, and others, witty speeches were made.
Foote wrote a farce called “The Mayor of Garratt,” which for some time
gave the ceremony no small celebrity. The rowdyism becoming serious
at the sham elections, they were suppressed in 1796. When the Common
was eventually saved, it was in a bad and untidy state: quantities of
gravel had been dug, and holes, some of them filled with water, were a
danger; the trees had all disappeared, and the whole surface was bare
and muddy. It has improved since then, but there is nothing picturesque
left. The “Three Island Pond,” which is supposed to be its greatest
beauty, is stiff, formal, and new-looking, with a few straggly trees
growing up. Still it is safely preserved as an open space, and makes a
good recreation ground.
All round London, besides the larger commons, smaller gree |
360 | ns are to be
found, which are survivals of the old village greens. They recall the
time when London was a walled city, and thickly scattered round it were
the little hamlets which have now been absorbed by the ever-growing,
monster town.
There is little that is distinctive about them. For the most part they
are simply open spaces of well-worn turf without trees. Shepherd’s Bush
is one of these. Brook Green, in Hammersmith, not very far from it, has
the remains of a few fine elm trees. In Fulham there are Parson’s Green
and Eel Brook Common. Away in South London, Goose Green and Nunhead
Green are other examples where grass is even more inconspicuous.
[Illustration: STATUE OF MRS. SIDDONS, PADDINGTON GREEN]
On the north lies Paddington Green, which is small in extent, but close
to the large graveyard turned into a public garden. In the centre of
the Green a statue to Mrs. Siddons, by Chevaliand, was erected in
1897, as she lived in the neighbourhood when Paddington was still
rural. Th |
361 | ere is nothing beautiful about the asphalt paths between
high iron railings surrounding the small space of grass and trees.
Some of the other greens are more of the ordinary public garden type.
Islington Green has been planted with trees, and outside the railings
stands a statue of Sir Hugh Myddelton, who died in 1631, representing
him holding a plan of the New River. Stepney was once a very large
green, and has still 3¼ acres of garden cut up into four sections. Some
quaint old houses, wood with tiled roofs, and good seventeenth-century
brick ones, still overlook the gardens. The gardens have been made
exactly like every other, with a slightly serpentine path, a border
running parallel in irregular curves not following the line of the
path, and trees dotted about. One really fine, thick-stemmed laburnum
shows how well that tree will do in smoke, and some curious old wooden
water-pipes dug up in 1890, dating from 1570, are placed at intervals
in the grass.
Camberwell has one of the la |
362 | rge village greens of South London, and has
been made into a satisfactory garden. All the trams seem to meet there,
but in spite of the din it is a pleasant garden in which to rest.
The 2½ acres are well laid out, and the clipped lime-trees round the
railings are a protection from the street which other places would do
well to copy. When the trees are in leaf the garden is partially hidden
even from those on the tops of omnibuses.
These greens scattered round London help to connect the larger areas,
thus forming links in the chain of open spaces which encircles London.
These natural recreation grounds are the admiration of all foreigners,
and a priceless boon to the citizens, ensuring the preservation of
green grass and green trees to refresh their fog-dimmed eyes, at no
great distance from the throng of city life.
CHAPTER IX
SQUARES
_Fountains and Trees our wearied Pride do please,
Even in the midst of Gilded Palaces;
And in our Towns, that Prospect gives Deli |
363 | ght,
Which opens round the Country to our Sight._
--Lines in a Letter from SPRAT to SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN
on the Translation of Horace.
Nothing is more essentially characteristic of London than its squares.
They have no exact counterpart in any foreign city. The iron railings,
the enclosure of dusty bushes and lofty trees, with wood-pigeons and
twittering sparrows, have little in common with, say for instance, the
Place Vendôme in Paris, or the Grand’ Place in Brussels, or Madison
Square, New York. The vicissitudes of some of the London Squares would
fill a volume, but most of them have had much the same origin. They
have been built with residential houses surrounding them, and though
some have changed to shops, and in others the houses are dilapidated
and forsaken by the wealthier classes, nearly every one has had its day
of popularity.
In some of those now deserted by the world of fashion, the gardens have
been opened to the public, but by far the |
364 | greater number of squares
are maintained by the residents in their neighbourhood, who have keys
to the gardens. But even though they are kept outside the railings
the rest of the public receive a benefit from these air spaces and
oxygen-exhaling trees. Sometimes the public get more direct advantage,
as in such cases as Eaton Square, where seats are placed down the
centre on the pavement under the shade of the trees inside the rails,
and are much frequented in hot weather; or in Lower Grosvenor Gardens,
which are open for six weeks in the autumn, when most of the residents
in the houses are absent.
