Holborn and Bloomsbury Part 4

At present Rosebery Avenue, driven through slumland, justifies its pleasant-sounding name, being a wide, sweeping, tree-lined road.

Workmen's model dwellings rise on either side.

The northern part of Gray's Inn Road falls within the parish of St.

Pancras. The part which lies to the north of Theobald's Road was formerly called Gray's Inn Lane. In 1879-80 the east side was pulled down, and the line of houses set back in the rebuilding. These consists of uninteresting buildings, with small shops on the ground-floor. On the west there are the worn bricks of Gray's Inn. At the corner of Clerkenwell Road is the Holborn Town-Hall, an imposing, well-built edifice of brick and stone, with square clock-tower, surmounted by a smaller octagonal tower and dome. The date is 1878.

Gray's Inn Road is familiar to all readers of d.i.c.kens and Fielding, from frequent references in their novels. John Hampden took lodgings here in 1640, in order to be near Pym, at a time when the struggle between the King and Parliament in regard to the question of ship money was at its sharpest. James Shirley, the dramatic poet of the seventeenth century, is also said to have lived here, but was probably in Gray's Inn itself.

GRAY'S INN.

BY W. J. LOFTIE.

An archway on the north side of Holborn, nearly opposite Chancery Lane, admits us to Gray's Inn. It is not the original entrance, which was round the corner in Portpool Lane, now called Gray's Inn Road. The Lords Grey of Wilton obtained the Manor of Portpool at some remote period from the Canon of St. Paul's, who held it; we have no direct evidence as to whether the Canon had a house on the spot, but there are some traces of a chapel and a chaplain. In 1315 Lord Grey gave some land in trust to the Canons of St. Bartholomew to endow the chaplain in his mansion of Portpool. From its situation near London, the ready access both to the City and the country, with the fine views northward towards Hampstead and Highgate, this must have been a more desirable place of residence than even the neighbouring manor of the Bishop of Ely. It consisted in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries of a gate-house which faced eastward, the chapel close to it on the left, and various other buildings, some of them apparently forming separate houses, with s.p.a.cious gardens and a windmill. Here the Lords Grey lived for a couple of centuries in great state, apparently letting or lending the smaller houses to tenants or retainers--it would seem not unlikely to lawyers or students of the law, possibly their own men of business. This is no mere theory or guesswork. There has been too much conjecture about the early history of Gray's Inn, and the sober-minded topographer is warned off at the outset by a number of inconsistent a.s.sertions as to the early existence here of a school of law. Dugdale tells us that the manor was granted to the Priory of Shene in the reign of Henry VII., and after the dissolution it was rented by a society of students of the law. A fict.i.tious list of Readers goes back to the reign of Edward III., but will not bear critical examination. The lawyers paid a rent of 6 13s.

4d. to Henry VIII., and this charge pa.s.sed into private hands by grant of Charles II. The lawyers bought it from the heir of the first grantee, and since 1733 have enjoyed the Inn rent-free. The opening into Holborn was made on the purchase by the society, in 1594, of the Hart on the Hoop, which then belonged to Fulwood, whose name is commemorated by Fulwood's Rents, now nearly wiped out by a station of the Central London Railway.

The chief entrance is by the archway in Holborn. In 1867 the old brick arch was beplastered, obliterating a reminiscence of d.i.c.kens, who makes David Copperfield and Dora lodge over it. A narrow road leads into South Square, the north side of which is formed by the hall and library. The houses round the east and south sides are of uniform design, with handsome doorways. The hall has been much "restored," but was originally built in the reign of Queen Mary. It has a modern Gothic porch, carved with the griffin, which forms the coat armour of the Inn.

The interior of the hall has been renovated, having been much injured in 1828, when the exterior was covered with stucco. The brick front is again visible, and the panelling and roof within are of carved oak.

There are coats of arms in the windows, and on the walls hang portraits of Charles I., Charles II., James II., and the two Bacons--father and son--Sir Nicholas and Viscount St. Albans, who are the chief legal luminaries of the "ancient and honourable society." The library, modern, adjoins on the east, and contains a collection of important records and printed books on law.

