The Project Gutenberg eBook of Mayfair, Belgravia, and Bayswater, by Geraldine Edith Mitton

A survey of London, a record of the greatest of all cities, that should preserve her history, her historical and literary associations, her mighty buildings, past and present, a book that should comprise all that Londoners love, all that they ought to know of their heritage from the past—this was the work on which Sir Walter Besant was engaged when he died.

As he himself said of it: "This work fascinates me more than anything else I've ever done. Nothing at all like it has ever been attempted before. I've been walking about London for the last thirty years, and I find something fresh in it every day."

Sir Walter's idea was that two of the volumes of his survey should contain a regular and systematic perambulation of London by different persons, so that the history of each parish should be complete in itself. This was a very original feature in the great scheme, and one in which he took the keenest interest. Enough has been done of this section to warrant its issue in the form originally intended, but in the meantime it[Pg viii] is proposed to select some of the most interesting of the districts and publish them as a series of booklets, attractive alike to the local inhabitant and the student of London, because much of the interest and the history of London lie in these street associations.

The difficulty of finding a general title for the series was very great, for the title desired was one that would express concisely the undying charm of London—that is to say, the continuity of her past history with the present times. In streets and stones, in names and palaces, her history is written for those who can read it, and the object of the series is to bring forward these associations, and to make them plain. The solution of the difficulty was found in the words of the man who loved London and planned the great scheme. The work "fascinated" him, and it was because of these associations that it did so. These links between past and present in themselves largely constitute The Fascination of London.

Some attempt has been made in this volume to indicate the quality of the district described by inserting one or two names of present occupiers; but these names are only representative, and must not be considered as constituting in any sense exhaustive lists.

MAYFAIR, BELGRAVIA, AND BAYSWATER

Mayfair is at the present time the most fashionable part of London, so much so that the name has come to be a synonym for wealth or pride of birth. Yet it was not always so, as he who runs may read, for the derivation is simple enough, and differs from most cases in that the obvious meaning is the right one. In James II.'s reign a permission was given for a fair to be held on the north side of Piccadilly, to begin on the first day of May, and to last for fifteen days. This fair, we are told, was "not for trade and merchandise, but for musick, showes, drinking, gaming, raffling, lotteries, stageplays and drolls." It was immensely popular, and was frequented by "all the nobility of the town," wherein, perhaps, we see the germs of the Mayfair we know. It must be remembered that Grosvenor and Berkeley Squares, with their diverging streets, were not then begun, and that all this land now covered by a network of houses lay in fields on the outskirts of London,[Pg 2] while Hyde Park Corner was still the end of the world so far as Londoners were concerned. It was about the end of the seventeenth century that the above-mentioned squares were built, and at once became fashionable, and as the May fair continued to flourish until 1708, it must have seen the growth of the district to which it was to give its name. Though suppressed, doubtless on account of disorders, it revived again, with booths for jugglers, prize-fighting contests, boxing matches, and the baiting of bears and bulls, and was not finally abolished until the end of the eighteenth century.

But Mayfair is not the only district to be noticed; we have also its rival—Belgravia—lying south of Hyde Park Corner, which is equally included in the electoral district of St. George's, Hanover Square. This electoral district takes in the three most fashionable churches in the Metropolis, including the mother church, St. Paul's, Wilton Place, and St. Peter's, Eaton Square, besides many others, whose marriage registers cannot compete either in quantity or quality of names with these three. The district can also show streets as poor as some are rich; it includes not only Park Lane and Piccadilly, but also Pimlico and the dreary part to the south of Buckingham Palace Road. It is a long, narrow district, stretching from the river to Oxford Street. As a parish, St. George's was separated from St. Martin's in[Pg 3] 1724, and it is now included in the city of Westminster, with which it has been associated from its earliest history. In the charter given by King Edgar to the monks at Westminster, their possessions were defined as reaching to the highroad we now call Oxford Street on the north, and to Tyburn Lane, or Park Lane, on the west. But of this the parishes of St. Margaret and St. John at Westminster were the City, and the rest lay in the "Liberties."

The larger portion of the district is included in the ancient estate of Eia, 890 acres in extent, reaching from the Bayswater Road to the Thames, which was given by William the Conqueror to Geoffrey de Mandeville, who at his death bequeathed it to the Abbey of Westminster. In Domesday Book it is divided into three manors of Hyde, Ebury, and Neyte. Of these the first occupies the site of Hyde Park; Ebury, from Knightsbridge to Buckingham Palace Road; Neyte, nearer the river, was the favourite residence of the Abbots. Here John of Gaunt lived, and here, in 1448, John, son of Richard, Duke of York, was born. The monks remained in possession until dispossessed by Henry VIII. in 1536. Hyde then became a royal hunting-ground. Neyte, or Neat, and Ebury remained as farms, which in 1676 came into the possession of the Grosvenor family by the marriage of Mary, daughter and heiress of Alexander Davies of Ebury, with Sir[Pg 4] Thomas Grosvenor, Bart. With her came also the Grosvenor Square property, extending from Oxford Street to Berkeley Square and Dorchester House, and from Park Lane to South Molton Lane and Avery Row. Other large landholders in the district are the Crown—Hyde Park, and Buckingham Palace; Lord Fitzhardinge, the Berkeley estate; the City of London, New Bond Street and parts of Conduit Street and Brook Street; Earl Howe, Curzon Street; Sir Richard Sutton, Piccadilly; the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, Knightsbridge; and the Lowndes family, Lowndes Street and Chesham Place.

More than a quarter of the district is covered by Hyde Park, 394 acres in extent. Long before its acquisition by the Crown in 1536 it had been a favourite royal hunting-ground, and it so continued until Charles I.'s accession, when it was opened to the public. During this reign, and until 1736, the world of fashion centred round the Ring, a circular drive planted with trees, some of which are still carefully preserved on the high ground near the Ranger's house, though all trace of the roadway has long been obliterated. The Park was sold by auction during the Commonwealth, but resumed by the Crown at the Restoration, and in 1670 was enclosed with a brick wall and restocked with deer, who have left their traces in the name of Buck Hill Walk and Gate, close to[Pg 5] the east bank of the Serpentine. This prettily-laid-out area, formerly known as Buckden Hill or the Deer Paddock, is now tenanted only by peacocks, ducks and rabbits.

The Serpentine, a noble stretch of water of 50 acres, has already been described in "Kensington."

Hyde Park has always been noted for its springs. In 1725 the Chelsea Waterworks Company obtained a license to supply the surrounding districts, and built a reservoir and engine-house near Grosvenor Gate, which existed until 1835, when, on the recall of the license, the engine-house was demolished and the basin laid out with flower-beds and a fountain. The present reservoir stands in the centre of the Park, while opposite Stanhope Place on the north side is a Gothic drinking fountain, the gift of the Maharajah of Vizianagram. The oldest of the present roads in Hyde Park is Rotten Row, made by William III.; it is now reserved for riding only, while under the trees on either side rank and fashion have lounged and gossiped since the days of the Ring. The popular derivation of the name is from Route du Roi, since it was known first as the King's or Lamp Road; but possibly it has its origin in the soft soil of which the ride since 1734 has been composed. The south road, now the fashionable drive, was made by George II. about 1732, as a short way to Kensington Park. The road from[Pg 6] Alexandra Gate to Victoria Gate crosses the Serpentine by a stone bridge built by Rennie in 1826, and is the only one open to hired vehicles, which were first forbidden the use of the Park in 1695. From the Serpentine a soft ride runs parallel to the roadway as far as the Marble Arch; from this point Hyde Park Corner is reached by a broad drive bordered with flower-beds and trees, which replace the famous double avenue of walnuts cut down in 1811. It is much patronized by society, who congregate opposite Hyde Park Corner, near the Achilles statue, by Sir R. Westmacott, R.A., cast from captured French cannon, and erected at a cost of £10,000 by the women of England in 1820, "in honour of the Duke of Wellington and his brave companions in arms." It is copied from a Roman antique, but the name is a misnomer. The road along the north side of the Serpentine is now thronged every day with bicyclists, to whom the Park has been lately thrown open. Here also are held the annual meets of the Four-in-Hand and Coaching Club during the season. This road was widened in 1852. Of past and present buildings in Hyde Park the following may be noted: When the Serpentine was made, an old lodge was demolished which may have been the tavern known in the reign of James I. as the "Grave Maurice's Head," and which later became Price's Lodge. Up to[Pg 7] 1836, on the bank of the Serpentine stood an old house called the Cake House, and close to it was the old receiving house of the Royal Humane Society, which was replaced in 1834 by the present building, designed by Decimus Burton. Among the trees behind it is an old farmhouse (Hyde Park Lodge), the residence of Major-General Bateson, Deputy Ranger, adjoining which are the old barracks, now a police-station and guard-room, the head-gardener's house, built in 1877, and the old magazine. The new magazine stands close to the Serpentine Bridge, and contains over 1,000,000 rounds of ammunition. Near Grosvenor Gate stood the Duke of Gloucester's riding-house, built in 1724, which, after serving as the headquarters of the Westminster Volunteer Cavalry, was demolished in 1824. The old Ranger's Lodge at Hyde Park Corner was pulled down when Apsley House was built.

The principal entrance to Hyde Park is at Hyde Park Corner, and consists of a triple archway combined with a fluted Ionic screen, by Decimus Burton, completed in 1828. The iron gates are by Bramah. Cumberland Gate, the next in importance, was opened in 1744, with wooden gates. Here in 1643 was posted a court of guard to watch the Oxford Road, where the Court was residing, and here also military executions took place. The Marble Arch, an imitation by Nash of[Pg 8] the Arch of Constantine at Rome, erected originally as an entrance to Buckingham Palace, was moved to this site in 1851. Albert Gate was made in 1841, on the site of the Cannon Brewery. The iron gates were set up in 1845, and the stone stags on either side were brought from the old Lodge in the Green Park.

The remaining gates are Alexandra Gate and Prince of Wales's Gate, erected since 1851; Victoria Gate, Grosvenor Gate, made in 1724 by subscription of the neighbouring inhabitants; and Stanhope Gate, opened about 1760. There are also numerous entrances for foot passengers.

The present Park railing was put up after the Reform Riots in 1866 to replace the one demolished by the mob, which had stood since 1825.

In duelling days Hyde Park was a favourite battle-ground. Of many encounters the following may be recorded:

1712. The Duke of Hamilton and Lord Mohun, which took place near Price's Lodge. Both died on the ground, and Lord Mohun's second, General Macartney, was afterwards tried, on the accusation of Colonel Hamilton, for stabbing the Duke when on the ground; he was, however, acquitted.

In troublous times military camps occupied the open ground, notably in 1649 under Lord Essex, in 1665 during the Plague, and in 1715 and 1722 to guard against Jacobite rebellion.

Reviews have been held at intervals from 1569 until 1876, but are now of very rare occurrence.

Hyde Park has also been the scene of some serious riots, notably those in 1821 on the occasion of the removal of Queen Caroline's body; in 1885 against the Sunday Trading Bill; and in 1862 the Garibaldi disturbances. The most important riot, however, broke out in 1866, when the Reform Leaguers forcibly entered the Park by pulling down the railing. From the Reform League the Reformer's tree near the reservoir took its name; though the original one has been felled, the name is still applied to a neighbouring tree, and political demonstrations, which have been declared legal since 1866, are still held on the open space in the vicinity.

Oxford Street, which forms the northern boundary of the district, has already been described[Pg 10] in the book on "Marylebone," with which district it is closely identified. It is only necessary here to mention some of the notable houses on the south side which fall within our compass.

The first is Camelford House (Lord Hillingdon), an unpretentious building in a courtyard, once the property of the Pitts, Earls of Camelford. George Grenville occupied it in 1805, and subsequently H.R.H. Princess Charlotte and her husband, afterwards Leopold I. of Belgium. Adjoining it is Hereford Gardens, a row of handsome private houses built in 1870 on the site of Hereford Street (1780).

At the corner of Lumley Street (south side) is the Royal Association in Aid of the Deaf and Dumb. The building, erected in 1870 from designs by Sir A. Blomfield, of red brick, contains a reading-room, lecture-hall, and on the upper floor St. Saviour's Church, in early Pointed style.

From Dering Street, on the south side of Oxford Street, the garden of Lord Carnarvon's house in Tenterden Street extended nearly to Harewood Place. On the site are a noticeable stone-fronted house, now a carriage warehouse, and the Royal Orthopædic Hospital, founded 1838 and removed here from Bloomsbury Square in 1856.

Park Lane, up to 1769 called Tyburn Lane, was in the reign of Queen Anne a desolate by-road, but is now a favourite place of residence for the[Pg 11] fashionable persons in the Metropolis. It is open to Hyde Park as far as Hamilton Place, whence it reaches Piccadilly by a narrow street. At its junction with the former stands an ornamental fountain by Thorneycroft, erected in 1875 at a cost of £5,000, the property of a lady who died intestate and without heirs. At the base are the muses of Tragedy, Comedy, and History in bronze, above Chaucer, Shakespeare and Milton in marble, the whole being surmounted by a bronze statue of Fame. The principal mansions in Park Lane are: Brook House, at the north corner of Upper Brook Street, designed by T. H. Wyatt, and the residence of the Earl of Tweedmouth, and next to it Dudley House. Dorchester House (Captain Holford) was built by Vulliamy in 1852 on the site of the town house of the Damers, Earls of Dorchester. The building, which stands in its own grounds, is rectangular, and constructed of Portland stone in Italian Renaissance style. On the narrow front is a carriage portico. The reception rooms and marble staircase have few rivals in London; they contain two libraries and a collection of pictures by old and modern masters. Here died in 1842 the Marquis of Hertford. Londonderry House, No. 18 (Marquis of Londonderry), was built in 1850 by S. and J. Wyatt on the site of the residence of the D'Arcys, Earls of Holdernesse. It contains a fine gallery of pictures and sculpture.[Pg 12] Other inhabitants: the Duke of Somerset, in a house adjoining Camelford House, No. 35; Sir Moses Montefiore, d. 1885; Park Lane Chambers, Earl Sondes, Lord Monkbretton.

At the corner of Upper Grosvenor Street (then No. 1, Grosvenor Gate) Benjamin Disraeli lived 1839-73. No. 24, Lord Brassey. No. 21, for many years the Marquis of Breadalbane, and afterwards Lady Palmerston, when left a widow in 1850; Earl of Scarborough. Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton at a house then numbered 1. In 23, Richard Sharp, 1822-24; Mrs. Fitzherbert, 1785; Warren Hastings, 1790-97; Marquis Wellesley, 1796.