Squares are dotted about nearly all over London, but they can, for the
most part, be grouped together. There are the older ones, of different
sizes, and varying in their modern conditions. Among such are Lincoln’s
Inn Fields, Charterhouse, Soho, Golden, Leicester, and St. James’s
Squares. Then there is the large Bloomsbury group, and further westward
the chain of squares begins with Cavendi |
365 | sh, Manchester, Portman, on the
north, and Hanover and Grosvenor to the south of Oxford Street. Then
follow the later continuations of the sequence--Bryanston, Montagu, and
so on to Ladbroke Square, nearly to Shepherd’s Bush. To the south of
the Park lies the Belgravia group, with more and more modern additions
stretching westward till they join the old village of Kensington, with
dignified squares of its own, or till their further multiplication is
checked by the River.
To describe most of these squares would imply a vast amount of vain
repetition. Few have anything original either in design or planting.
The majority have elms and planes mixed with ailanthus, while aucubas,
euonymous, and straggling privet form the staple product of the
encircling borders, with a pleasant admixture of lilac and laburnum,
and generally a good supply of iris facing the gravel pathway. A few
annuals and bedding-out plants brighten the borders in summer, and
some can boast of one or two ferns. Occasional |
366 | ly the luxury of a
summer-house is indulged in, and here and there a weeping ash has been
ventured upon by way of shelter; a secluded walk or seat is practically
unknown. The older gardens have some large trees, and the turf in all
of them is good, and when it is with “daisies pied” it forms the chief
delight of the children who play there. It may be that the distance
of Notting Hill Gate from the smoke of the East End has encouraged
more enterprise in gardening; certainly the result of the planting in
Ladbroke Square is satisfactory. Several healthy young oaks are growing
up; and a fountain and small piece of formal gardening round it, on
the highest point of the long, sloping lawn, is effective. In the
older squares, such as Grosvenor Square, the bushes are high, and the
openings so well arranged that the lawns in the centre are perfectly
private, and hidden from the streets. In the less ancient ones, such as
Eccleston and Warwick, Connaught and Montagu Squares, the long, narrow
stri |
367 | p leaves little scope for variation.
An innovation of the usual square is to be seen in Duke Street,
Grosvenor Square. This small square, which was laid out as a garden
with sheltered seats, was made when the new red-brick dwellings
replaced the smaller and more crowded houses. The middle is now the
distributing centre of an electric power-station, but the roof is low
and flat, and has been successfully transformed into a formal garden,
with trees in tubs and boxes of flowers.
[Illustration: WINTER GARDEN, DUKE STREET, GROSVENOR SQUARE]
Some of the squares have finer trees than others, and in many a statue
is a feature. Originally these statues formed the central object
towards which the garden paths converged, but most of the central
statues have been moved, though in a few, like St. James’s and Golden
Squares, they are still in the middle. These statues were evidently a
good deal thought of by Londoners, but they did not strike foreigners
as very good. In one of Mirabeau’s letters |
368 | he writes in 1784 from
London: “The public monuments in honour of Sovereigns, reflect little
honour on English Sculpture.... The Statues of the last Kings, which
adorn the Squares in the new quarters of London, being cast in
brass or copper, have nothing remarkable in them but their lustre; they
are doubtless kept in repair, cleaned and rubbed with as much care as
the larger knockers at gentlemen’s doors, which are of similar metal.”
The usual plan now is to place the statue facing the street, where a
background of green shows it off to the passer-by. Thus Lord George
Bentinck is prominent in Cavendish Square, from which the equestrian
central statue of the Duke of Cumberland has gone; and from Hanover
Square, built about the same time as Cavendish (between 1717–20),
Chantrey’s statue of Pitt gazes down towards St. George’s Church. In
Grosvenor Square no statue has replaced the central one of George I. by
Von Nost, which was placed there in 1726, and is described by Maitland
as a “sta |
369 | tely gilt equestrian statue.” This Square is older than the
two last mentioned, having been built in 1695. In those days each of
the spacious houses had its large garden at the back, with a view of
the country away to Hampstead and Highgate. The garden was designed
by Kent, but a plan of it about 1750 shows a considerable difference
between the arrangements then and now, although some details are the
same. The raised square of grass in the centre where the statue stood
has now a large, octagonal, covered seat, apparently formed with the
old pedestal. The walk round and the four wide paths to the centre are
retained, but the smaller intersecting paths are replaced by lawns
on which grow some fine old elms. The railings with stone piers and
handsome gates, shown in the engraving, have given place to much less
ornamental iron rails.