Pa.s.sing through an arch at the western end of the hall, we enter Gray's Inn Square, formerly Chapel Court. The chapel is close to the library on the north side, and opens into Gray's Inn Square. This court was probably open on the north side to the fields before the reign of Charles II. Some of the buildings surrounding it are in a good Queen Anne style, and some have the cross-mullioned windows of a still earlier period. The exterior of the chapel is covered with stucco. The interior, which is very small--there being only seating for a congregation of about one hundred--was carefully examined three years ago, when a proposal was made to build a new chapel. The Gothic windows, walled up by the library to the south, came to light, and there seems some probability that the building is mainly that of Lord Grey's chantry of 1315. Some improvements and repairs to the interior have saved the little chapel for the present. There are no monuments visible, but four Archbishops of Canterbury who were connected with the Inn are commemorated in the east window. They were Whitgift (1583-1604), Juxon (1660-1663), Wake (1715-1737), Laud (1633-1645), and in the centre Becket, whose only claim to be in such a goodly company appears to be that a window "gloriously painted," with the figure of St. Thomas of London, was destroyed by Edward Hall, the Reader, in 1539, according to the King's injunctions. A subsequent window, showing our Lord on the Mount, had long disappeared, and some heraldry was all the east end of the chapel could boast.

The gardens open by a handsome gate of wrought iron into Field Court, which is westward of Gray's Inn Square. Here Bacon planted the trees, and enjoyed the view northward, then all open, from a summer-house which was only removed about 1754. Bacon lived in Coney Court, destroyed by fire in 1678, which looked on the garden.

Among the names of eminent men which occur to the memory in Gray's Inn, we must mention a tradition which makes Chief Justice Gascoigne a student here. More real is Thomas Cromwell, the terrible Vicar-General of Henry VIII. Sir Thomas Gresham was a member of the Inn, as was his contemporary Camden, the antiquary. Lord Burghley and his second son, Robert, Earl of Salisbury, were both members, it is said, but certainly Burghley. The list of casual inhabitants is almost inexhaustible, being swelled by the heroes of many novels, actually or entirely fict.i.tious.

Shakespeare was said to have played in the hall. Bradshaw, who presided at the trial of Charles I., was a bencher; and so was Holt, the Chief Justice of William III. More eminent than either, perhaps, was Sir Samuel Romilly, whose sad death in 1818 caused universal regret. Pepys mentions the walks, and observed the fashionable beauties after church one Sunday in May, 1662. Sir Roger de Coverley is placed on the terrace by Addison, and both Dryden, Shadwell, and other old dramatists speak of the gardens. It was at Gray's Inn Gate--the old gate into Portpool Lane--that Jacob Tonson, the great bookseller and publisher of the eighteenth century, had his shop.

The district northward of Gray's Inn needs very little comment. Great St. James Street is picturesque, with eighteenth-century doorways and carved brackets; the tenants of the houses are nearly all solicitors.

Little St. James Street is insignificant and diversified by mews. In Strype's plan the rectangle formed by these two streets is marked "Bowling Green"; in one corner is "the c.o.c.kpitt."

Bedford Row is a very quiet, broad thoroughfare lined by eighteenth-century houses of considerable height and size, which for the most part still retain their n.o.ble staircases and well-proportioned rooms. Nearly every house is cut up into chambers. Abernethy, the great surgeon, formerly lived in this street, and Addington, Viscount Sidmouth, was born here; Bishop Warburton, the learned theologian and writer of the eighteenth century, and Elizabeth, daughter of Oliver Cromwell, are also said to have been among the residents. Ralph, the author of "Publick Buildings," admired it prodigiously, naming it one of the finest streets in London.

Red Lion Square took its name from a very well-known tavern in Holborn, one of the largest and most notable of the old inns. There is a modern successor, a Red Lion public-house, at the corner of Red Lion Street. To the ancient inn the bodies of the regicides were brought the night before they were dragged on hurdles to be exposed at Tyburn. This gave rise to a tradition, which still haunts the spot, that some of these men, including Cromwell, were buried in the Square, and that dummy bodies were subst.i.tuted to undergo the ignominy at Tyburn.