Grosvenor Square and the surrounding streets have always been the centre of the aristocratic world; the Square, which includes about six acres, was built in 1695. The garden was laid out by Kent, and in the centre stood formerly an equestrian statue of George I., by Van Nost, placed there in 1726. On the site, in 1642, was erected a fort named Oliver's Mount, which stood as one of the defences against the Royalists until 1647. Owing to the prejudices of the inhabitants, Grosvenor Square was not lit by gas until 1842.

Inhabitants: Duchess of Kendal, d. 1743; Earl of Chesterfield, 1733-50; Bishop Warburton, 1757; Lord Chancellor Hardwicke, 1758-64; Lord Rockingham, d. 1782; Henry Thrale,[Pg 13] d. 1781; Lord North, d. 1792; Thomas Raikes, 1832; Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles; 10, Lord Canning and Lord Granville, 1841; 22, William Beckford, 1800; 23, the Earl of Derby here married Miss Farren, actress, in 1797; his successors resided here until 1832; Lord Stratford de Redclyffe, d. 1880; 24, the Earl of Shaftesbury; 29, Sir John Beaumont; 30, John Wilkes, d. 1797; 39 (now 44), the Earl of Harrowby, 1820 (here the Cato Street conspirators proposed to murder the Ministry); 44, Countess of Pembroke. The houses have since been renumbered. To give a list of the present inhabitants of note would be impossible; it would be like copying a page out of the Red Book. Suffice to say there are living in the Square two Dukes, one Marquess, three Earls, six Barons, and five Baronets, beside many other persons of distinction.

At the corner end of Park Street, and in South Street and Aldford Street, the old houses have been pulled down and have been replaced by large, red-brick, ornamented structures, such as have also been erected in Mount Street, Grosvenor Street, and North and South Audley Street. The spaces behind the houses are occupied by mews. Great improvements have also been effected since 1887 in the housing of the working classes, particularly in the[Pg 14] neighbourhood of Oxford Street, and in Bourdon Street and Mount Row, by the erection of blocks of industrial dwellings by the St. George's and Improved Industrial Dwellings Companies, under the auspices of the Duke of Westminster.

In Park Street, formerly called Hyde Park Street, lived Miss Nelly O'Brien, 1768; 7, Sir William Stirling Maxwell, M.P.; 26, Sir Humphry Davy, 1825, till his death; 113, Miss Lydia White, d. 1827; 123, Richard Ford, author of "The Handbook for Spain." In North Audley Street, opposite Green Street, is St. Mark's Church, built from designs by J. P. Deering in 1825-28, and reconstructed in Romanesque style in 1878. Adjoining is the Vicarage, built in 1887, and at the back the St. Mark's Institute, containing a church-room, mission-room, gymnasium, and a working men's club. Attached to the institute are the parish schools, built soon after 1830, and enlarged and repaired in 1894.

Near the church lived the Countess of Suffolk, mistress of George II.; at 1, Maria Edgeworth; 26, the Misses Berry.

South Audley Street takes its name from Hugh Audley (d. 1662), the owner of some land in the neighbourhood. It has several interesting houses. No. 8, Alington House (Lord Alington), was, in 1826, Cambridge House, the residence of the Duke of York, and afterwards, until 1876,[Pg 15] belonged to the Curzons, Earls Howe. In 73, Bute House, lived, in 1769, the great Earl of Bute, and near him his friend Home, author of "Douglas." Chesterfield House, a large mansion standing in a courtyard at the corner of Curzon Street, was built by Ware in 1749 for the fourth Earl of Chesterfield, d. 1773, who wrote the "Letters" in the library. The portico and marble staircase, with bronze balustrade, were brought from Canons, the seat of the Duke of Chandos. In 1869 the house was sold to Mr. Magniac for £175,000, and he built over the gardens. It is now the town house of Lord Burton.

Opposite Aldford Street is Grosvenor Chapel, erected in 1730; an ugly building, with sittings for 1,200. It is now a chapel of ease to St. George's. Here were buried Lord Chesterfield, 1773; Ambrose Phillips, poet, 1749; Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, 1762; David Mallet, poet, 1765; William Whitehead, poet, 1785; John Wilkes, 1797; Elizabeth Carter, 1806. The churchyard at the back was, in 1889, converted into a public garden. Just outside the gate is the Public Free Library, erected in 1894 under the Free Libraries Act.

Other inhabitants: General Paoli; Holcroft, dramatist, 1761; Sir William Jones; Lord John Russell; Lord Sydenham, 1841; 8, Archbishop Markham, d. 1807; 14, Sir R. Westmacott, sculptor,[Pg 16] d. 1856; 15, Baron Bunsen, 1841; 72, Charles X., when in exile, and in 1816 the Duchesse d'Angoulême; Louis XVIII., in 1814, also lived in this street; 74, the Portuguese Embassy early in the eighteenth century; 77, Sir Matthew Wood; here Queen Caroline resided in 1820. In the enlargement of the street called Audley Square Spencer Perceval was born. North Row has no interest. In Green Street lived Sydney Smith, d. 1845; Lord Cochrane, d. 1814; 61 is Hampden House, residence of the Duke of Abercorn. At the corner of Park Street stood St. Mary's Church, pulled down in 1880.

In Norfolk Street lived Lord William Russell, murdered by his valet in 1840; at 27 the Earl of Dunraven, 1895. In Upper Brook Street lived Lord George Gordon, b. 1750, and George Grenville; 3, Sir Lucas Pepys and the Countess of Rothes; 18, Hon. Mrs. Damer, sculptor, d. 1828; 27, "Single Speech" Hamilton, d. 1796; 18, Sir William Farrer, F.R.G.S.; 32, Marquis of Ormonde.

Upper Grosvenor Street contains Grosvenor House, the residence of the Duke of Westminster, a handsome building standing in a courtyard, with a garden at the back, skirting Park Lane as far as Mount Street. On its purchase in 1761 by the Duke of Gloucester, brother of George III., it was known as Gloucester House. The present[Pg 17] screen and metal gates by Cundy were erected in 1842. The house contains a very fine collection of pictures.

In this street lived: No. 2, Lord Erskine; 11, Mr. Francis Hale Rigby, 1817; 16, the first Sir Robert Peel; 18, Lord Crewe, 1809.

The Dowager Duchess of Northumberland; Dowager Countesses of Galloway and Wilton; Lord Templemore; Major-General Hon. H. F. Eaton; Prince Alexis Dolgorouki; Sir E. Chandos Leigh.

Balfour Place has been lately rebuilt, and was so named in 1892 instead of Portugal Street.

Mount Street (1740), called from the Fort of Oliver's Mount, was rebuilt with ornamental red-brick houses; it contains the Vestry Hall—now the Register Office for the district—built by Bolton in 1887, at a cost of £15,200, on the site of the old workhouse, now removed to the Fulham Road.

Inhabitants: Lady Mary Coke, 1810; Martin Van Butchell, d. 1810; Sir Henry Holland, 1816; No. 102, Madame d'Arblay, 1832; 111, on the site of an old manor-house, was in 1891 occupied by a college of Jesuit priests; 2, Sir Charles Hall, Q.C., M.P., d. 1900; 49, Earl of Selborne; 54, Lord Windsor; 105, Winston Churchill, M.P.; 113, Right Hon. Akers Douglas, M.P. In Carlos Place, so renamed in 1892 instead of[Pg 18] Charles Street (1727), lives: No. 1, Sir George Chetwynd, Bt., 1896. Its prolongation, Duke Street, rebuilt in 1889 in red brick, dates from about 1770, and was named probably after the Duke of Cumberland. In that year a lying-in hospital stood in the street; opposite a small square is the King's Weigh House Congregational Chapel, a large building erected in 1891. Blocks of artisans' dwellings occupy the small streets round about.

In Gilbert Street are St George's, Hanover Square, District Schools, which replaced the old schools in South Molton Street. The building was erected in 1888 by Caroe on a site given by the Duke of Westminster, and cost £5,000. These schools were incorporated in 1818 with General Stewart's schools in South Street.

Davies Street is very narrow at its northern end, where it forms a prolongation of South Molton Lane, an old street known in 1708 as Shug Lane. It takes its name either from Miss Mary Davies, who is said to have lived in an old house still standing at the corner of Bourdon Street, or from Sir Thomas Davies, to whom Hugh Audley left his property. Here is the new church of St Anselm, built in Byzantine style, from designs by Balfour and Turner, at a cost of £20,000, and opened in February, 1896, to replace Hanover Chapel, Regent Street. At No. 8 are the Westminster Public Baths and Washhouses.[Pg 19]

In Bourdon Street is St. Mary's Church, a chapel of ease to St. George's, built for £12,000 by the Duke of Westminster in 1881 to replace St. Mary's Church in Park Street. The building, from designs by Blomfield, is in medieval style. Adjoining is St. George's Workmen's Dwellings Association.

In Grosvenor Street (1726) lived: Countess of Hertford, 1740; Lord North, 1740; Sir Paul Methuen, 1740; Miss Vane, mistress of Frederick, Prince of Wales; Lord Crewe, 1784; Marquis Cornwallis, 1793-98; No. 13, William Sotheby; William Huskisson; at 16 was formerly the Royal Institution of British Architects; 17, Samuel Whitbread, 1800; 28, Sir Humphry Davy, 1818; 48, Earl St. Vincent, d. 1823; 72, Dr. Matthew Baillie, d. 1823; 6, Sir E. Ashmead Bartlett, M.P., d. 1902; 25, William Allingham, surgeon; 50, Earl Carrington; 59, Right Hon. James Lowther, M.P.; 72, Sir James Reid; and many others.

Brook Street was first called Little Brook Street, and afterwards Lower Brook Street. It takes its name from the Tyburn, which flowed down the course of South Molton Lane and Avery Row, by Bruton Mews to the bottom of Hay Hill, and through the gardens of Lansdowne House to Shepherd's Market. It then crossed Piccadilly at Engine Street, and flowed through the Green Park to Buckingham Palace.[Pg 20]

In Brook Street is Claridge's (formerly Mivart's) Hotel. Here lived: No. 25 (now 72), Edmund Burke; Sir Henry Holland, 1820-73; 63, Sir William Jenner; 74, Sir William Gull; 57 (now 25), Handel, the composer; Lord Lake, d. 1808; Welbore Ellis, Lord Mendip, d. 1802; Mrs. Delany; 20, Gerald Vandergucht, engraver, and his son Benjamin Vandergucht, painter; Thomas Barker, painter; 25, Rev. Sydney Smith; 30, Sir Charles Bell, d. 1832; 34, Sir Thomas Troubridge, 1809; 63, Sir John Williams, physician; 66, Sir B. Savory, Bart.; 74, Lord Balcarres; 84, Sir William Broadbent, physician; 86, Lord Davey, P.C., F.R.S.

In South Molton Street, on the wall of No. 36, is an inscription: "This is South Molton Street, 1721." At No. 17 lived William Blake, poet and painter, in 1807. The St. George's Schools, at No. 53, were removed in 1889 to Gilbert Street, and the building sold for £2,500.

In Woodstock Street lived: Dr. Johnson, 1737; Prince Talleyrand, 1793; Dr. Parr, 1814. Running out of it are Sedley Place, so named in 1873 instead of Hanover Place, and Blenheim Street, up to 1760 called Pedley Street.

East of New Bond Street, Hanover Square, four acres in extent, was built as a fashionable place of residence in 1716-20. It was to have been called Oxford Square, but the name was changed[Pg 21] in honour of the house of Hanover. A few of the old houses still remain, notably Nos. 17 and 23, but most of them have been rebuilt at various times, and are not in any way remarkable. The centre is enclosed and planted with trees, and at the southern end stands a bronze statue of Pitt by Chantrey, erected in 1831 at the cost of £7,000. The principal houses are: No. 3, the offices of the Zoological Society, established in 1826, and removed here in 1846; those of the Anthropological Society; 4, a large handsome building erected in 1774 by Sir George Gallini, and opened by him as the Hanover Square Concert and Ball Rooms. Here J. C. Bach, son of Sebastian Bach, gave concerts from 1785-93. The concerts of Ancient Music and those of the Philharmonic Society also took place here. In 1862 the rooms were redecorated and styled the Queen's Concert Rooms, but were in 1875 disposed of to the Hanover Square Club, established in that year.

No. 12, formerly the offices of the Royal Agricultural Society, now those of the Shire Horse Society and Kindred Associations.

No. 13, Harewood House, was built by W. Adam for the Duke of Roxburghe, and purchased in 1795 by Lord Harewood, in whose family it remained until 1894, when it was sold to the[Pg 22] Royal Agricultural Society, established in 1838 for the improvement of agriculture.

No. 16 in 1845 was occupied by the Royal College of Chemistry, established in that year, and afterwards removed first to Oxford Street, and in 1835 to the School of Mines, Jermyn Street.

In No. 17 Mrs. Jordan is said to have lived under the protection of the Duke of Clarence, afterwards William IV. In 1864 it became the home of the Arts Club, established in that year for persons interested in art, literature, or science. The house contains a fine painted ceiling by Angelica Kaufmann, and some marble mantelpieces of Italian workmanship, but is soon to be demolished.

No. 18 is the Oriental Club, founded in 1824 by Sir John Malcolm for persons who have resided or travelled in the East. The present house, on the site of one occupied by Lord Le Despenser 1771-81, was built in 1827 by the Wyatts, and contains some good portraits of Lord Clive and other distinguished Anglo-Indians.

No. 20 is the offices of the Royal Medical, Pathological, and Clinical Societies, established 1867.

No. 21 was the site of Downshire House from 1793. It was before that date the property of the[Pg 23] Earl of Hillsborough. Here, in 1835, lived Talleyrand, then French Ambassador; after him, Earl Grey. It has been rebuilt, and is now a bank, above which is the New County Club, located here in 1894.

At No. 23 lived Lord Palmerston, father of the Premier, in 1806, and the Duchess of Brunswick, daughter of Frederick, Prince of Wales, d. 1813.

Other inhabitants: the present No. 20, Field-Marshal Viscount Cobham, 1736-48; George Granville, Lord Lansdowne, d. 1735; Ambrose Phillips, poet, d. 1749. At the present No. 10: Admiral Lord Rodney, 1792-96; Admiral Lord Anson, 1762; "Single Speech" Hamilton, 1765; Percival Pott, surgeon, 1777-88; Thomas Campbell, poet; Sir James Clark, physician, 1841.

The streets round Hanover Square are mainly broad, well built, and lined with shops. Hanover Street and Princes Street were built about 1736. In the latter Sir John Malcolm died in 1833. Swallow Place and Passage recall Swallow Street, which was cleared away to make Regent Street in 1820.