[Illustration: STATUE OF PITT, HANOVER SQUARE]
Manchester Square is of later date. It was an open space approached by
shady lanes from Cavendish Square for |
370 | some fifty years after that was
built. The houses in Manchester Square were not begun till 1776--some
ten years after the commencement of Portman Square. This district was
all very semi-rural and unfinished until much later. Southey, in a
letter, writes of Portman Square as “on the outskirts of the town,” and
approached “on one side by a road, unlit, unpaved, and inaccessible by
carriages.” The large corner house, now occupied by Lord Portman, was
built for Mrs. Montagu, “Queen of the Blue Stockings,” and during her
time “Montagu House” was the salon to which the literary celebrities
of the day flocked. When Mrs. Montagu moved there from Hill Street
she wrote to a friend, “My health has not been interrupted by the
bad weather we have had; I believe Portman Square is the Montpellier
of England.” In the centre of the Square garden was planted a
“wilderness,” after the fashion of the day, and early in the nineteenth
century, when the Turkish Ambassador resided in the Square, he erected
a |
371 | kiosk in this “wilderness,” where he used to smoke and imagine
himself in a perfumed garden of the East. It is still one of the best
kept-up of the squares.
Berkeley Square dates from nearly the same time as Grosvenor, having
been begun in 1698, on the site of the extensive gardens of Berkeley
House, which John Evelyn so much admired, and where flourished the
holly hedges of which he advised the planting. The central statue here
was one by Beaupré and Wilton of George III., which was removed in
1827, and the base of the statue made into a summer-house. In the place
of the usual statesman, a drinking fountain, with a figure pouring
the water--the gift of the Marquess of Lansdowne--has been placed
outside the rails at the southern end. The plane trees are very fine,
and were planted at the end of the eighteenth century, it is said,
by Mr. Edward Bouverie in 1789. The plane has been so long grown in
London these cannot be said with certainty to be the oldest, as is
so often stated. Some |
372 | in Lincoln’s Inn Fields are decidedly larger.
In 1722 Fairchild writes in praise of the plane trees, about 40 feet
high, in the churchyard of St. Dunstan-in-the-East. Loudon mentions
one at the Physic Garden, planted by Philip Miller, which was 115 feet
high in 1837 (a western Plane--not the great oriental Plane which fell
down a few years ago). The western Plane (_Platinus occidentalis_)
was introduced to this country many years after the eastern Plane
(_Platinus orientalis_). The tree most common in town is a variety of
eastern Plane called _accrifolia_, known as the “London Plane”: this
must have been a good deal planted all through the eighteenth century,
so it is difficult to assign to any actual tree the priority.
St. James’s Square is older than any of the squares already glanced
at, having been built in the time of Charles II. It was known as Pall
Mall Field or Close, originally part of St. James’s Fields, and the
actual site of the Square was a meadow used by those attached t |
373 | o the
Court as a sort of recreation ground. Henry Jermyn, Earl of St. Albans,
leased it in 1665 from Charles II., and began to plan the Square or
“Piazza,” as it was called at first. The deadly year of the Plague,
followed by the Great Fire, delayed the building, and the houses were
not finished and lived in till 1676. No. 6 in the Square, belonging to
the Marquess of Bristol, has been in his family since that time. Every
one of the fine old houses has its story of history and romance. Here
Charles II. was frequently seen visiting Moll Davis, Sir Cyril Wyche,
and the Earl of Ranelagh. The Earl of Romney, and the Duke of Ormond,
and Count Tallard the French Ambassador, are names connected with the
Square in William III.’s time, and Josiah Wedgwood lived at No. 7. But
these and many other historical personages did not look from their
windows on to a well-ordered garden, and the Court beauties did not
wander with their admirers under the spreading trees. The centre of the
Square was left |
374 | open, and merely like a field. The chief use to which
the space seems to have been put was for displays of fireworks. One
of the great occasions for these was after the Peace of Ryswick, but
unfortunately they were not always very successful. An eye-witness,
writing to Sir Christopher Hatton, says of Sir Martin Beckman, who
had the management of them, that he “hath got the curses of a good
many and the praises of nobody.” The open space eventually became so
untidy that the residents in 1726 petitioned Parliament to allow them
to levy a special rate to “cleanse, adorn, and beautify the Square,”
as “the ground hath for some years past lain, and doth now lie, rude
and in great disorder, contrary to the design of King Charles II., who
granted the soil for erecting capital buildings.” So badly used was
it that even a coach-builder had erected a shed in the middle of it,
in which to store his timber. Strong measures were taken, and any one
“annoying the Square” after May 1, 1726, was to be f |
375 | ined 20s., and any
one encroaching on it, £50. No hackney coach was allowed to ply there,
and unless a coachman, after setting down his fare, immediately drove
out of the Square, he was to be fined 10s. The whole place was levelled
and paved, and a round basin of water, which was intended to have a
fountain in it, and never did, was dug in the centre. Round it ran an
octagon railing with stone obelisks, surmounted with lamps at each
angle. A road of flat paving-stones with posts went round the Square in
front of the houses; the rest was paved with cobble stones. As early
as 1697 it was proposed to place a statue of William III., and figures
emblematical of his victories, in the Square, but nothing was done. In
1721 the Chevalier de David tried to get up a subscription for a sum of
£2500 for a statute of George I. to be done by himself and set up, but,
as he only collected £100 towards it, that scheme also fell through.