There was for many years in the centre of the Square an obelisk with the inscription, "Obtusum Obtusioris Ingenii Monumentum Quid me respicis viator? Vade." And an attempt has been made to read the mysterious inscription as a Cromwellian epitaph. Pennant says that in his time the obelisk had recently vanished, which gives the date of destruction about 1780.

The Square was built about 1698, and is curiously laid out, with streets running diagonally from the corners as well as rectangularly from the sides. It had formerly a watch-house at each corner, as well as the obelisk in the centre. It is at present lined by brick houses of uniform aspect and unequal heights, with here and there a conspicuously modern building. The centre is laid out as a public garden, and forms a green and pleasant oasis in a very poor district.

St. John the Evangelist's Church, of red brick, designed by Pearson, stands at the south-west corner. It was built 1876-1878, and is very conspicuous, with two pointed towers and a handsome, deeply-recessed east window. Next door is the clergy house. There are in the Square various a.s.sociations and societies, including the Mendicity Society, Indigent Blind Visiting Society, St. Paul's Hospital, and others. Milton had a house which overlooked Red Lion Fields, the site of the Square, and Jonas Hanway, traveller and philanthropist, also a voluminous writer, but who will be best remembered as the first man in England to carry an umbrella, died here in 1786. Sharon Turner, historian, came here after his marriage in 1795, and Lord Chief Justice Raymond, who held his high office in the reign of the first and second Georges, lived in the Square. But a later a.s.sociation will, perhaps, be more interesting to most people: for about three years previously to 1859 Sir E. Burne-Jones and William Morris lived in rooms at No. 17, before either was married.

Of the surrounding streets, those at the south-east and north-east angles are the most quaint. An old house with red tiles stands at each corner, and the remaining houses, though not so picturesque, are of ancient date. The streets are mere flagged pa.s.sages lined by open stalls and little shops.

Kingsgate Street is so named because it had a gate at the end through which the King used to pa.s.s to Newmarket. It is mentioned by Pepys, who under date March 8, 1669, records that the King's coach was upset here, throwing out Charles himself, the Dukes of York and Monmouth, and Prince Rupert, who were "all dirt, but no hurt." Near the end of this street in Holborn was the Vine Inn, important as having kept alive the only reference in Domesday Book to this district, "a vineyard in Holborn"

belonging to the Crown.

Part of Theobald's Road was once King's Way; it was the direct route to King James I.'s hunting-lodge, Theobald's, in Hertfordshire. It was in this part, at what is now 22, Theobald's Road, that Benjamin Disraeli is supposed to have been born; but many other places in the neighbourhood also claim to be his birthplace, though not with so much authority.

There was a c.o.c.kpit in this Road in the eighteenth century.

We are now in the diminutive parish of St. George the Martyr, carved out of that of St. Andrew's, Holborn, and originally including Red Lion Square and the streets adjacent.

Gloucester Street was named after Queen Anne's sickly little son, the only one of her seventeen children who survived infancy. Robert Nelson, author of "Fasts and Festivals," was at one time a resident. The street is narrow and dirty, lined by old brick houses; here and there is a carved doorway with brackets, showing that, like most streets in the vicinity, it was better built than now inhabited, and it is probable that where sickly children now sprawl on doorsteps stately ladies in hoops and silken skirts once stepped forth. St. George's National Schools are here, and a public-house with the odd name of Hole in the Wall, a name adopted by Mr. Morrison in his recent novel about Wapping.

Queen Square was built in Queen Anne's reign, and named in her honour, but it is a statue of Queen Charlotte that stands beneath the plane-trees in the centre.

When it was first built, much eulogy was bestowed upon it, because of the beautiful view to the Hampstead and Highgate Hills, for which reason the north side was left open; it is still open, but the prospect it commands is only the further side of Guilford Street. The Square is a favourite place for charitable inst.i.tutions. On the east side was, until 1902, a College for Working Men and Women, designed to aid by evening cla.s.ses the studies of those who are busy all day.