In Regent Street stood, until recently, Hanover Chapel, with two towers, designed by C. R. Cockerell, and built in 1824 at a cost of £16,180.[Pg 24] The Ionic portico was imitated from that of Minerva Polias at Priene. In the interior was a painting of "Christ's Agony in the Garden," by Northcote, presented 1828 by the British Institution.

Harewood Place was closed at its northern end by gates until 1893, when all gates and private bars were removed throughout the district. In Tenterden Street, No. 4 in 1776 became the residence of the Herberts, Earls of Carnarvon, who still own the property. It, with Nos. 5 and 6, is now occupied by the Royal Academy of music, founded in 1822 by the Earl of Westmoreland. Among eminent pupils have been Sterndale Bennett, Sir G. A. Macfarren, Sir J. Barnby, Mackenzie, Sir A. Sullivan, and Goring Thomas. At the end of Tenterden Street is Dering Street, so called in 1886 instead of Union Street.

At the southern end of the Square George Street was built about 1719, and at first named Great George Street, in honour of George I. It is wide at the Square end, but grows narrower till Maddox Street is reached. Its chief feature is the Parish Church of St. George, designed by John James, begun in 1713 and consecrated in 1724, one of Queen Anne's fifty churches. The style is Classical, the body plain, but having a Corinthian portico of good proportions, and a clock-tower 100 feet high. The interior contains a good Jesse[Pg 25] window put in in 1841. In 1895 the building was redecorated, repaired, and reseated, and the old organ by Snitzler, put up in 1761, was replaced by a Hope Jones electric instrument. This church has been long celebrated for fashionable marriages. Among those in the register are:

1769. The Duke of Kingston to Miss Chudleigh, she being already married to Mr. Harvey, afterwards Earl of Bristol. She was afterwards tried and convicted of bigamy.

1793. H.R.H. the Duke of Sussex to Lady Augusta Murray. The marriage was declared void under the Royal Marriage Act.

1797. The Earl of Derby to Miss Farren. The ceremony took place in Grosvenor Square.

Among the Rectors of St. George's were Charles Moss, D.D., 1759-74, afterwards Bishop of Bath and Wells; and Henry Courtenay, 1774-1803, made Bishop of Exeter in 1795.

At the bottom of George Street is Limmer's Hotel, formerly a noted resort of sporting men, rebuilt and enlarged in 1876. No. 25 is a handsome stone-fronted mansion, built in 1864 for Earl Temple. In 1895 it was in possession of the[Pg 26] Duchess of Buckinghamshire. In a house on the same site lived John Copley, the painter, and his son, Lord Lyndhurst, d. 1863.

Other inhabitants: No. 3, Madame de Staël; 7, Admiral Sir Edward Hawke; 8, David Mallet, poet, 1758-63; Sir William Beechey, R.A.; Sir Thomas Phillips, R.A., d. 1845; 9, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, 1803; 13, Lord Chancellor Cowper, 1723; 15, Sir George Wombwell, afterwards for a short time the Junior Travellers' Club; Earl of Albemarle, 1726; Lord Stair, 1726; Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, d. 1762; Sir Thomas Clarges, 1726; Colonel Francis Charteris, 1729; Lord Shelburne, 1748.

Maddox Street was built by the Earl of Burlington in 1721, and named after Sir Benjamin Maddox, the ground landlord (d. 1670). It contains a museum of building appliances established in 1866 in connection with the Institute of British Architects. Mill Street is so called from a mill which stood near the corner of Hanover Square; near it is Pollen Street; both are unimportant. Conduit Street, completed about 1713, is so called from the city conduit which carried water from the Tyburn to Cheapside. It was built for private residences, which have now been transformed into shops. On the south side, where is now a tailor's, stood, until 1877, Trinity Chapel, a plain, red-brick building built by Archbishop[Pg 27] Tenison, in 1716, to replace the old wooden chapel which James II. had originally set up on Hounslow Heath, but which was brought to, and left at the top of, Old Bond Street about 1691. Four-fifths of the income derived from the three houses on this site are devoted to the maintenance of the district churches in the parish, the remainder going to the parish of St. Martin's. The share of St. George's parish now amounts to a capital sum of £5,075, and an income of £1,600.

At No. 9, once the town house of the Earls of Macclesfield, are the offices of the Royal Institute of British Architects, established 1835, and other kindred societies.

At the Princess of Wales' Tavern, now demolished, David Williams started the Royal Literary Fund in 1772.

In this street lived: Duke of Wharton, 1725; Charles James Fox, b. here 1749; Boswell, 1772; Wilberforce, 1786; Delmé Radcliffe, d. 1832; Balfe, composer; No. 36, Sir William Farquhar, physician to William Pitt; 37, George Canning, 1802-03, after him Dr. Elliotson (the house has since been rebuilt); 39, Sir Astley Cooper, surgeon, d. 1841.

Old and New Bond Street form a continuous thoroughfare, in which are situated some of the most fashionable shops in London. Though somewhat narrow, and architecturally uninterest[Pg 28]ing, it has always been a favourite society promenade, and when first built was "inhabited by the nobility and gentry" (Hatton). New Bond Street dates from about 1716, and occupies part of the site of Conduit Mead (twenty-seven acres), the property of the City of London. Of the houses the following are interesting:

No. 135, the Grosvenor Gallery, the chief of the many picture-galleries in Bond Street. The house was erected in 1877 for Sir Coutts Lindsey, Bart., and contains a lending library and until recently the Grosvenor Club (proprietary, social and non-political). The doorway, by Palladio, was brought from Venice, and the front is by Soames.

Nos. 15 and 16 are Long's Hotel, much frequented by Sir Walter Scott; it was rebuilt and enlarged in 1888.

At No. 18, now a jeweller's, was Steven's Hotel, fashionable during the Regency, and afterwards a haunt of Lord Byron's.

At No. 169, on the west side, was the Clarendon Hotel, formerly the town house of the Dukes of Grafton, and afterwards the residence, about 1741, of the elder Pitt. The hotel was closed in 1877, and replaced by a row of shops.

Inhabitants: Swift, 1727; Mrs. Delany, 1731; Lords Craven, Abergavenny, and Coventry, 1732; George Selwyn, 1751; Dr. Johnson, 1767;[Pg 29] Thomson, the poet; No. 141, Lord Nelson, 1797; 146, Sir Thomas Picton, 1797-1800; 147, Mrs. and Miss Gunning, 1792; 148, Lord Camelford, 1803-04; 150, Lady Hamilton, 1813.

Old Bond Street, and the adjoining Stafford Street, Albemarle and Dover Streets, occupy the site of old Clarendon House, the grounds of which covered nearly 30 acres, granted to Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, by Charles II. The house, described by Evelyn as a noble pile, was erected in 1664, and after being leased, in 1670, to the Duke of Ormonde, was sold in 1675 to the second Duke of Albemarle, who parted with it to Sir Thomas Bond for £20,000. The latter, in 1686, built Bond Street, the west side of which was first called Albemarle Buildings. Residents: 1708, Lords Coningsby, Abingdon, and Anglesea; 1725, the Duke of St. Albans, Countess of Gainsborough; 1741, Duke of Kingston; 1753, Countess of Macclesfield; at the present No. 41, in 1768, died Laurence Sterne; Pascal Paoli, 1761; Boswell, 1769; No. 24, 1791, Sir Thomas Lawrence, R.A., afterwards the offices of the Artists' Benevolent Institution, founded 1814, the Artists' Orphan Fund, and the Arundel Society for promoting the knowledge of Art, established 1848. These have now been removed.

Halfway down on the west side is the Royal Arcade, a short passage leading to Albemarle[Pg 30] Street, containing shops, with a handsome entrance at each end. It was opened in 1883.

In 1820, on the east side, stood another arcade, communicating with the Burlington Arcade, and named the Western Exchange. It failed, and was closed.

In Stafford Street a stone let into the wall of a public-house had the inscription: "This is Stafford Street, 1686." At the corner of Albemarle Street, in 1852, was the Stafford Street Club, formed by Roman Catholics.

Albemarle Street, Grafton Street, and Dover Street contain handsome houses, the residences still of many of the aristocracy. The former was built in 1684-1708 by Sir Thomas Bond, and named after the Duke of Albemarle. Its chief houses are: No. 21, the Royal Institution, established by Count Rumford in 1799, for "diffusing the Knowledge and facilitating the general introduction of useful mechanical inventions and improvements," etc.; has a stone front, with a row of half engaged Corinthian columns, designed by Louis Vulliamy, and erected in 1837. It contains a lecture-theatre, reading-room, and library of 50,000 volumes. Members are elected by ballot, and courses of lectures are delivered on science, philosophy, literature and art. Eminent men connected with the Institution: Faraday, 1830; Murchison, Lyell, Sedgewick, Whewell, Tyndall,[Pg 31] Huxley, Lord Rayleigh, Professor Dewar. The President of the Society is the Duke of Northumberland.

Opposite is St. George's (proprietary) Chapel, a plain building, celebrated for its musical services.

No. 7 is the Royal Thames Yacht Club, instituted in 1823 for the encouragement of yacht building and sailing on the river Thames. It was formerly Grillion's Hotel. Here Louis XVIII. lodged in 1814, and Grillion's Club, formed 1813, had its meetings. The Roxburghe Club dinners also took place here.

No. 13 is the Albemarle Club, established in 1875, admits both sexes as members. Messrs. R. and J. Adam lived here in 1792, and the house was afterwards the Pulteney Hotel.

No. 22 is the office of the Royal Asiatic Society, founded in 1823, the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1831), the London Mathematical Society (1865), etc.

No. 23 was in 1808 the Alfred Club, which was succeeded by the Westminster Club, which shortly failed.

No. 41, the Amphitryon Club, was established 1870; it was celebrated for the excellence of its cuisine, and the high scale of its charges.

No. 50, the publishing house of John Murray,[Pg 32] was removed here in 1812. His private house next door was, between 1812 and 1824, the resort of Byron and other literary celebrities.

The noted opposition club, the Coterie, formed in 1763, also met in this street.

Other inhabitants: Lords Portmore, Poulet, and Orkney, 1708; Duke of Rutland, Viscount St. John, 1725-41; Marquis of Granby, 1760; Lord Bute, 1764; Zoffany, artist, 1780; C. J. Fox; Richard Glover, 1785; Byron, 1807; No. 26, Sir James Mackintosh, 1811; 41, Hon. Hedworth Lambton; 41a, Earl of Sandwich.

Grafton Street was named after the Duke of Grafton, who, with Lord Grantham, bought the site in 1735. It was first called Ducking Pond Row, and in 1767 Evans Row.

No. 4, the New Club (proprietary), social and non-political, was established with a view to providing a club conducted with economy in administration. Here lived Lord Brougham (1849) till his death. The Turf Club afterwards occupied it until 1877.

No. 7 is the Grafton Galleries, where periodical exhibitions of pictures are held.

No. 10 is the Green Park Club for ladies, established in 1894, and removed here in 1896.

Other inhabitants: C. J. Fox, 1783; No. 24, Mrs. FitzHerbert, 1796; 11, Admiral Earl Howe, d. 1799; his daughter, the Marchioness of Sligo, and her husband; Lord Stowell, after 1813; 16,[Pg 33] Lord Stowell up to 1813; Marquis Cornwallis, 1801; 20, Right Hon. George Tierney, 1809; 11, Sir Dyce Duckworth; 24, Viscount Cranborne, C.B., M.P.; 23, Oswald Partington, M.P.

Dover Street, built in 1686, was called after Henry Jermyn, Earl of Dover, who died here 1708.

At the top of Hay Hill was Ashburnham House (Earl of Ashburnham), a plain square building in a courtyard. It was occupied by the Russian Embassy in 1851. Now Nos. 28 and 29 are the premises of the Sesame Club for ladies.

No. 37, a stone-fronted house, is the town house of the Bishops of Ely, built in 1772, and granted by Government in exchange for Ely Place.

No. 34, the Bath Club, opened 1895, contains swimming and other baths for both sexes, gymnasium, etc. It has also an entrance in Berkeley Street.

No. 36 was the Hogarth Club for gentlemen associated with the arts, founded as the Artists' Club at the Turk's Head, Gerrard Street; removed here from Henrietta Street, Cavendish Square, in 1888.

Other inhabitants: John Evelyn, 1699-1706; Marquis of Wharton; Harley, Earl of Oxford; Dr. Arbuthnot, 1714-21; Pope, 1729; Bolingbroke, 1730; Sir William Wyndham, 1731; Archdeacon Coxe, b. 1741; No. 23, Lady Byron, 1841; 29, John Nash, Architect; 35, Samuel Whitbread, M.P., d. 1815; 33, Earl of Mexborough, 1895.

The steep descent of Hay Hill was so called from a farm in the neighbourhood, which, perhaps, took its name from Tyburn (the "Ayburn," the "Eia Burn"), which flowed at the foot. Here in 1554 Sir Thomas Wyatt's head was exposed, and three of his companions hung in chains. In 1617 Hay Hill was granted to Hector Johnstone for services to the Elector Palatine. By Queen Anne it was granted to the Speaker of the House of Commons, who sold it for £200 and gave the proceeds to the poor. It afterwards came into the hands of the Pomfret family, and was sold prior to 1759 for £20,300.

Berkeley Square was built about 1698 on the site of the gardens of Berkeley House, the residence of Sir John Berkeley, afterwards Lord Berkeley, of Stratton, to whose descendant, Earl Fitzhardinge, the property still belongs. It slopes somewhat steeply to the south, and has a well-wooded garden in the centre, planted about the end of the eighteenth century. The[Pg 35] equestrian statue of George III., by Beaupré and Wilton, erected by Princess Amelia in 1766, was removed in 1827, and the pedestal is vacant, but a drinking-fountain, the gift of the Marquis of Lansdowne, stands at the south end. In 1805 the north side was occupied by small tradesmen's shops, which have been replaced; but some of the other houses are old, and still have the iron link extinguishers before the door, which may be seen at many houses in this district. No. 25 is Thomas's Hotel, which dates from 1809. Charles James Fox lived here in 1803. No. 40 is noteworthy for the style of its architecture, but the finest house in the Square is Lansdowne House (Marquis of Lansdowne), standing in its own garden on the south side. It was built by Robert Adam for the Earl of Bute in 1765, and sold while still unfinished to the Earl of Shelburne, afterwards Marquis of Lansdowne, for £22,500. It contains a sculpture gallery commenced in 1778, with a collection of statuary by Gavin Hamilton. The pictures were collected by the third Marquis (1807-50), and comprise specimens by Raphael, Murillo, Velasquez, Hogarth, Reynolds, Landseer, and others. The library was added in 1790. Priestley was librarian when, in 1774, he discovered oxygen.

No. 44, designed by Kent for Lady Isabella Finch, has a fine staircase and drawing-room.