Once more an effort was made which bore tardy fruit, for in 1724 Sa |
376 | muel
Travers bequeathed a sum of money by will “to purchase and erect an
equestrian statue in brass to the glorious memory of my master, King
William III.” Somehow this was not carried out at the time, but in 1806
the money appeared in a list of unclaimed dividends, and John Bacon the
younger was given the commission to model the statue, which was cast
in bronze at the artist’s own studio in Newman Street, and put up in
the centre of the pond. Thus it remained until towards the middle of
last century the stagnant pool was drained. In the 1780 riots the mob
carried off the keys of Newgate and flung them into this basin, where
years afterwards they were found. It was 150 feet in diameter, and 6 or
7 feet deep. When the pond was drained, the garden was planted in the
form it now is, and the statue left standing in the centre. St. James’s
is still one of the finest residential squares in London, and the old
rhyme, picturing the attractions in store for the lady of quality who
became a duch |
377 | ess and lived in the Square, might have been written in
the twentieth instead of the eighteenth century.
“She shall have all that’s fine and fair,
And the best of silk and satin shall wear;
And ride in a coach to take the air,
And have a house in St. James’s Square.”
[Illustration: STATUE OF WILLIAM III. IN ST. JAMES’S SQUARE]
Less cheerful has been the fate of Golden Square, which has a forsaken
look, and the days when it may have justified its name are past.
Originally Gelding Square, from the name of an inn hard by, the
grander-sounding and more attractive corruption supplanted the older
name. Another derivation for the word is also given--“Golding,” from
the name of the first builder; but anyhow it was called Golden Square
soon after it came into being. The houses round it were built about
the opening years of the eighteenth century, when the dismal memories
of the Plague were growing faint. For the site of Golden Square, “far
from the haunts of men,” was |
378 | one of the spots where, during the Plague,
thousands of dead were cast, by scores every night. These gloomy
scenes forgotten, the Square was built, and at one time fashionable
Lord Bolingbroke lived here, while Secretary for War. It is still “not
exactly in anybody’s way, to or from anywhere.” The garden is neat,
with a row of trees round the Square enclosure, and a path following
the same lines. In the centre stands a statue of George II., looking
thoroughly out of place, like a dilapidated Roman emperor. It was
bought from Canons, the Duke of Chandos’s house, near Edgware, when
the house was pulled down and everything sold in 1747. There are a
few seats, but they are rarely used, and it has a very quiet and
dreary aspect when compared with the cheerful crowds enjoying the
gardens in its larger neighbour, Leicester Square. This was known as
Leicester Fields, and was traversed by two rows of elm trees; and even
after the houses round it were begun, about 1635, the name of Fields
clung |
379 | to it. The ground was part of the Lammas Lands belonging to
the parish of St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields, and Robert Sydney, Earl of
Leicester, who built the house from which the Square takes its name,
paid compensation for the land, to the poor of the parish £3 yearly.
The house occupied the north-east corner of the Square, and in after
years became famous as a royal residence. It has been called “the
pouting-place” of princes, as it was to Leicester House that the Prince
of Wales retired when he quarrelled with his father, George I.; and
there Caroline the Illustrious gathered all the dissatisfied courtiers,
and such wit and beauty as could be found, round her. When he became
George II., and quarrelled in his turn with his son, Frederick, Prince
of Wales, the latter came to live in Leicester House. The statue of
George I. which stood in the centre of the garden was, it was said,
put up by Frederick, with the express purpose of annoying his father.