The Hospital for Paralysis and Epilepsy is on the same side. This was inst.i.tuted in 1859, but the present building was in 1885 opened by the Prince of Wales, and is a memorial to the Duke of Albany, and a very splendid memorial it is. The building, which occupies a very large s.p.a.ce along the side of the Square, is ornately built of red brick and terra-cotta, with handsome balconies and a porch of the latter material.

There are four wards for men and five for women, with two small surgical wards; also two contributing wards for patients who can afford to pay something toward their expenses.

Almost exactly opposite, across the Square, is a new red-brick building.

This is the Alexandra Hospital, for children with hip disease, and sometimes a wan little face peeps out of the windows.

On the south side is the Italian Hospital, lately rebuilt on a fine scale. There are other inst.i.tutions and societies in the Square, such as the Royal Female School of Art, but none that call for any special comment.

Among the eminent inhabitants of the Square were Dr. Stukeley, the antiquary, appointed Rector of the church, 1747--he lived here from the following year until his death in 1765; Dr. Askew; and John Campbell, author, and friend of Johnson, who used to give Sunday evening "conversation parties," where the great Doctor met "shoals of Scotchmen."

The Church of St. George the Martyr stands on the west side of the Square, facing the open s.p.a.ce at the south end. It was founded in 1706 by private subscription as a chapel of ease to St. Andrew, and was named in honour of one of the founders, who had been Governor of Fort George, on the coast of Coromandel. "The Martyr" was added to distinguish it from the other St. George in the vicinity. It was accepted as one of the fifty new churches by the Commissioners in Queen Anne's reign, was consecrated in 1723, and had a district a.s.signed to it. It was entirely rearranged and restored in 1868, and has lately been repainted. It is a most peculiar-looking church, with a spire cased in zinc. Small figures of angels embellish some points of vantage, and the symbols of the four Evangelists appear in niches. The windows are round-headed, with tracery of a peculiarly ugly type; but the interior is better than the exterior, and has lately been repaired and redecorated throughout.

Powis House originally stood where Powis Place, Great Ormond Street, now is. This was built by the second Marquis or Duke of Powis, even before he had sold his Lincoln's Inn Fields house to the Duke of Newcastle, for he was living here in 1708. The second Duke was, like his father, a Jacobite, and had suffered much for his loyalty to the cause, having endured imprisonment in the Tower, but he was eventually restored to his position and estates. The house was burnt down in 1714, when the Duc d'Aumont, French Amba.s.sador, was tenant, and it was believed that the fire was the work of an incendiary. The French King, Louis XIV., caused it to be rebuilt at his own cost, though insurance could have been claimed. In 1777 this later building was taken down.

Lord Chancellor Thurlow lived in this street at No. 46, and it was from this house, now the Working Men's College, that the Great Seal was stolen and never recovered.

Dr. Mead, a well-known physician, had a house here, afterwards occupied by the Hospital for Sick Children.

The Working Men's College began at the instigation of a barrister in 1848, and was fathered by the Rev. F. D. Maurice, who was Princ.i.p.al until his death. It grew rapidly, and in 1856 became affiliated to London University. The adjacent house was bought, in 1870 additional buildings were erected, and four years later the inst.i.tution received a charter of incorporation. Maurice was succeeded in the princ.i.p.alship by Thomas Hughes, and Hughes by Lord Avebury, then Sir John Lubbock.

The Hospital for Sick Children is a red-brick building designed by Sir C. Barry. Within, the wards are lined by glazed tiles, and the floors are of parquet. Each ward is named after some member of the Royal Family--Helena, Alice, etc. The children are received at any age, and the beds are well filled. Everything, it is needless to say, is in the beautifully bright and cleanly style which is a.s.sociated with the modern hospital. The chapel is particularly beautiful; it is the gift of Mr. W.

H. Barry, a brother of the architect, and the walls are adorned with frescoes above inlaid blocks of veined alabaster.

The h.o.m.oeopathic Hospital, which is on the same side of the street nearer to the Square, is another large and noticeable building. This is the only hospital of the kind in London. The present building occupies the site of three old houses, one of which was the residence of Zachary Macaulay, father of the historian. There are in all seven wards, two for men, three for women, one for girls, and one for children. The children's ward is as pretty as any private nursery could be. The hospital is absolutely free, and the out-patient department exceptionally large.