Other inhabitants: Corner of Bruton Street,[Pg 36] No. 20, Colley Cibber, 1753; 45, the residence of the Earl of Powis, has a name-plate on the door (here, in 1774, Lord Clive committed suicide); 10, Lord Clyde, 1863; 11, Horace Walpole, 1774-97, Lady Waldegrave, 1800; 6, second Earl of Chatham; 13, Marquis of Hertford, Earl of Carnarvon; 17, Lord Rowton; 18, Sir S. B. Bancroft, actor; 21, Lady Anne Barnard, authoress of "Auld Robin Gray," d. 1825; Lord Brougham and Vaux, 1842; 28, Earl Grey, Lord Brougham, 1830-34, Sidney Smirke, R.A., architect, 1842; 38, here, in 1804, the Earl of Jersey married Lady Sophia Fane, daughter of the Earl of Westmoreland, d. 1867, Lord Londesborough, 1891. It has now been rebuilt in red brick by Lord Rosebery; 48, Lord Brougham, 1849; 52, Field-marshal Lord Strathnairn, d. 1894.

Berkeley Street was built on the grounds of Berkeley House in 1684 by Lady Berkeley, under the direction of John Evelyn. It skirts the garden wall of Devonshire House, and is now chiefly occupied by stabling.

Here lived: Richard Cosway, R.A., 1770-80; No. 4, Shackleton, painter; 9, Pope's Martha Blount, 1731-63; General Bulkeley, d. 1815; Mrs. Howard, mistress of Louis Napoleon.

Bruton Street, built circa 1727, was named after Lord Berkeley's Dorsetshire estate. It contains[Pg 37] large private houses, the most noticeable being No. 17, now Lord Stratheden and Campbell. At No. 22 (now Earl Bathurst) was the Pioneer Club for ladies.

Other inhabitants: The Duke of Argyle, d. 1743; Horace Walpole, 1749; William Pitt, 1760; General Lawrence, d. 1775; R. Brinsley Sheridan, 1786; Mrs. Jamieson, 1851-54; General Sir G. Macdonald, d. 1850; 15, Right Hon. Lord Hobhouse, P.C.; 16, Lord Granville, d. 1846; Lord Chancellor Cottenham, 1847; 23, Sir W. H. Humphery, Bart.; 23a, Marquis of Granby, M.P., 1895; 24, George Canning, 1809; Countess of Longford; 26, Sir Matthew Tierney, physician, 1841; 33, William Owen, R.A., d. 1825; 36, Earl of Orford.

The district west of Berkeley Square, bounded by Piccadilly and Park Lane, has already been mentioned; though the streets are narrow and cramped, and many of the houses small, it has always been a fashionable locality.

In Hill Street (1743) lived: Lord Lyttelton, 1755-73; Admiral Byng, 1756; Smollett's Lady Vane, d. 1788; Mrs. Montagu, 1795; Lord Chief Justice Camden, d. 1794; Earl of Carlisle, b. 1802; Sir J. F. Leicester, 1829; No. 5, Mr. Henry Brougham (Lord Brougham), 1824, Lord Londesborough, 1835; 6 (a new house), Marquis of Tweeddale, 1895; 9, Admiral Sir Philip Durham,[Pg 38] 1841; 8, The Mackintosh of Mackintosh; 20, Lord Barrymore; 21, William Grant, Earl of Malmesbury, d. 1820, Countess Darnley; 26, Lord Revelstoke; 27, Countess of Roden, 1895; 30, Lord Westbury; 33, Lord Hindlip; 34, Sir Charles G. Earle-Welby, Bart.; 41, Sir Evelyn Ruggles-Brise, Bart.

In Farm Street (circa 1750), named from a neighbouring farm, and now a mews, is the Jesuit Church of the Immaculate Conception, a handsome and lofty Gothic structure in Decorated style, designed by Scoles, and built in 1849. The front is a miniature reproduction of the cathedral at Beauvais. The high altar, designed by Pugin, was a gift by Miss Tempest, and cost £1,000. The church is lit by a clerestory.

In South Street (circa 1737), up to 1845, stood a Roman Catholic chapel, attached to the Portuguese Embassy. Here is a school endowed by General Stewart in 1726, and carried on in conjunction with the Hanover Branch Schools.

Inhabitants: No. 10, Miss Florence Nightingale, 1895; 22, Beau Brummell; 33, Lord Holland; 36, Mlle. d'Este, daughter of the Duke of Sussex, 1835; 39, Lord Melbourne, 1837.

Aldford Street (circa 1734) was named Chapel Street (from Grosvenor Chapel) until 1886. Part of the north side has been lately pulled down, and[Pg 39] with it No. 13, where Beau Brummell lived in 1816 and Sir Thomas Rivers Wilson in 1841.

Deanery Street was built circa 1737, and was first called Dean and Chapel Street, from the Chapter of Westminster, the ground landlords. In Tilney Street (circa 1750) lived Soame Jenyns, d. 1787; No. 2, Viscount Esher; 5, Lord Brampton; 6, Mrs. Fitzherbert, wife of George IV.

Great Stanhope Street, built circa 1750 by Lord Chesterfield, is broad, and contained fifteen spacious houses, of which No. 7 was demolished to build a mansion in Park Lane for a millionaire.

Inhabitants: No. 1, Lord Southampton, 1796, Duke of Bedford, 1810, Earl Bathurst, 1822, Duke of Manchester, 1890; No. 1, Viscount Clifden; 4, Earl of Mansfield, 1823, Marquis of Exeter, 1829, Lord Brougham, 1834; 5, Lord Raglan, 1853; 6, Lord Reay; 9, Lord Palmerston, 1814-1843; 10, Bamber Gascoyne, grandfather of the present Marquis of Salisbury; 12, Colonel Barré, d. 1802; Sir Robert Peel, 1820-25; 15, Viscount Hardinge, d. 1856.

Waverton Street was renamed in 1886, instead of Union Street, built circa 1750. Charles Street is so called after Charles, Earl of Falmouth, brother of Lord Berkeley. At the corner of Hayes Street[Pg 40] a public-house bears the sign of a running footman in the dress of the last century, with the inscription, "I am the only running footman."

Inhabitants of Charles Street: No. 22, H.R.H. the Duke of Clarence (William IV.); Admiral Sir G. Osborn, d. 1792; Sir G. Bulwer Lytton; the Earl of Ellenborough, Viceroy of India; J. H. Scott, of Abbotsford; Thomas Baring, M.P.; Lady Grenville, widow of the Premier, 1806-07; 33, Admiral Sherard Osborn, 1795; Lady Margaret Fitzgerald, d. 1815; Sydney Smith, 1835; 37, Earl of Dartmouth; 39, Earl of Camperdown; 40, Earl of Cork and Orrery; 48, Lord Burghclere; 49, Lord Romilly.

In John Street (circa 1730) is Berkeley Chapel, the property of Lord Fitzhardinge, which dates from about 1750. It is a plain building both within and without. The interior was redecorated in 1874, and the east end and chancel in 1895, when a window was put up to the memory of the late Duke of Clarence. Sydney Smith and Rev. H. F. Cary (1812) are the best known among the incumbents.

In Queen Street (circa 1753) lived: No. 13, Dr. Merriman, 1796-1810; 20, Thomas Duncombe, M.P., 1824; 22, Sir Robert Adair, d. 1855; 21, Duke of Hamilton, d. 1895; 25, R. Brinsley Sheridan, 1810.

In Chesterfield Street lived George Selwyn,[Pg 41] 1776; No. 3, Sir Ian Hamilton; 4, Beau Brummell till 1810; 1, Sir W. H. Bennett.

Chesterfield Gardens contain fine red-brick houses built by Mr. Magniac on the site of the gardens of Chesterfield House.

Some fine houses with an outlet by steps to Pitt's Head Mews form Seamore Place (circa 1761).

Inhabitants: No. 8, Lady Blessington, 1832-36; 1, Alfred de Rothschild; 2, Lord Blythswood; 7, Sir James Lyle Mackay; 9, Hon. A. de Tatton Egerton.

Curzon Street was named after Curzon, Earl Howe, d. 1758, to whose family the property still belongs. It was known before that time as Mayfair Row.

On the south side is Curzon or Mayfair Chapel, an ugly building, first erected in 1730, but since rebuilt. The Rev. Alex Keith was the first incumbent. Here he performed marriages without banns or license until his excommunication in 1742. He then established a chapel close by, where clandestine marriages were continued until the Marriage Act put an end to them in 1754. The most celebrated of these were: the Duke of Chandos and Mrs. Anne Jeffrey, 1744; Lord Strange and Mrs. Lucy Smith, 1746; Lord Kensington and Rachel Hill, 1749; Sewellis Shirley[Pg 42] and Margaret Rolle, widow of the second Earl of Oxford, 1751; Duke of Hamilton and Miss Gunning, 1752; Lord George Bentinck and Mary Davies, 1753.

Opposite the chapel is Wharncliffe House, a plain building with courtyard and garden. Here lived in 1708 Edward Shepherd, the builder of Shepherd's Market. It was sold for £500 in 1750 to Lord Carhampton, who rebuilt it. From 1776-92 it was occupied by Lady Fane, and by Lady Reade from 1793 to 1813. In 1818 it was bought by Mr. J. Stuart Wortley, M.P., for £12,000, and is now in possession of the Earl of Wharncliffe.

Other inhabitants: No. 1 (pulled down in 1849), Madame Vestris; 8, the Misses Berry, d. 1852; Baron Bunsen, 1841; 14, Richard Stonehewer, 1782, Earl of Crewe; 16, Sir Henry Halford, d. 1844; 19, Earl of Beaconsfield, d. 1882; 20, Viscount Curzon; 21, Earl Howe; 24, Sir Francis Chantrey when a young man; 30, Lord Macartney, d. 1806; 37, Sir C. M. Palmer, Bart.; 41, Prince Soltykoff; 64, Earl Percy.

Inhabitants: Martha Blount, 1731-37; Horace Walpole, 1748; Angelo, the fencing master, 1800.

A passage leads between the gardens of Lansdowne and Downshire Houses to Berkeley Street.[Pg 43] The bars at each entrance were set up after the escape of a highwayman, who galloped through.

Bolton Street was built in 1699, and was then the western limit of London. Here lived: Earl of Peterborough, 1710-24; George Grenville, d. 1770; Madame d'Arblay, 1818; Lord Melbourne; Hon. Mrs. Norton, 1841.

Clarges Street was built 1716-18 on the site of Clarges House, the residence of Sir Walter Clarges, nephew of Anne Clarges, wife of Monk, Duke of Albemarle. Hatton in 1708 described it as a stately new building, inhabited by the Venetian Ambassador.

Here lived: Admiral Earl St. Vincent, 1717; Earl Ferrers, 1717; Lord Archibald Hamilton, 1717; Lord Forester, 1717; Sir John Cope, 1746; Miss O'Neil, actress; Mrs. Delany, 1742-44; Mrs. Vesey, 1780; No. 2, W. T. Brandes, chemist, 1822-23; 3, Macaulay, 1838-40; 9, Daniel O'Connell, 1835; 10, Sir Nicholas Wraxall, 1792; 11, Lady Hamilton, 1804-06, Countess Stanhope, 1807-29; 12, Edmund Kean, 1816-24; 14, William Mitford, 1810-22; 43, Charles James Fox, 1803; 47, at the corner of Piccadilly, a dull, ugly building, was formerly the residence of the Dukes of Grafton. In 1876 the Turf Club, established 1866, moved here from Grafton Street.[Pg 44] Formerly the Arlington Club, it is now a great whist centre, and one of the most select clubs in London.

Half-Moon Street, so called from a public-house at the corner of Piccadilly, was built in 1730.

Here lived: Boswell, 1768; Shelley, 1813; No. 5, Mrs. Pope, actress, d. 1797; 26, Dr. Merriman; 27, Lola Montes, 1849; 29, John Galt, 1830; 40, William Hazlitt, 1827-29; 45, the widow of Charles James Fox, 1809.

On either side of Mayfair Chapel are East and West Chapel Streets, built circa 1785. In the latter, at No. 7, lived Chantrey in 1804. They lead to Shepherd's Market, a congeries of small streets, which occupy the site of Brook Field, so called from Tyburn, which flowed through it. Here was held the May Fair, from which the district derives its name. First held in 1688, it lasted with many vicissitudes till the reign of George III., when the Earl of Coventry, d. 1809, procured its abolition. The ground in 1722 was an irregular open space, but in 1735 Shepherd's Market was built by Edward Shepherd, the lower story consisting of butchers' shops, and the upper containing a theatre where plays were given during the fair time. The block was built in 1860, and now consists of small provision shops.

Whitehorse Street, built about 1738, is so called[Pg 45] from a public-house. In Carrington Street (1738) was the residence of Kitty Fisher and of Samuel Carte, the antiquary. Here also was the Dog and Duck tavern, behind which was a pond 200 feet square, where the sport of duck-hunting was pursued in the eighteenth century. The site is now marked by Ducking Pond Mews. In Carrington Mews are the Curzon Schools in connection with Christ Church, Down Street; they were built about 1826, and provide tuition for 85 boys, 90 girls, and 110 infants. In Derby Street, No. 5 is the parish mission-house, used also for parochial meetings. Little Stanhope Street was built about 1761, and leads to Hertford Street (1764), now chiefly inhabited by doctors.

Here lived: Lord Charlemont, 1766; Lord Goderich, 1782; Earl of Mornington, 1788-97; No. 10, General Burgoyne, d. 1792; R. Brinsley Sheridan, 1796-1800; Mr. Dent, d. 1819; 11, Earl of Sandwich, d. 1792; 12, George Tierney, 1796-99; 14, Earl Grey, 1799, Sir W. Jenner; 23, Robert Dundas, 1810, Charles Bathurst, 1822; 26, Earl of Liverpool, d. 1818; 36, Lord Langdale, 1829, Lord Lytton, 1831-34; 37, Granville Penn, 1822-24.

In this street also the Duke of Cumberland, brother of George III., married Miss Horton, the actress. On the site of Down Street (1730) stood Mr. Deane's school, where Pope was educated.[Pg 46] The north end was called Carrington Place (1774) until 1867. On the west side is Christ Church, a building of great beauty erected in 1863, with a one-sided transept. The east window was presented by the Hope family. The street has been lately rebuilt with red-brick flats and chambers.

Inhabitants: William Hazlitt, 1823-27; No. 8, Rev. H. F. Cary, translator of Dante; 22, Sir W. G. Nicholson.

Brick Street at its southern end was until 1878 called Engine Street, from a water-wheel by the Tyburn, which here crossed Piccadilly.