A view of the Square in 1700, shows a ne |
380 | atly-kept square garden with
four straight walks, and trees at even distances, and Leicester House
standing back, with a forecourt and large entrance gates, and a garden
of its own with lawns and statues at the back. Savile House, next door
to Leicester House, on the site of the present Empire Theatre, was
also the scene of many interesting incidents, until it was practically
destroyed during the Gordon Riots. The list of great names connected
with the Square is too long to recite, but four of the greatest are
commemorated by the four busts in the modern garden--Sir Joshua
Reynolds, Hogarth, John Hunter, the eminent surgeon, and Sir Isaac
Newton. But before these monuments were erected Leicester Square Garden
had gone through a period of decay. It was left unkept up and uncared
for; the gilt statue was tumbling to pieces, and was only propped up
with wooden posts. The garden from 1851 for ten years, was used to
exhibit the Great Globe of Wylde, the geographer, who leased the space
from |
381 | the Tulk family, then the owners of the land. Leicester House,
after it ceased to be a royal residence, was in the hands of Sir Ashton
Lever, who turned it into a museum, which was open from 1771 to 1784,
but failed to obtain much popularity. The collection was dispersed,
and soon after the house was pulled down and the site built over, and
the Square was allowed to get more and more untidy. Several efforts
were made to purchase it for the public, but the price asked was
prohibitive, as the owners wished to build on it. When, however, after
much litigation, the Court of Appeal decided it could not be built on,
but must be maintained as an open space, they were more ready to come
to terms. A generous purchaser came forward, Mr. Albert (afterwards
Baron) Grant, who bought the land, laid it out as a garden, and
presented it to the public, to be kept up by the Metropolitan Board of
Works. The plans for the newly-restored garden, were made for Mr. Grant
by Mr. James Knowles, and the planti |
382 | ng done by Mr. John Gibson, who
was then occupied with the sub-tropical garden in Battersea Park. The
statue of Shakespeare in the centre, and the four busts, were also the
gift of the same public benefactor, who presented the Square complete,
with trees, statues, railings, and seats, in 1874.
Soho Square was another of the fashionable squares of London, now
gloomy and deserted by its former aristocratic residents. The gardens
are kept up for the benefit of those living in the Square only, and are
not enjoyed by the masses, like Leicester Square. Maitland describes
the building and consecration of St. Anne’s, Soho, or, as he calls
it, St. Anne’s, Westminster, which was in 1685 separated from St.
Martin’s-in-the-Fields, and a new parish created, just in the same way
as scores of parishes have to be treated nowadays, to meet the needs
of the much more rapidly-growing population. Of the new parish, he
says the only remarkable things were “its beautiful streets, spacious
and handsome Chur |
383 | ch, and stately Quadrate, denominated King’s-Square,
but vulgarly Soho-Square.” Various suggestions have been made as to
the origin of the name, and the most popular explanation is that it
was a hunting-cry used in hunting hares, which sport was indulged in
over these fields. The word Soho occurs in the parish registers as
early as 1632. When first built the Square was called King Square,
from Geoffrey King, who surveyed it, not after King Charles II. But
the old name of the fields became for ever attached to the Square,
to the entire exclusion of the more modern one, after the battle of
Sedgemoor. Monmouth’s supporters on that occasion took the word Soho
for their watchword, from the fact that Monmouth lived in the Square.
In 1690 John Evelyn notes that he went with his family “to winter at
Soho in the Great Square.” Monmouth House was built by Wren, when the
Square was begun in 1681, and it was pulled down, to make room for
smaller houses on the south side of the Square, in 1773. The |
384 | re are
some fine old trees in the garden, and a statue of Charles II. used,
till the middle of last century, like the one in St. James’s Square,
to stand in a basin of water, with figures round it, emblematic of the
rivers Thames, Severn, Tyne, and Humber, spouting water. Nollekens, the
sculptor, who was born in 28 Dean Street, Soho, in 1738, recalled how
he stood as a boy “for hours together to see the water run out of the
jug of the old river-gods in the basin in the middle of the Square, but
the water never would run out of their jugs but when the windmill was
going round at the top of Rathbone Place.” The centre of the Square was
in 1748 “new made and inclosed with iron railings on a stone kirb,”
and “eight lamp Irons 3 ft. 6 in. high above the spikes in each of the
Eight corner Angles”: the “Channell all round the Square” was paved
with “good new Kentish Ragg stones.”