In Great Ormond Street there are also one or two Benefit Societies, Manchester Unity Independent Order of Oddfellows for the North London District, and many sets of chambers. This district seems particularly favourable to the growth of charitable inst.i.tutions.

Lamb's Conduit Street is called after one Lamb, who built a conduit here in 1577. This was a notable work in the days when the water-supply was a very serious problem. Thus, a very curious name is accounted for in a matter-of-fact way. In Queen Anne's time the fields around here formed a favourite promenade for the citizens when the day's work was done.

The parish of St. George, Bloomsbury, which lies westward of St. George the Martyr, is considerably larger than its neighbour. The derivation of this name is generally supposed to be a corruption of Blemund's Fee, from one William de Blemund, who was Lord of the Manor in Henry VI.'s reign. Stow and others have written the word "Loomsbury," or "Lomesbury," but this seems to be due to careless orthography, and not to indicate any ancient rendering.

The earliest holder of the manor of whom we have any record is the De Blemund mentioned above. There are intermediate links missing at a later date, but with the possession of the Southampton family in the very beginning of the seventeenth century the history becomes clear again. In 1668 the manor pa.s.sed into the hands of the Bedfords by marriage with the heiress of the Southamptons. This family also held St. Giles's, which, it will be remembered, was originally also part of the Prebendary of St. Paul's.

The Royal Mews was established at Bloomsbury (Lomesbury) from very early times to 1537, when it was burnt down and the mews removed to the site of the present National Gallery (see _The Strand_, same series).

The parish is largely composed of squares, containing three large and two small ones, from which nearly all the streets radiate. The British Museum forms an imposing block in the centre. This is on the site of Montague House, built for the first Baron Montague, and burnt to the ground in 1686. It was rebuilt again in great magnificence, with painted ceilings, according to the taste of the time, and Lord Montague, then Duke of Montague, died in it in 1709. The house and gardens occupied seven acres. The son and heir of the first Duke built for himself a mansion at Whitehall (see _Westminster_, same series, p. 83), and Montague House was taken down in 1845, when the present buildings of the Museum were raised in its stead.

The Museum has rather a curious history. Like many of our national inst.i.tutions, it was the result of chance, and not of a detailed scheme.

In 1753 Sir Hans Sloane, whose name is a.s.sociated so strongly with Chelsea, died, and left a splendid collection comprising "books, drawings, ma.n.u.scripts, prints, medals, seals, cameos, precious stones, rare vessels, mathematical instruments, and pictures," which had cost him something like 50,000. By his will Parliament was to have the first refusal of this collection for 20,000. Though it was in the reign of the needy George II., the sum was voted, and by the same Act was bought the Harleian collection of MSS. to add to it; to this was added the Cottonian Library of MSS., and the nation had a ready-made collection.

The money to pay for the Sloane and Harleian collections was raised by an easy method of which modern morals do not approve--that is to say, by lottery. Many suggestions were made as to the housing of this national collection. Buckingham House, now Buckingham Palace, was spoken of, also the old Palace Yard; of course, the modern Houses of Parliament were not then built. Eventually Montague House was bought, and the Museum was opened to the public in 1757. However, it had not ceased growing. George III. presented some antiquities, which necessitated the opening of a new department; to these were added the Hamilton and Townley antiquities by purchase, and in 1816 the Elgin Marbles were taken in temporarily. On the death of George III., George IV. presented his splendid library, known as the King's Library, to the Museum, not from any motive of generosity, but because he did not in the least appreciate it. Greville, in his Journal (1823), says: "The King had even a design of selling the library collected by the late King, but this he was obliged to abandon, for the Ministers and the Royal Family must have interposed to oppose so scandalous a transaction. It was therefore presented to the British Museum."

It then became necessary to pull down Montague House and build a Museum worthy of the treasures to be enshrined. Sir Robert Smirke was the architect, and the present ma.s.sive edifice is from his designs. The buildings cost more than 800,000.