Piccadilly enters our district at the end of Bond Street, and forms its boundary as far as Hyde Park Corner. The origin of the name is obscure; the street is first so called in Gerard's "Herbal," 1633, but as early as 1623 (and up to 1685) a gaming-house named Piccadilly Hall stood near Coventry Street. In 1617, and for some years afterwards, the name "Piccadill" was given to a fashionable collar, according to Gifford, derived from picca, a spearhead, owing to the spiky nature of the folds. Hence it may have been applied as a nickname to the hall and street, but there are numerous other conjectural derivations. The name was originally given to the part extending from the Haymarket to Sackville Street. From that point to Brick Street was styled Portugal Row, from Catharine of Braganza, wife of[Pg 47] Charles II. The stone bridge over Tyburn gave its name to the short distance between Brick Street and Down Street; west of that was Hyde Park Road. As the houses were built the name Piccadilly spread westwards, until, soon after 1770, the whole street was so called. From the Park to Berkeley Street was also popularly known as Hyde Park Corner, now confined to the actual vicinity of the Park. In the sixteenth century Piccadilly was a lonely country road known as the "Way to Redinge." In 1700 the western portion was occupied by statuary yards, which soon after 1757 gave way to houses. The remainder contains many large private houses, and in recent years has been further changed by the erection of numerous handsome club-houses. In 1844 it was widened between Bolton Street and Park Lane by taking in a strip of the Green Park with a row of trees, near the entrance to Constitution Hill, and throwing it into the roadway; and again in 1902 by cutting off a part of the Park. The following are the principal buildings:

At the corner of Albemarle Street the Albemarle Hotel. Hatchett's restaurant, formerly called the New White Horse Cellar. After the resuscitation of stage-coaching in 1886, Hatchett's was a favourite starting-place, but is now little patronized. The new White Horse Cellar was named after the White Horse Cellar (No. 55) on[Pg 48] the south side, so called from the crest of the House of Hanover, which existed in 1720, and was widely renowned as a coaching centre. It is now closed.

Adjoining Hatchett's is the Hotel Avondale, named after the Duke of Clarence and Avondale. The house was opened as a dining club, the "Cercle de Luxe," in 1892, after the failure of which it was reopened as an hotel in 1895.

No. 75 is the site of the Three Kings' Inn, where stood up to 1864 two pillars taken from Clarendon House.

At the corner of Berkeley Street is the Berkeley Hotel and Restaurant, formerly the St. James's Hotel, which stands on the site of the Gloucester coffee-house.

Opposite, at the corner of the Green Park, is Walsingham House, an enormous block built by Lord Walsingham in 1887, and on which he is said to have spent £300,000. It has been used as an hotel, and is shortly to be pulled down and rebuilt. Part of it was occupied by the Isthmian Club, established in 1882 for gentlemen interested in cricket, rowing, and other sports, which removed here from Grafton Street in 1887.

Opposite Berkeley Street stood the toll-gate, removed to Hyde Park Corner in 1725. No. 78, adjoining it, is Devonshire House, the residence of the Dukes of Devonshire, which stands in a court[Pg 49]yard concealed from the street by a high brick wall, in which are handsome iron gates. It is an unpretending brick building built by Kent in 1735, with a large garden at the back. The interior is handsome, and contains a gallery of pictures by old masters, a large collection of prints, and the famous Devonshire collection of gems. On this site stood Berkeley House, built about 1655 by Sir John Berkeley on a property called Hay Hill Farm, the grounds then covering the present Lansdowne House and Berkeley Square, as well as Berkeley and Stratton Street. It came into the possession of the Cavendish family before 1697, but was destroyed by fire in 1733. Queen Anne, when Princess of Denmark, lived here from 1692 to 1695. Stratton Street, a cul-de-sac, was built about 1693 by Lady Stratton. At No. 1 lived Mrs. Coutts (Miss Mellon), afterwards Duchess of St. Albans, d. 1837. It now belongs to her heir, the Baroness Burdett-Coutts.

Other inhabitants: Lord Willoughby, of Brook, 1698; Hon. George Berkeley, 1735; No. 2, Thomas Campbell, 1802; 7, William Gifford, 1797, Right Hon. Arnold Morley; 11, Roger Wilbraham, 1822-29, Lord Welby; 12, General Lord Lynedoch, d. 1803; 17, Earl of Clonmell.

At No. 80, Piccadilly, Sir Francis Burdett was arrested for treason in 1810, when he was imprisoned in the Tower. He was succeeded by the[Pg 50] Duke of St. Albans. In 1849 Lady Guilford occupied the house.

At No. 81 in 1807 was established Watier's Gambling Club, which lasted until 1819; it was named after the Prince Regent's cook, the manager. It afterwards became a public gaming-house, and is now a private residence.

No. 82, Bath House, at the corner of Bolton Street, was built for Pulteney, Earl of Bath, who died 1764. The gardens then extended nearly to Curzon Street. It was rebuilt in 1821 for Lord Ashburton.

At No. 94, Cambridge House (Naval and Military Club), standing in a courtyard, occupies the site of Carpenter's Statue Yard, which was succeeded by an inn. It was built in 1760 for the Earl of Egremont. The Marquis of Cholmondeley lived here 1809-29, after which the Duke of Cambridge was the owner until 1850. Lord Palmerston occupied it from 1855 till his death in 1865, when it was purchased by the Naval and Military Club, established 1862, for officers of the army and navy, who made extensive alterations in 1878. This was the first club located in Piccadilly.

No. 97, at the corner of Whitehorse Street, is a square white building; the New Travellers' Club[Pg 51] (social and non-political) was established here. It now houses the Junior Naval and Military Club.

No. 100 is the Badminton Club (proprietary), built on the site of a mews, and established in 1876 for gentlemen interested in coaching and field sports. Next door is the palatial house of the Junior Constitutional Club for members professing Conservative principles. On the site stood the town house of the Earls of Mexborough.

No. 105, on the site of Jan Van Nost's figure-yard, the Earl of Barrymore built a house in 1870, which remained unfinished at his death. After being partially burned down, it was completed and opened as the Old Pulteney Hotel. Here the Emperor of Russia and his sister, the Grand Duchess of Oldenburg, stayed in 1814. In 1823 the house came into the possession of the Marquis of Hertford, who partially rebuilt it in 1861. His son, Sir Richard Wallace, sold it to Sir Julian Goldsmid, M.P., who died 1896. It is now the Isthmian Club. Near here stood the Queen's Meadhouse.

No. 106, at the corner of Brick Street, stands on the site of the Greyhound Inn, which was purchased by Sir Henry Hunlocke in 1761. He was succeeded in 1764 by the Earl of Coventry, who built the present house, which became in 1829 the Coventry House Club. In 1854 it[Pg 52] became the home of the St. James's Club, established in that year as a centre for the members of the British and foreign diplomatic bodies. Next door is the Savile Club, until 1836 the residence of Nathan Meyer Rothschild, the head of the banking firm.

No. 116, Hope House, at the corner of Down Street, a handsome structure, was built by Mr. Hope in 1849 at a cost of £30,600, and was sold by his widow to the members of the Junior Athenæum Club (social and non-political), established in 1866, which is now located there. The house was enlarged in 1887.

Two handsome houses, Nos. 127 and 128, were built about 1887. The first is the Cavalry Club, established in 1890 for officers of the cavalry and Yeomanry, and the second the Hyde Park Club.

No. 137, Gloucester House, stands on the site of Dickinson's Statue Yard. It belonged to the Earl of Elgin in 1808, from whom it was purchased in 1811 by the Duke of Gloucester on his marriage with Princess Mary. He was succeeded by the present owner, the Duke of Cambridge.

Other inhabitants of Piccadilly were: No. 96 (No. 15 Piccadilly west), Mr. Dumergue, with whom Sir Walter Scott resided in 1800; 99 (then 23), Sir William Hamilton, d. 1803; next[Pg 53] door, Sir Thomas Lawrence; 114, Lord Palmerston, before 1855; 133, Kitty Frederick, mistress of the Duke of Queensberry, who built the house 1779; 139 (13, Piccadilly Terrace), Lord Byron, 1815; 138 and 139, the Duke of Queensberry, 1778-1810.

Hamilton Place is a short but broad street, lined on the west with large and fashionable houses. The ground, then part of Hyde Park, was granted to Hamilton, Ranger of Hyde Park, 1660-84, who built a street of small houses, named Hamilton Street, a cul-de-sac. This was replaced in 1809 by a street built by the Adams. In 1871, to relieve the congestion of the traffic, the roadway was carried through the Park Lane.

Inhabitants: No. 1, Lord Montgomery, 1810 (Lord Chancellor Eldon built the present house); 2, Duke of Bedford, 1810-19, Earl Gower (Duke of Sutherland), Right Hon. Thomas Grenville, 1840-46, Duke of Argyle, 1847-51; 3, Earl of Cork, 1810-50, Earl of Dalkeith, 1870; 4, Earl of Lucan, 1810, Duke of Wellington, 1814, Lord Grenville, 1822, Messrs. Labouchere, 1823-29, Henry Bevan, 1840-48, Earl of Northbrook, 1895; 5, Earl of Buckinghamshire, 1810-25, Marquis of Conyngham, 1870, Baron Leopold de Rothschild, 1895; 6, Right Hon. John Sullivan, 1810, Earl of Belmore, Lord Montagu, 1829, Earl of Home, 1843, Lord Southampton, 1847, W. Munro, 1848,[Pg 54] Hon. B. J. Munro, 1870; 7, Earl of Shannon, 1810-22, William Miles, M.P., 1840-50. Nos. 7 and 8 are now the premises of the Bachelors' Club, established 1881, one of the most fashionable young men's clubs in London.

The space between Hamilton Place and Apsley House is now occupied by six large houses.

It was up to the middle of last century a row of mean buildings, many of them public-houses. Next to Apsley House stood, up to 1797, a noted inn, the Pillars of Hercules. In 1787 M. de Calonne built a mansion on the site now occupied by Nos. 146 and 147.

Inhabitants: No. 142, Miss Alice de Rothschild, heiress of the late Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild; 145 was formerly Northampton House; 148, Nathaniel Meyer, first Baron Rothschild, G.C.V.O., P.C.

Apsley House was built in 1778 by Lord Chancellor Apsley, Earl Bathurst, to whom the site was granted by George III. The ground was formerly occupied by the old Ranger's Lodge, and adjoining it was a tenement granted by George II. to Allen, a veteran of Dettingen, for a permanent apple-stall. In 1808 the house came into the possession of the Marquis Wellesley, and in 1816 into that of his brother, the Duke of Wellington, and it is now held by the fourth Duke.[Pg 55]

It was faced with stone, and enlarged by the Wyatts in 1828, and in 1830 the Crown sold its interest in the building for £9,530. Further alterations were made in 1853. In the west gallery was held annually the Waterloo Banquet during the great Duke's life, and his study is still preserved intact. The house contains a good collection of pictures and many relics of the Napoleonic era.

Hyde Park Corner was the entrance to London until 1825, when the turnpike was removed. Cottages existed here in 1655. It is now an open triangular space, much enlarged when a portion of Green Park was thrown into the roadway in 1888. In the centre, about 1828, was erected a triumphal arch, an imitation of the arch of Titus at Rome. This, in 1846, was surmounted by a colossal equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington by Matthew Wyatt, which, in 1888, was removed to Aldershot, and the arch shifted to the top of Constitution Hill. The vacant space is now occupied by an equestrian statue of Wellington by Boehm.

In 1642 one of the forts for the defence of London against the Royalists was erected on the ground opposite the present Apsley House.

The prolongation of Piccadilly to the westward is known generally as Knightsbridge, as far as the stone bridge which spanned the Westbourne at[Pg 56] the present Albert Gate. Edward the Confessor granted the land to the Abbey of Westminster, and it was disafforested in 1218. After the Reformation Knightsbridge was preserved to the Abbey, and still belongs to the Dean and Chapter of Westminster. In 1725 the name was applied to the fields as far south as the King's Road (Eaton Square), but after the building of Belgravia it was restricted to the street fronting Hyde Park. Facing Hyde Park Corner is St. George's Hospital, established in 1733; the residence of the Earls of Lanesborough previously occupied the site. The present building was erected from designs by William Wilkins, R.A., in 1828, and enlarged in 1831, 1859, and 1868. In the latter year the south-west wing was added. The question of the removal of the hospital is exciting much attention at present. In connection with the hospital is Atkinson Morley's Convalescent Hospital at Wimbledon. The following celebrated doctors have been attached to this hospital: Matthew Baillie, 1787-1800; John Hunter, 1768-93; Sir Benjamin Brodie, 1808-40; Sir Prescott Hewett, 1848-91.

Facing Hyde Park a row of well-built private houses now forms St. George's Place (1839), which, until lately, consisted of low brick buildings. One of these is now being pulled down to[Pg 57] make way for the station of the new Piccadilly and Brompton Electric Railway. Close by is the Alexandra Hotel, built soon after the marriage of the present Queen, after whom it was named. Behind is Old Barrack Yard, which adjoined the old Guards Barracks, established about 1758. After being discontinued for troops, it was used as a depot until 1836, when the lease was sold and the building let out as tenements. The site is now occupied by St. Paul's Schools in Wilton Place. The houses beyond Wilton Place are being rebuilt further back to widen the roadway, which has hitherto been very narrow, and which during the afternoon in the season is often blocked by the traffic.

Park Side, the north side of Knightsbridge, is freehold of the Dean and Chapter, and rented by the descendants of Mr. Gamble of Trinity Chapel. Shops were erected here about 1810. At the east end stood the stocks in 1805, and in 1835, close by, a watch-house and pound. The Queen's Head, an old inn dating from 1576, was pulled down in 1843. Trinity Chapel belonged to an ancient lazar-house or hospital, held by the family of Glassington under the Abbey of Westminster in 1595. The chapel was rebuilt in 1629 and 1699, and repaired in 1789. It was entirely[Pg 58] restored and remodelled in 1861 at a cost of £3,300. A charity school, instituted about 1785, adjoined it until 1844, when it was removed and attached to St. Paul's. In Knightsbridge Chapel marriages were performed without banns or license in a manner similar to those at Mayfair Chapel. The most celebrated of these are: Sir Robert Walpole to Katherine Shorter, 1700; Henry Graham to the Countess of Derwentwater, daughter of Charles II., 1705.

West of the chapel on the site of the hospital stood the Cannon Brewery, erected in 1804, and demolished in 1841 to make Albert Gate. The French Embassy, east of the gate, was built by Cubitt in 1852 for Hudson, the Railway King, and has lately been enlarged. The stone bridge was removed, and the stream arched over in 1841.