Beyond Oxford Street are collected a great number of squares in the
district of Bloomsbury. They are all surround |
385 | ed by solid, well-built
houses, which seem to hold their own with dignity, even though fashion
has moved away from them westward. Before the squares arose, this
was the site of two great palaces with their gardens. One of them,
Southampton House, afterwards known as Bedford or Russell House, was
where Bloomsbury Square now is. In 1665, February 9, Evelyn notes
that he “dined at my Lord Treasurer’s the Earl of Southampton, in
Bloomsbury, where he was building a noble square or piazza, a little
town; his own house stands too low--some noble rooms, a pretty cedar
chapel, a naked garden to the North, but good air.” This house was
pulled down in 1800, and Russell Square was built on the garden. Both
Bloomsbury, or Southampton Square, as it was sometimes called, and
Russell Square have good trees, and in each garden there is a statue by
Westmacott. Charles James Fox, seated in classical drapery, erected in
1816, looks down Bedford Place, where stood Southampton House, towards
the larger stat |
386 | ue, with elaborate pedestal and cupids, of Francis, Duke
of Bedford, in Russell Square. This is one of London’s largest Squares,
being only about 140 feet smaller than Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and
included most of the garden of Southampton House, with its fine limes,
and a large locust-tree, _Robinia pseudo acacia_.
The laying out is more original in design than most of the squares,
having been done by Repton in 1810. In Repton’s book on Landscape
Gardening he goes fully into his reasons for the design of Russell
Square. “The ground,” he said, “had all been brought to one level
plain at too great expense to admit of its being altered.” He approves
of the novel plan of placing the statue at the edge instead of in
the usual position in the centre of the Square. “To screen the broad
gravel-walk from the street, a compact hedge is intended to be kept
clipt to about six feet high; this, composed of privet and hornbeam,
will become almost as impervious as a hedge of laurels, or other
evergreen |
387 | s, which will not succeed in a London atmosphere.” He says he
has not “clothed the lawn” with plantation, so that children playing
there could be seen from the windows, to meet “the particular wishes
of some mothers.” “The outline of this area is formed by a walk under
two rows of lime-trees, regularly planted at equal distances, not in
a perfect circle, but finishing towards the statue in two straight
lines.” He imagines that fanciful advocates of landscape gardening will
object to this as too formal, and be “further shocked” by learning that
he hoped they would be kept cut and trimmed. Within were to be “groves
in one quarter of the area, the other three enriched with flowers and
shrubs, each disposed in a different manner, to indulge the various
tastes for regular or irregular gardens.” He ends his description
by saying: “A few years hence, when the present patches of shrubs
shall have become thickets--when the present meagre rows of trees
shall have become an umbrageous avenue--and |
388 | the children now in their
nurses’ arms shall have become the parents or grand-sires of future
generations--this square may serve to record, that the Art of Landscape
Gardening in the beginning of the nineteenth century was not directed
by whim or caprice, but founded on a due consideration of utility as
well as beauty, without a bigoted adherence to forms and lines, whether
straight, or crooked, or serpentine.”
Repton always put forth his ideas in high-sounding language, often not
so well justified as in the present case. The lime-trees have been
allowed to grow taller than he desired, and yet are not fine trees
from having at one period been kept trimmed; but they certainly form
an attractive addition to the usual design, and looking at them, after
nearly a hundred years, from the outside, where they form a background
to the statue, the effect in summer is very attractive.
Bedford Square is on the gardens of the other great house--Montagu
House, built by the Duke of Montagu. Evelyn |
389 | also notes going to see
that. In 1676, “I dined,” he says, “with Mr. Charleton and went to see
Mr. Montagu’s new palace near Bloomsbury, built by Mr. Hooke of our
Society [the Royal] after the French manner.” This house was burnt down
ten years later, and rebuilt with equal magnificence; but when the
Duke moved to Montagu House, Whitehall, in 1757, it became the home
of the British Museum. The old house was pulled down and the present
building erected in 1845. The Square was laid out at the end of the
eighteenth century on the gardens and the open fields of the parish
of St. Giles-in-the-Fields beyond. Lord Loughborough lived in No. 6,
and after him Lord Eldon from 1804 to 1815. At the time of the Gordon
Riots in 1780, when Lord Mansfield’s house was plundered, troops were
stationed near, and a camp formed in the garden of the British Museum.
That garden was also of use when, in March 1815, Lord Eldon’s house in
Bedford Square was attacked by a mob, and he was forced to make his
escap |
390 | e out of the back into the Museum garden.
Of Queen’s Square, built in Queen Anne’s time, but containing a statue
of Queen Charlotte, and all the other squares of this district there
is little of special interest to record directly connected with their
gardens. They all have good trees, and are kept up much in the same
style.