In 1765 George II. attempted to buy the fields adjoining Buckingham Palace to the west, but as Granville refused to sanction the expenditure of £20,000 for the purpose, the property was bought by Lord Grosvenor for £30,000, and Grosvenor Place was built in 1767-70, overlooking the Palace gardens. It has always been a fashionable place of residence. The houses below St. George's Hospital were formerly small and plain. The best-known inhabitants were: No. 1, Dr. Lewes' School of Anatomy and Medicine; 4, Lord[Pg 59] Egremont (the third); north corner of Halkin Street, the Earl of Carlisle, Byron's guardian.

These houses were replaced in 1873-76 by five palatial stone houses built for the Duke of Grafton, Duke of Northumberland, Sir Anthony Rothschild, and Earl Stanhope.

They are occupied now by: No. 1, the Wellington Club (proprietary), social and non-political; 2, Duke of Northumberland; 4 and 5, Lord Iveagh.

At the south corner of Chapel Street stood the Lock Hospital, established in 1747, attached to which was a chapel, built 1764, and an asylum for penitent females, founded by the Rev. Thomas Scott in 1787. The chapel was celebrated for its preachers, which included Martin Madan, Thomas Scott, C. E. de Cöetlogon, Dr. Dodd, Rowland Hill, etc. The buildings, of red brick, and very plain, were pulled down in 1846, and the institution removed to Harrow Road. On the site were built Grosvenor Place Houses, renamed 18, 19, 20, Grosvenor Place in 1875. At No. 20 now lives Earl Stanhope.

In Grosvenor Row, at the south end of Grosvenor Place, stood a court named Osnaburgh Row (1769), after the Duke of York, who was also Bishop of Osnaburgh. It was cleared away about 1843. Near it stood the Duke's Hospital for Invalid Guards, closed in 1846 and re[Pg 60]moved 1851. Adjoining it was an old inn, the Feathers.

Other inhabitants: No. 6, Sir H. Campbell Bannerman; 15, Duke of Atholl, 1773; 44, Hanoverian Embassy, 1859 (the King of Hanover stayed here in 1853); 24, Bishop of Worcester, 1859; 46, Sir James Graham, 1868; 19, Sir Anthony Rothschild, 1859; 20, Earl Stanhope; 31, Earl Cathcart.

The district bounded by Knightsbridge and Grosvenor Place, as far as Sloane Street and Ebury Street, is known as Belgravia, after Belgrave Square, which occupies the centre. Up to 1825 it was named the Five Fields, and was bare, swampy ground on which were a few market gardens. Only one road, the King's Road (Eaton Square), crossed it, though there were numerous footpaths, rendered insecure by the highwaymen and footpads who infested them. It was also a favourite duelling-ground. In 1826 a special Act of Parliament empowered the owner, Lord Grosvenor, to drain the site, raise the level, etc., and in the course of the next few years Messrs. Cubitt and Seth Smith built the streets and squares which now rank as a fashionable centre with the neighbourhood of Grosvenor Square. The houses are mainly uniform in type—square, substantial, plaster-fronted structures, which give an aspect of monotony to the whole district.[Pg 61]

Belgrave Square, 10 acres in extent, is 684 feet long by 637 feet wide, and was designed by Basevi and built by Cubitt in 1825-28. The detached houses in the corners are by Philip Hardwick, R.A., and H. E. Kendall (west side). An enclosed garden occupies the centre.

Inhabitants: No. 5, General Sir George Murray, d. 1846, Earl of Shaftesbury, d. 1886; 15, Duke of Bedford; 16, Sir Roderick Murchison, geologist, d. 1871; 12 (western corner house), the late Earl Brownlow, Earl of Ancaster; 18, Austro-Hungarian Embassy; 23, Viscountess Hambledon, widow of Right Hon. W. H. Smith; 32, Admiral Earl of Clanwilliam.

The south corner house was built for Mr. Kemp of Kemptown. No. 24 General Lord Hill occupied in 1837. After his death, Lord Ducie occupied it till 1853; 36, H.R.H. Duchess of Kent, 1840; 37, Earl of Sefton, 1896; 45, Duchess of Montrose, d. 1895; 48, Viscount Combermere, d. 1891; 49 was built in 1850 for Mr. Sidney Herbert, Duke of Richmond and Gordon; Earl of March.

The principal approach to Belgrave Square is by Grosvenor Crescent, a broad and handsome street commenced in 1837, but not completed until about 1860. Where is now the south-west wing of St. George's Hospital stood Tattersall's famous auction mart for horses, etc., and betting-[Pg 62]rooms. The establishment was started by Richard Tattersall, trainer to the last Duke of Kingston, about 1774, and was long popularly known as "the Corner." It was pulled down in 1866, and removed to Knightsbridge Green.

Inhabitants: No. 5, Lord Ashbourne; 8, Right Hon. Sir George Trevelyan, Bart., M.P.; 11, Duke of Leeds; 14, C. Bulkeley Barrington, M.P.; 15, Grosvenor Crescent Club for Ladies. Behind the north-west side of the Square is Wilton Crescent, with a garden in the centre, and Wilton Place, both built by Seth Smith between 1824 and 1828.

Inhabitants, Wilton Crescent: No. 16, Right Hon. James Lowther, M.P.; 24, Henry Hallam, d. 1859; 20, Sir George Wombwell, Bart.; 26, Lord Lamington; 28, Lord De Ros; 30, Lord John Russell; 37, Lord Chewton, who was killed at the Battle of the Alma; 39, Rev. W. J. Bennett, 1850.

Wilton Place stands on the site of a cow-yard, and is a broad street with fine houses on the east side. Here is St. Paul's Church, celebrated for the ritualistic tendencies of its successive vicars. It was built in 1843 by subscription on the drill ground of the old barracks, and cost £11,000, the site being given by the Marquis of Westminster. The building by Cundy is handsome, in Early Perpendicular style, and has sittings for 1,800.[Pg 63] It was enlarged and altered in 1889 and 1892, when a side-chapel, by Blomfield, was added. Adjoining is the Vicarage, and opposite are St. Paul's National Schools.

Here lived: No. 4, Miss Reynolds, actress; 13, Hon. Thomas Stapleton, antiquary; 15, Sir James Macdonald, the defender of Hougoumont, d. 1857; 21, Mr. Westmacott.

In the adjoining Kinnerton Street (1826), so called from one of the Grosvenor estates, stood the dissecting school and anatomical museum of St. George's Hospital, removed to the new wing in 1868. At No. 75 is an institute for providing and promoting humane treatment of animals, founded by Lady Frances Trevanion circa 1890. It is supported by voluntary contributions.

Motcomb Street was built in 1828, and named after the property of the Dowager Marchioness of Westminster in Dorset.

On the north side is the Pantechnicon, built circa 1834 as a bazaar for the sale of carriages, furniture, etc.; it had also a wine and toy department. It was burnt down in 1874, but has been rebuilt, and is now used for storing furniture, etc.

West Halkin Street and Halkin Place on the west side, and Halkin Street on the east side of the Square, are named after Halkin Castle, the Duke of Westminster's seat in Flintshire. The[Pg 64] first contains a chapel of singular shape, the northern end being wider than the southern. It was built by Seth Smith as an Episcopal church, but is now Presbyterian.

Halkin Street was commenced about 1807, but until 1826 it, as well as the other streets leading out of Grosvenor Place, terminated in a mud-bank, on the other side of which were the Five Fields. On the north side is Mortimer House, a plain brick building standing in a courtyard. It was the residence of the late Earl Fitzwilliam, but is now Lord Penrhyn's. Next to it is Belgrave Chapel (St. John's), a proprietary church in Grecian style, built in 1812, with accommodation for 800. The remaining houses are small and unpretending, as are those in Chapel Street, built 1775-1811, and so called from the Lock Hospital Chapel, which stood at the corner of Grosvenor Place. Here lived Mr. Richard Jones (Gentleman Jones). No. 24, General Sir W. K. Grant, d. 1825.

On the other side of Belgrave Square, Chesham Place (1831) leads to a triangular space, with a small garden in the centre. Here lived: Madame Vestris, 1837; No. 37, Lord John Russell; 35, Sir Charles Wood, 1851; 29, the Russian Embassy.

The name is taken from the seat of the Lowndes family, the ground landlords. In Lowndes Street lived: No. 33, Colonel Gurwood, editor of[Pg 65] "Wellington's Despatches"; 40, Mrs. Gore, novelist.

The feature of Lyall Street (1841) is Chesham House, at the corner, in which is the Russian Embassy, noted under Chesham Place. On the other side of Lyall Street is Lowndes Place, built about 1835. Eaton Place is a dull but broad and fashionable street.

Inhabitants: General Caulfield; Sir Robert Gardiner, Sir H. Duncan, d. 1836; Sir Thomas Troubridge, d. 1852; No. 5, Mr. Heywood, 1859; 14, Sir George Grey, 1859; 15, Lord Kelvin; 18, Dr. Lushington, 1859; 26, Sir Erskine Perry, 1859; 38, Mr. Justice Wightman, 1859; 80, Kossuth, 1851; 84, Duke of Atholl; 87, Sir William Molesworth, d. 1853; 93, General Sir Archibald Alison, Bart.; and many others.

Off Eaton Place is West Eaton Place, where lived General Sir Peregrine Maitland, d. 1852.

Belgrave Place, so named in 1879 instead of Upper Eccleston Street; and Upper Belgrave Street, built circa 1827, have the same general characteristics.

Inhabitants: No. 2, Mrs. Gore; 3, Lord Charles Wellesley; 13, Earl of Munster, son of William IV., who shot himself in 1842. It is now Lord Harewood's residence.[Pg 66]

In Chester Street, commenced 1805, lived: No. 5, Right Hon. Sir Frederick Shaw, d. 1876; 7, Dr. Pettigrew, d. 1860; 12, Sir Douglas Galton, d. 1899; 13, Dr. Broughton, d. 1837; 27, Colonel Sibthorpe, d. 1855.

Wilton Street was begun in 1817. Here lived Mr. Spencer Perceval, son of the Minister.

Grosvenor Place, Lower Grosvenor Place, Hobart Place, Eaton Square, and Clieveden Place occupy the site of the King's private road, which had existed before as a footpath, but was made a coach-road by Charles II. as a short-cut to Hampton Court. It ran along the north garden of Eaton Square, and crossed the Westbourne at Bloody Bridge, a name which dates as far back as 1590. On the north side, where is now Eaton Terrace, was a coppice which provided wood for the Abbey. Houses were first built on it about 1785, and in 1725 a turnpike existed at its junction with Grosvenor Place. Admission to the road was by ticket, but in 1830 it was thrown open to the public under the name of the King's Road. Part of Lower Grosvenor Place, however, was named Arabella Row in 1789, but became known by its present name in 1789. Here in a shabby house lived Lord Erskine after resigning the Lord Chancellorship in 1806.

Hobart Place was first so called in 1836, but part of it was called Grosvenor Street West until[Pg 67] 1869. It leads to Eaton Square, built by Cubitt in 1827-53. This is 1,637 feet long by 371 feet wide, 15 acres in extent, and contains six enclosed gardens. The houses are of the usual type. At the west end is St. Peter's Church, built in 1826 in Ionic style from designs by Hakewell at a cost of £21,515. An altar-piece by Hilton, R.A., was presented by the British Institution in 1828, but was removed in 1877, and is now in the South Kensington Museum. After being nearly burnt down in 1837, it was rebuilt by Gerrard, and in 1872 a chancel and transepts in Byzantine style, by Sir A. Blomfield, were added. The nave was remodelled in 1874, and further alterations have been made in the last ten years at a cost of £5,000. Here are buried Admiral Sir E. Codrington, d. 1851, and General Lord Robert Somerset, G.C.B. The Right Rev. G. H. Wilkinson, Bishop of St. Andrew's, was vicar from 1870-83.

Inhabitants: No. 8, Sir R. T. Reid, K.C., M.P.; 16, Mr. Justice Willes, 1859; 43, Lord Cottesloe; 60, Lord Sandhurst; 66a, Lord Walsingham, F.R.S.; 71, in 1809 the official residence of the Speaker; 74, Cardwell, 1859; 75, Ralph Bernal, M.P., d. 1853, Mr. George Peabody, d. 1869, Viscount Knutsford; 76, Viscount Falkland; 83, Lord Chancellor Truro, d. 1855; Lord Aberdare; 85, Sir Edward Malet, G.C.B., P.C.; 92, Admiral Sir Edward Codrington, d. 1851; 110,[Pg 68] General Sir A. Codrington, 1859; 114, Lady Baden-Powell; 115, Earl of Ellenborough, 1859, Marquis of Hertford; Colonel Sibthorpe, d. 1855; Jacob Omnium (Mr. J. Higgins).

Clieveden Place, first built over in 1826, was so named in 1890 from the Duke of Westminster's late estate near Cookham, instead of its original name, Westbourne Place.

Between Clieveden Place and Pimlico Road the streets are narrow and unimportant. In Westbourne Street (1826), so called from the neighbouring Westbourne River, stood the York Hospital for invalid soldiers, removed to Chatham in 1819. On the east side is a Baptist chapel, a plain building, erected in 1825. Skinner Street (1842) and Whittaker Street (1836) lead to Holbein Place, built over the Westbourne, and called in 1877 "the Ditch." Leading from Whittaker Street are Passmore Street (1837) and Union Street, containing industrial dwellings.

Inhabitants—Chester Place: Right Hon. Charles Buller, d. 1848. Chester Square: No. 19, Mantell, the geologist, d. 1852; 24, the poet Shelley's widow, d. 1851.

The houses in Chester Square and the neighbourhood are not so pretentious as those in Belgravia, but it is still a fashionable place of residence. In South Eaton Place, near the south end, stood the Star and Garter Tavern, well known[Pg 69] about 1760. The end of this street was called Burton Street (1826) until 1877. In Elizabeth Street, first called Eliza Street in 1820, and until 1866 divided into Upper Elizabeth Street, Elizabeth Street, and Elizabeth Street South, stood the Dwarf Tavern, noted about 1760. At the south end, near St. Philip's Parochial Hall and Parsonage, is St. Michael's Mission House, built in 1893. Gerald Road, 1834 until 1885 named Cottage Road, contains the station of the R Division of Police.

Eccleston Street, with which in 1866 was incorporated Eccleston Street South, was so called from Ecclestone in Cheshire, where the Duke of Westminster has property. A house on the west side inhabited by Sir Frances Chantrey was pulled down during the construction of the underground railway. On the same side is the Royal Pimlico Dispensary, established in 1831. Part of the east side has been rebuilt. In Eccleston Place is the station of the Westminster Electric Supply Company, which supplies this district with electric light. In Lower Belgrave Street (1810), the lower end of which was till 1867 named Belgrave Street South, are St. Peter's National Schools, a large red-brick building with a playground, in connection with St. Peter's, Eaton Square.