Red Lion Square is an exception. It has a longer history, and now
its garden differs from the rest, as it is open to the public, and
a great boon in this crowded district. It takes its name from a Red
Lion Inn, which stood in the fields long before any other houses had
grown up near it. It was to this inn that the bodies of the regicides
Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw were carried, when they were exhumed
from Westminster Abbey and taken, with all the horrible indignities
meted out to traitors, to Tyburn. A tradition, probably without
foundation, was for long current that a rough stone obelisk, which
stood afterwards in the Square, marked the spot where Cromwell’s |
391 | body
was buried by friends who rescued the remains from the scaffold. The
houses were built round it at the end of the seventeenth century, but
the space in the middle seems, like all other squares at this time,
to have been more or less a rubbish heap, and a resort of “vagabonds
and other disorderly persons.” In 1737 the inhabitants got an Act of
Parliament to allow them to levy a rate to keep the Square in order. A
contemporary, in praising this determination to beautify the Square,
“which had run much to decay,” hopes that “Leicester Fields and Golden
Square will soon follow these good examples.” The “beautifying”
consisted in setting up a railing round it, with watch-houses at the
corners, while the obelisk rose in the centre out of the rank grass.
The present garden, when first opened to the public, was managed by
the Metropolitan Gardens Association, but since 1895 the London County
Council have looked after it; the inhabitants having made a practically
free gift of it for the |
392 | public benefit. The nice old trees, flowers,
seats, and fountain make it a much less gloomy spot than during any
time of its history since the Red Lion kept solitary watch in the
fields.
The largest of all the squares is Lincoln’s Inn Fields. The garden,
which is 7¼ acres in extent, was, after many lengthy negotiations,
finally opened to the public in 1895. The fine old houses which
survive, show the importance and size of Inigo Jones’s original
conception. It has been said that the Square is exactly the same size
as the base of the Great Pyramid, but this is not the case. The west
side, which was completed by Inigo Jones, was begun in 1618, but the
centre of the Square was left an open waste till long after that
date. The Fields, before the building commenced, were used as a place
of execution, and Babington and his associates met a traitor’s death,
in 1586, on the spot where it was supposed they had planned some of
their conspiracy. The surrounding houses had been built, and the gro |
393 | und
was no longer an open field when William, Lord Russell, was beheaded
there in 1683. The scaffold was erected in what is now the centre of
the garden. The Fields for many years bore a bad name, and were the
haunt of thieves and ruffians of all sorts. When things reached such
a climax, that the Master of the Rolls was knocked down in crossing
the Fields, the centre was railed in. This was done about 1735, with
a view to improving their condition, and they remained closed, and
kept up by the inhabitants, until a few years ago. The chief feature
in the pleasant gardens now are the very fine trees. There are some
patriarchal planes, with immense branches, under which numbers of
people are always to be seen resting. The houses, Old Lindsay House,
Newcastle House, the College of Surgeons, Sir John Soane’s Museum, with
long histories of their own, and all the lesser ones, with a sleepy air
of dingy respectability and ancient splendour, now look down on a most
peaceful, well-kept garden, an |
394 | d Gay’s lines of warning are no longer a
necessary caution:--
“Where Lincoln’s Inn wide space is rail’d around,
Cross not with venturous step; there oft is found
The lurking thief, who, while the daylight shone,
Made the walls echo with his begging tone;
That crutch, which late compassion moved, shall wound
Thy bleeding head, and fell thee to the ground.”
Adjoining the Fields is New Square, which used to be known as Little
Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and earlier still as Fickett’s Field or Croft.
It was built in 1687. Fickett’s Fields occupied a wider area, and until
1620 they, like the larger Fields, were a place of execution. The
site of New Square was planted and laid out in very early days. The
Knights of St. John in 1376 made it into a walking place, planted with
trees, for the clerks, apprentices, and students of the law. In 1399
a certain Roger Legit was fined and imprisoned for setting mantraps
with a “malicious intention to maim the said clerks a |
395 | nd others,” as
they strolled in their shaded walks. This Square, like all others, went
through phases of being unkept and untidy, but was finally remodelled,
into its present neat form, in 1845.
Eastwards, into the heart of London there are the squares which are the
remains of the open ground without the City walls. Charterhouse Square,
which is now a retired, quiet spot with old houses telling of a former
prosperity, has a history reaching back to the fourteenth century. In
the days of the Black Death, when people were dying so fast that the
Chronicler of London, Stowe, says that “scarce the tenth person of all
sorts was left alive,” the “churchyards were not sufficient to receive
the dead, but men were forced to chuse out certaine fields for burials:
whereupon Ralph Stratford, Bishop of London, in the yeere 1348 bought a
piece of ground, called _No man’s land_, which he inclosed with a wall
of Bricke, and dedicated for buriall of the dead, builded thereupon
a proper Chappell, which |
396 | is now enlarged, and made a dwelling-house:
and this burying plot is become a faire Garden, retaining the old
name of Pardon Churchyard.” It was very soon after this purchase,
that the Carthusian monastery was founded hard by; but although the
land was bought by the Order, Pardon Churchyard was maintained as a
burial-ground for felons and suicides. After the dissolution of the
monasteries, when Charterhouse School and Hospital had been established
by Thomas Sutton, the houses round the other three sides of the Square
began to be built. One of the finest was Rutland House, once the
residence of the Venetian Ambassador. It is still a quiet, quaint place
of old memories; and the garden, with two walks crossing each other
diagonally, and some fair-sized trees, has a solemn look, as if, even
after all the centuries that have passed, it had some trace of its
origin. Finsbury Circus and Finsbury Square are very different. They
are more modern, bustling places which have entirely effaced the p |
397 | ast.
That they were, for long years, the most resorted to of open spaces,
where Londoners took their walks is well-nigh forgotten, except in the
name Finsbury, or Fensbury, the fen or moor-like fields without the
walls. Bethlehem Hospital, known as Bedlam, was, for many generations,
the only large building on the Fields. Finsbury Square was begun more
than a hundred years ago, and but for the few green trees, nothing
suggests the former country origin. Trinity Square, by the Tower, is
so unique in aspect and association that it must be mentioned. In the
sixteenth century the “tenements and garden plots” encroached on Tower
Hill right up to the “Tower Ditch,” and from the earliest time some
kind of garden existed at the Tower. When it was a royal residence,
frequent entries appear in the accounts of payments for the upkeep of
the garden. Although so much has changed, and the wild animals that
afforded amusement for centuries are removed, it is pleasant to see the
moat turned into walks, |
398 | and well planted with iris and hardy plants,
and making quite a bright show in summer, in contrast to the sombre
grey walls.
Away in the East End there are numbers of other gloomy little squares
whose gardens are the playground of the neighbourhood. They are
useful spaces of air and light, and the few trees and low houses
surrounding them give a little ventilation in some of the very crowded
districts. They are all much alike; in some more care has been taken
in the planting and selection of the trees than in others. There is
De Beauvoir Square, Dalston; Arbour Square, off the Commercial Road;
York Square, Stepney; Wellclose, near the Mint and London Docks;
Trafalgar Square, Mile End; and many others dotted about among the
dismal streets. Turning to the West End again, the largest of the
square spaces is Vincent Square, which forms the playground of the
Westminster boys. It derives its name from Dr. Vincent, the head-master
who was chiefly instrumental in obtaining it for the use of |
399 | the boys.
It was first marked out in 1810, and enclosed by railings in 1842. The
10 acres of ground were part of Tothill Fields, and the site was a
burial-place in the time of the Great Plague.
There is nothing of historical interest in the Squares of Belgravia.
The ground covered by Belgrave Square was known as Five Fields,
which were so swampy that no one had attempted to build on them. It
was the celebrated builder, Thomas Cubitt, who in 1825 was able by
draining, and removing clay, which he used for bricks, to reach a solid
foundation, and in a few years had built Belgrave and Eaton Squares and
the streets adjoining. The site of the centre of Belgrave Square was
then a market-garden. Ebury Square, the garden of which is open to the
public, and tastefully laid out, was built about 1820. The farm on
that spot, which in 1676 came to the Grosvenor family, was a farm of
430 acres in Queen Elizabeth’s time, and is mentioned as early as 1307,
when Edward I. gave John de Benstede permissi |
400 | on to fortify it. There
was only one road across the swampy ground from St. James’s to Chelsea,
and that was the King’s Road, which followed the line of the centre
of Eaton Square. There were, however, numerous footpaths, infested
by footpads and robbers at night, and bright with wild flowers and
scented by briar roses by day. There is a great sameness among all the
squares between Vauxhall Bridge and the Pimlico Road. Of this latter
original-sounding name there seems no satisfactory explanation. The
space between Warwick Street and the river, was in old times occupied
by the Manor House of Neyte, and in later days by nurseries and a tea
garden, known as the Neat House. The ground near Eccleston Square was
an osier bed. The whole surface was raised by Cubitt, with soil from
St. Katherine’s Docks in 1827, and the houses built, and square gardens
laid out; Eccleston in 1835, Warwick 1843, St. George’s 1850, and so
on until the whole was covered. The gardens are all in the same style,
and |
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