At the end of Grosvenor Place great improvements were made in 1868 by the building[Pg 70] of Grosvenor Gardens, when Grosvenor Street West, and Upper and Lower Eaton Street were swept away.

At No. 27, Upper Eaton Street, lived George Frederick Cooke, 1870; 25, Thomas Campbell, 1803; 19, Lower Eaton Street, Mrs. Abington, actress, 1807, Mr. Pinkerton, 1802. The present houses are very large and handsome.

On the west side, at the corner of Buckingham Palace Road, are Belgrave Mansions, built from designs by Cundy in 1868, a large block in French Renaissance style, with a frontage of nearly 300 feet. The ground-floor is occupied by shops, and above are five floors of flats. The centre of the open space is occupied by two triangular enclosed gardens, and is crossed by Ebury Street, once an open lane leading over the fields to Chelsea. Houses were built on it after 1750, and in 1779 the north-eastern end was named Upper Ranelagh Street and Ranelagh Street. The south-western end was Upper Ebury Street, but the whole was renamed Ebury Street in 1867. It is an uninteresting street of unpretending houses and shops. In Upper Ebury Street lived: Rodwell the composer; William Skelton, engraver, d. 1848; No. 174 is the Boys' School belonging to the parish of St. Barnabas.[Pg 71]

At the north-east end of Ebury Street is Victoria Square, a small square of plain houses built about 1837, out of which Albert Street leads to Grosvenor Place. In the square lived, at No. 8, Thomas Campbell, 1841-43; 5, Earl of Mount Edgcumbe.

At the other end, near Ebury Bridge, is Ebury Square, built about 1820 on the site of Ebury Farm. This ancient property, which derives its name from the Saxon ey, water, and burgh, a fortified place, is mentioned in 1307, when permission was granted by Edward I. to John de Benstede to fortify it. In Queen Elizabeth's time it consisted of a farm of 430 acres, let on lease for £21 per annum. In 1676 it came into the possession of the Grosvenor family, and in 1725 embraced a long narrow area, reaching from Buckingham House to the Thames between the Westbourne and the present Westmoreland Street.

The square was partially destroyed in 1868, but the old houses remain on the north-west and south sides. In the centre is a garden, and the ground between it and Buckingham Palace Road is occupied by St. Michael's National Schools, opened in 1870, a spacious building, accommodating about a thousand scholars; there is a large playground. The site had been previously occupied by the Pimlico Literary[Pg 72] Institution, built in 1830 from designs by J. P. Deering.

On the remaining side a handsome block of industrial dwellings (Ebury Buildings) was built in 1872, when the old Flask Lane (1785) was swept away. The approaches on the north-west are Semley Place (1785), late Flask Row, and Little Ebury Street (1823). At the end of Avery Farm Row (probably a corruption of Ebury), opposite Ebury Bridge, is a drinking-fountain, erected in memory of the second Marquis of Westminster, d. 1869, by his widow.

Buckingham Palace, which falls partly within St. George's district and partly within St. Margaret's, Westminster, has already been described in the volume on Westminster.

The Royal Mews, the entrance to which is in Buckingham Palace Road, contains a large riding-school, a room for the state harness, stabling for the state and other horses, and houses for forty carriages. Here also are kept the old and new state coaches, the former of which was built in 1762 of English oak, with paintings by Cipriani, and cost £7,660.

Buckingham Palace Road, now a broad street with large houses and shops, was in 1725 an open country road, known as the coach-road to Chelsea. The houses in it are rated under the name of Pimlico as late as 1786, but rows of houses under[Pg 73] various names had been built earlier—Stafford Row in 1752, Queen's Row in 1766. These, with Victoria Road (1838), Stockbridge Terrace (1836), King's Road, Lower and Upper Belgrave Place and Belgrave Terrace (1826), were united under the name of Buckingham Palace Road in 1867, and in 1894 Union Place, Holden Terrace, and South Place were incorporated with it. The portion facing the Palace is named Buckingham Gate, and consists of seven large private houses. On this site, facing the Park, stood Tart Hall, the residence of Viscount Stafford (see "Westminster").

Facing Grosvenor Gardens is the Grosvenor Hotel, opened in 1862 in connection with Victoria Station. The building, designed by Knowles, is 272 feet long, 75 feet deep, and 150 feet high, and cost £100,000.

Beyond, on the north side, a row of large red-brick houses has been built since 1883, containing Buckingham Palace Mansions (flats), the National Training School of Cookery, and the City of Westminster Public Baths. Here also is St. Peter's Institute, in connection with St. Peter's, Eaton Square, which cost £15,000. It consists of a club for 600 men and 600 boys, with gymnasium, class-rooms, reading-room, concert-hall, etc.

Buckingham Palace Gardens, also on the north side, is a row of large, ornamental, red-brick[Pg 74] houses, newly erected, adjoining the Free Library built by Bolton and opened in 1894. On the first floor is a natural history collection presented by a parishioner. St. Philip's Church, built 1887-90, is a plain but spacious red-brick building, in Early English style by Brierley and Demaine, with seats (free) for 850. Adjoining is the Grosvenor Club and Grosvenor Hall, used for social entertainments, etc. Nearly the whole of the south side of the road has recently been demolished in view of the extension of Victoria Station.

Inhabitants—Stafford Row: W. Ryland, engineer, executed for forgery 1767; Mrs. Radcliffe, authoress of the "Mysteries of Udolpho"; Richard Yates, d. 1796. Lower Belgrave Place: No. 3, George Grote, historian (later 102, Buckingham Palace Road); 29 and 30, Sir Francis Chantrey, 1814-41 (later 98, Buckingham Palace Road); 27, Allan Cunningham, poet, 1824-42; 96, Henry Weekes, R.A. Buckingham Palace Road: E. B. Stephen, R.A., 1882.

From the end of Buckingham Palace Road Chelsea was reached by the present Pimlico Road, so called in 1871, when the old names of Jews' Row, Grosvenor Row (1785), and Queen Street (1774) were abolished. The origin of the name Pimlico is uncertain. There was one also at Hoxton, where a certain Ben Pimlico kept a noted hostelry in Queen Elizabeth's time. It is[Pg 75] now officially used to denote the whole district south of Knightsbridge, but is popularly confined to the part between Chester Square and the Thames. It began to be sparsely inhabited in 1680, after which date it is mentioned occasionally in the rate-books, and regularly after 1739.

On the north side, near the east end, are two narrow streets—Clifford's Row (1785), and King Street (1785). At the corner of Ebury Street stood an old inn, the Goat and Compasses, now replaced by the Three Compasses public-house. Further on is the Chapel of St. John the Baptist, built about 1850 as a chapel of ease to St. Barnabas. Adjoining is the site of the Chelsea Bun House, in its best days kept by Richard Hand, "who has the honour to serve the Royal Family." It was celebrated by Swift in 1711, and was taken down in 1839. Opposite stood Strombelo or Stromboli House, a minor place of amusement, at its height in 1788. Near here Nell Gwynne is said to have lived, and her name is kept up by the Nell Gwynne Tavern and a passage called Nell Gwynne Cottages.

Between the Pimlico and Commercial Roads are several small streets. In Bloomfield Place stood St. John's School for girls, established in 1859 under the auspices of the Sisterhood of St. John; adjoining, under the same management, St. Barnabas' Mission House and St. Barnabas'[Pg 76] Orphanage, established in 1860. In Bloomfield Terrace lived at No. 1 Captain Warner, inventor of the "long range," d. 1853.

In Church Street (1846) stands the college of St. Barnabas, founded by Rev. W. J. Bennett. The buildings are of Kentish ragstone, were designed by Cundy, and contain a church, clergy house, and school-house with teacher's residence. The church, originally built as a chapel of ease to St. Paul's, Knightsbridge, is in Early Pointed style, and has a tower and spire of Caen stone 170 feet high, with ten bells. The edifice cost £15,000, and was at the opening signalized by ritualistic disturbances. The schools built on the site of the Orange Tavern and tea-gardens in the Pimlico Road were designed for 200 boys, 200 girls, and 200 infants, but a separate boys' school has been since built in Ebury Street.

Ranelagh Grove occupies the site of The Avenue, which led from Ebury Bridge to old Ranelagh House, but now ends in the blank wall of Chelsea Barracks.

In Ranelagh Terrace (now abolished), near Ebury Bridge, d. at No. 2 the Rev. T. Pennington, son of Elizabeth Carter, in 1852.

Commercial Road (1842) is occupied by works and industrial dwellings (Gatcliff Buildings, 1867, and Wellington Buildings). On the west side is the wall of Chelsea Barracks.[Pg 77]

It leads by the Chelsea Bridge Road to the embankment at Victoria Bridge, a light and graceful suspension bridge designed by Page and opened in 1858. The structure, which cost £88,000, is built of iron, and rests on piers of English elm and concrete enclosed in iron casings. The piers are each nearly 90 feet in length by 20 feet in width, with curved cutwaters. The whole bridge is 915 feet long, 715 feet between abutments, the centre span 347 feet, side-spans each 185 feet, and there is a clear water-way of 21 feet above high-water mark. The roadway is made by two wrought-iron longitudinal girders extending the whole length of the bridge, suspended by rods from the chains. Toll-houses stand at each end, but it was purchased in 1879 for £75,000 as a free bridge.

Near the end of the bridge stood the White House, a lonely habitation much used by anglers; opposite, on the Surrey side, was a similar building, the Red House. A short way to the east stood the Chelsea Waterworks, incorporated as a company in 1724, though waterworks seem to have existed here before that date. They extended, with the Grosvenor Canal and basin (now occupied by Victoria Station), over 89 acres, and supplied water to Chelsea, Knightsbridge, Belgravia, Pimlico, and part of Westminster. The company has now removed to Kingston, and the site is occupied by the western pumping-station[Pg 78] of the main drainage system of London, built 1873-75 at a cost of £183,000.

Graham Street (1827) incorporated with which in 1894 were Graham Street West and Gregory Street (1833), contains the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, a chapel of ease to St. Paul's, Knightsbridge, a red-brick building with a spire, built in 1872. Caroline Street (1834) is of no interest. Eaton Terrace (1826) was until 1884 named Coleshill Street. At the corner of Clieveden Place is an old proprietary chapel, Eaton Chapel, in Grecian style, built about 1800, with sittings for 1,200. A chapel existed here, however, before that date, known as the Five Fields Chapel.

Chester Terrace was in 1878 amalgamated with Minera Street (1830), and in 1887 with Newland Street (1836).

Chester Square is very long and narrow; it is five acres in extent, and was commenced about 1834. It has three enclosed gardens. At the west end is the handsome church of St. Michael, erected 1844-46 in the Decorated style from designs by Cundy. The tower has a lofty spire. The chancel was extended in 1874, and the building has on several occasions been enlarged and restored.

The portion of our district lying between the[Pg 79] Buckingham Palace Road and Grosvenor Canal and the eastern boundary forms an acute-angled triangle with the apex at Buckingham Palace. The streets north of Victoria Street, which lead into Buckingham Palace Road from the east, are narrow and unimportant. Here is Palace Street (1767), until 1881 called Charlotte Street, after Queen Charlotte, the first royal occupant of the Palace. In it is St. Peter's Church, a plain building with seats for 200, which existed as Charlotte Chapel in 1770. Its most famous incumbent was Dr. Dodd, who was executed for forgery in 1777. Subsequently it was held by Dr. Dillon, who was suspended in 1840. It was then a proprietary chapel, but is now a chapel of ease to St. Peter's, Eaton Square; also St. Peter and St. Edward's Catholic Chapel.

In Palace Place (until 1881 Little Charlotte Street) is St. Peter's Chapel School, established in 1830.

The St. George's Union Workhouse, a large red-brick building, built in 1884, stands in Wallis's Yard, off Princes Row (1767). Buckingham Palace (1840), Brewer Street (1811), and Allingham Street (1826) have no interest. The latter leads to Victoria Street, a broad thoroughfare opened in 1851, only the western end of which falls within the district. On the south side is the Victoria Station of the Metropolitan[Pg 80] District Railway, commenced in 1863 and opened in 1868. The line runs in a curve underground from Sloane Square, crossing Ebury Street at Eaton Terrace, and Buckingham Palace Road at Grosvenor Gardens. From the Underground Station a subterranean passage leads to the Victoria terminus, the starting-point of the London, Brighton, and South Coast and London, Chatham, and Dover Railway Companies. The present station, which has no pretension to architectural beauty, is being greatly enlarged and partly rebuilt. It was built at a cost of £105,000, provided by the Victoria Station and Pimlico Railway Company, which, having acquired 91 acres of land, had built a temporary station and opened the line for the two companies' traffic in 1860. The bridge over the Thames was built about the same time by Fowler, and on it is the Grosvenor Road ticket-collecting station. The land occupied by the railways is freehold of the Victoria Company, and leased by the two lines. In 1863 the lines of the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway were widened to enable their trains to come into the station independently. The lines of the London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway are now being extended. The station of the latter is a West End branch, the headquarters being at London Bridge; but the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway have here their principal start[Pg 81]ing-point. The ground between Victoria Station and the river occupies the site of the old manor of Neyte, which belonged to the Abbey of Westminster until confiscated by Henry VIII. in 1536. It was a favourite residence of the Abbots, and here also lived John of Gaunt, and here John, son of Richard, Duke of York, was born in 1448. In 1592 the manor became a farm and passed with the Ebury Estate into the possession of the Grosvenor family. The manor-house stood where is now St. George's Row, and in Pepys' time was a popular pleasure-garden. Between the Willow Walk (Warwick Street) and the river were the Neat House Gardens, which supplied a large part of London with vegetables. The name lingered until the present century among the houses on the river-bank, and is still commemorated by Neat House Buildings in Ranelagh Road. The whole area was low-lying and swampy, and the neighbourhood of Eccleston Square was occupied by a vast osier bed. In 1827, however, Cubitt raised the level of the district by depositing the earth excavated from St. Katharine's Docks, and the present houses and squares were gradually completed. The whole district is singularly uninteresting, the streets of good breadth, and the houses faced with plaster of the type we have seen in Belgravia. North of Belgrave Road the streets are occupied by the poorer classes, but the[Pg 82] squares and principal streets in this neighbourhood are tenanted by the wealthy. The southern portion is dully respectable, and most of the houses are let in lodgings. The eastern end of Warwick Street and Lupus Street contain the only shops, and those of no great size or importance. The streets, with their principal buildings, are as follows:

The Vauxhall Bridge Road, commenced after 1816, but first mentioned under that name in 1827. The following terraces were incorporated with it in 1865: Bedford Place (1826), Trellick Place (1826), York Place (1839), Pembroke Place, Gloucester Place, Windsor Terrace, Shaftesbury Crescent (1826), Howick Place and Howick Terrace (1826).

Wilton Road (1833), with which, in 1890, was incorporated Wilton Terrace, skirts the east side of Victoria Station. In it stands the Church of St. John the Evangelist, a chapel of ease to St. Peter's, Eaton Square. It is a handsome red-brick edifice, built by Blomfield in 1875, and it accommodates about 900. Behind, in Hudson's Place, are St. Peter's Mission House and parish room.

Gillingham Street (1826), Hindon Street (1826), Berwick Street (1830), and St. Leonard's Street (1830) are mean and uninteresting.

Warwick Street occupies the site of the ancient Willow Walk, a low-lying footpath between the cuts of the Chelsea Waterworks, where lived the[Pg 83] notorious Aberfield (Slender Billy) and the highwaymen Jerry Abershaw and Maclean. It is first mentioned in the rate-books in 1723.

Belgrave Road (1830) is a broad, well-built street, with large houses. In 1865 Eccleston Terrace, North and South Warwick Terrace, Upper Eccleston Place, and Grosvenor Terrace, were incorporated with it. Nearly opposite Eccleston Square is Eccleston Square Chapel (Congregational), in Classical style, with seats for 1,100. The railway is crossed by Eccleston Bridge. Eccleston Square is 4 acres in extent, and is long and narrow, with an enclosed garden, built in 1835.

Warwick Square, of 3 acres, is very similar, and was built in 1843. At the end stands St. Gabriel's Church, built by Cundy in Early English style, and consecrated in 1853.

St. George's Road is a broad street joined to Buckingham Palace Road by Elizabeth Bridge.

In Gloucester Street is the Belgrave Hospital for Children, founded in 1866 by the late Rev. Brymer Belcher, Vicar of St. Gabriel's, 1853-85. The objects of this charitable institution are:

Clarendon Street (1858) absorbed Warwick Place in 1870. Stanley Street (1851) was renamed Alderney Street in 1879, Winchester Street 1852, Cumberland Street 1852.

Ebury Bridge is the oldest of the bridges over the railway and canal. It was known in early days as Chelsea, and afterwards as Waterworks Bridge, a wooden structure. A turnpike existed here until 1825. At the south end stood Jenny's Whim, a celebrated tavern and pleasure-garden, perhaps named from the name of the proprietress and the fantastic way it was laid out. It was in the height of its popularity about 1750, and came to an end circa 1804. When the railway was widened in 1863 all vestiges of it were swept away.

St. George's Row was built as Monster Row circa 1785, and renamed in 1833. Here was the site of the manor-house of Neyte. The Monster public-house commemorates the old Monster tavern and garden, the name being probably a corruption of monastery.

At the corner of Warwick Street are the Pimlico Rooms, containing a hall for entertainments, etc., and occupied by the Ebury Mission and Pimlico day-school for boys, girls, and infants. Adjoining the railway is a double row of industrial dwellings, built by the trustees of the Peabody fund under the name of Peabody's Buildings.[Pg 85]

Westmoreland Street (1852) contains the Pimlico chapel for United Free Methodists.

Lupus Street (1842) is named after Hugh Lupus, Earl of Chester, an ancestor of the Duke of Westminster. It contains a hospital for women and children.

At the eastern end is St. George's Square (1850), a long narrow space reaching to the river with an enclosed garden in the centre. The houses are large. At No. 9 Sir J. Barnby d. 1896.

At the north end is St. Saviour's Church, built in 1864 from designs by Cundy in a Decorated Gothic style. It has sittings for 1,834, and was restored in 1882. To the east are Pulford Street (1848) and Aylesford Street, in which is St. Saviour's Mission House, built by the Duke of Westminster at a cost of £4,000. It serves also for parochial meetings. Here also are the works of the Equitable Gas Company, established 1830.

In Claverton Street (1852) is a Methodist Wesleyan chapel, in Classical style, with seats for 1,000.

In Glasgow Terrace (1851), formerly Caledonia Street, are St. Saviour's and St. Gabriel's National Schools. This neighbourhood contains many works and offices, the largest of which is Taylor's repository for storing property. Along the river runs the Grosvenor Road, part of the Thames[Pg 86] Embankment. The houses built on and near it were generally known in the last century as the Neat Houses. Terraces with various names—Albion Terrace, Pier Terrace, Erin Place (1826), Thames Parade (1827), Thames Bank (1828)—were incorporated with the road in recent years. Facing the river is All Saints' Church, a chapel of ease to St. Gabriel's, by Cundy, built circa 1870 to replace a mission church; opposite it is the Pimlico Pier for river steamboats. Adjoining St. George's Square is the Army Clothing Factory, established in 1857 in the Vauxhall Bridge Road as an experiment to provide labour for women. The present establishment was opened in 1859, and has since been largely increased, occupying a space of about 7 acres. The east block is the Government store, the west the factory, the centre of which is occupied by a glass-roofed hall, three stories high, surrounded by spacious galleries.

PADDINGTON
By G. E. Mitton

Derivation.

The origin of the word Paddington is very obscure. Mr. Edwards in his "Names of Places" gives "Pad, padi, A.S. equivalent to Paeda, King of Mercia; hence Paddington, the town of Paeda's descendants."

The boundaries of the borough of Paddington are not quite coterminous with those of the parish. It is true that the alteration is not great. On the east Edgware Road and Maida Vale still mark the limits with a line as straight as that drawn by a ruler. On the south Bayswater Road serves a similar purpose as far as the Serpentine, where the boundary dips to include part of the Gardens; these are the same as the old boundaries. The present line, however, returns northward up the Broad Walk to Bayswater Road instead of up Kensington Palace Gardens. From Bayswater Road it follows Ossington Street, Chepstow Place, Westbourne Grove, Ledbury Road, St. Luke's Road, and crosses the railway lines northward to Kensal Road, having from the Bayswater Road been either a little within or without[Pg 88] the parish line, doubtless so drawn for convenience' sake, as it follows streets and not an arbitrary division. From Kensal Hall the line follows the canal to Kensal Green Cemetery, and, going northward, returns east along Kilburn Lane, thus including a bit of ground previously owned by Chelsea. From Kilburn Lane the northern boundary dips down between Salisbury Crescent and Malvern Road, and up again by Kilburn Park Road; in this last part it remains unaltered.

The Westbourne stream formerly ran right through the district. It rose in Hampstead, flowed through Kilburn, and followed the trend of the present Cambridge and Shirland Roads, though keeping on the east side of the place where these streets now stand. It crossed the Harrow Road, and ran on the west side of the present Gloucester Terrace until it reached the Uxbridge Road. It fed the Serpentine, and, crossing the road at Knightsbridge, formed the eastern boundary of the Chelsea parish.

A stream somewhat similar in course was the Tyburn, which also rose at Hampstead, but flowed through the parish of Marylebone, the ancient Tyburnia. This was considerably to the east of Paddington, and has been treated in the Marylebone section. Oxford Street was the ancient Tyburn Road, and the gallows stood opposite the Marble Arch.[Pg 89]

In Rocque's map (1748) only the Westbourne is marked, but we see Tyburn Turnpike at the junction of the Edgware Road, and near by "the stone where soldiers are shot." These things do not belong properly to Paddington, but are too intimately connected with it to be passed over without comment. The Edgware Road itself is the old Watling Street, which was continued at first down Park Lane to the ford at Westminster, and which afterwards, when London Bridge was built, followed the course of Oxford Street and Holborn to the Bridge. Edgware was the name of the first town through which it passed after the forests of Middlesex. Newcourt says "the parish of Edgeware or Edgeworth consisteth of one main street ... ten miles north-westward from London."

In Rocque's 1748 map the district is nearly all open ground; part of the Harrow Road is marked, and there are a few houses on it near the Edgware Road. The Green Lane, now Warwick Road, runs into it from the north. The Pest House is marked prominently about where the chapel stands in Craven Terrace in the south of the parish. Below is marked "Bayswatering." Queen's Road is Westbourne Green Lane, and the green itself is very nearly where Royal Oak Station now stands. About it there are a few scattered houses.[Pg 90]

History.

"King Edgar gave the Manor of Paddington to Westminster Abbey;" this Lysons affirms without any comment. Dart varies the tradition slightly by asserting that it was Dunstan and not the King who presented the manor to the Abbey. But later writers have thrown discredit on both statements. Paddington is not mentioned in the Conqueror's Survey, which points to the fact that it was not at that date a separate manor. Robins, on the authority of the Rev. Richard Widmore, for many years librarian to the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, boldly states that the documents supposed to prove this gift are undoubted forgeries.

Newcourt says, "the Manor and Rectory of Paddington (which of old did belong to the monastery of Westminster)," etc. The first authentic mention of the manor is in a document "in the thirty-first year of Henry II.," drawn up between "Walter Abbot of Westminster and Richard and William de Padinton, brothers, touching the entire tenement which they held in Padinton of the Church of Westminster," whereby they gave up their hold on the land in consideration of a sum of money. This Abbot Walter gave, we are told, the manor of Paddington for the celebration of the anniversary of the day on which he died.[Pg 91]

"the manor of Paddington is put wholly into the hands of the Almoner ... and whatsoever shall be the final overplus shall be expended charitably in distribution to the poor. On the day of celebration the Almoner is to find for the Convent fine manchets, cakes, crumpets, cracknells, and wafers, and a gallon of wine for each friar, with three good pittances, or doles, with good ale in abundance at every table, and in the presence of the whole brotherhood: in the same manner upon other occasions the cellarer is bound to find beer at the usual feasts or anniversaries on the great tankard of twenty-five quarts.

"He shall also provide most honourably and in all abundance for the guests that dine in the refectory, bread, wine, beer, and two dishes out of the kitchen besides the usual allowance. And for the guests of higher rank who sit at the upper table under the bell, with the president, ample provision shall be made as well as for the Convent: and cheese shall be served on that day to both.

"Agreement shall likewise be made with the cook for vessels, utensils, and other necessaries, and not less than two shillings shall be given over above for his own gratification and indulgence. The Almoner is likewise to find for all comers in general, from the hour when the memorial of the anniversary is read to the end of the following day, meat, drink, hay and provender of all sorts in abundance: and no one either on foot or horseback during that time shall be denied admittance at the gate."

There are further provisions for allowances to the nuns at "Kilborne," and 300 poor who were to have a "loaf of mixed corn" and a "pottle of ale." The above is taken from Dr. Vincent's translation of the MS. He was Dean of Westminster in 1804. Mr. Loftie says: "Westbourne was probably at a very early period separated from the original manor of the Church of St. Peter.... Of Paddington we only know that it[Pg 92] was separated from the manor of Westminster at some time between Domesday Survey and the middle of the twelfth century. It was restored to its original owners ... by the above mentioned agreement between Abbot Walter and the brothers Padinton."

Mr. Loftie says also that Westbourne and Paddington are named together in 1222 among the possessions of St. Margaret's. He is unable to ascertain how the manor of Westbourne came to belong to the Abbot of Westminster. In the reign of the second Edward several inquisitions of land were made which are quoted by Robins in his "Paddington, Past and Present." In one we find mentioned "that Walter de Wenlock [a second Abbot Walter] had acquired to himself and his house ... twelve acres of land in Padinton of William de Padinton, and three and a half acres of Hugh de Bakere of Eye, and thirteen acres of land in Westbourn of John le Taillour, and eleven acres of land there of Matilda Arnold, and two acres of land there of Juliana Baysevolle, after the publication of the statute edited concerning the nonplacing of lands in mortmain, and not before. And they (the commissioners) say that it is not to the damage nor prejudice of the Lord the King, nor of others, if the king grant to the Prior and Convent of Westminster that the Abbots of that place for the time being may[Pg 93] recover and hold the aforesaid messuages and land to them and their successors for ever."

But the Abbot had to pay the King a small yearly sum, and cause certain services of reaping and ploughing to be performed for him, which showed that he held the land in some sense subject to the Crown. In Henry VII.'s reign his mother, the Countess of Richmond, bought certain lands in Kensington, Willesden, Paddington, and Westbourne. She left the greater part of her possessions to Westminster, so that the Abbey lands in this vicinity must have been increased. The manor acquired by the Countess seems to have consisted chiefly of two farms—Notting Barns in Kensington, and "Westborne" in Paddington; the former is fully dealt with in the section devoted to Kensington. Besides the lands left to the Abbey, she bequeathed part of her possessions to the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge.

In the account of the Church property which fell into Henry VIII.'s hands at the dissolution of the monasteries we find mentioned "Westborne."

King Henry also held other lands here, which he had obtained by exchange or purchase. He made Paddington a part of the endowment of the new See of Westminster. After the abolition of that See Edward VI. gave "the mannor and rectory of Paddington" to Dr. Nicholas Ridley,[Pg 94] then Bishop of London, "and his successors for ever" (Newcourt).

Westbourne remained in the possession of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster; thus the two manors parted company. Paddington was confiscated during the Commonwealth, but was claimed by Bishop Sheldon at the Restoration. It was restored to him, and he let it to his nephew, Sir Joseph Sheldon, knight, and Daniel Sheldon. It was held by the Sheldon family until 1740, when it was let by Gibson, the Bishop of London, to Sir John Frederick, in whose family it remained for many generations.

Perambulations.

A survey of London in 1827 shows us very few streets in the quarter to the south of Praed Street and east of Westbourne Terrace and Street. Connaught Square and Connaught Place are marked, and the curious rectangular piece of ground of about 5 acres belonging to St. George's, Hanover Square. This was bought by St. George's Vestry in 1764, when the land was surrounded by fields, and was suitable for a cemetery. Among others buried there was Laurence Sterne, whose body is said to have been exhumed by body-snatchers. But this ground does not belong to Paddington. In the above-mentioned survey Cambridge Street is[Pg 95] Sovereign Street, and the oval piece with Southwick Crescent at one end is Polygon Crescent, a name now only retained in Polygon Mews.

Hyde Park Gardens is marked "Intended Crescent," but except in the triangular corner, now bounded by Cambridge and Albion Streets, there are few houses.

Cambridge Street and Oxford and Cambridge Terraces and Squares preserve in their names the memory of the gift of the Countess of Richmond to those universities.

In Southwick Crescent stands St. John's Church, built originally in 1826, and then known as Connaught Chapel. In 1832 a district was allotted to the chapel. In 1844 a portion of this was transferred to the new church of St. James. Four years later St. John's obtained a portion of the chapelry district, and in 1859 the district itself was made into a new parish. Part of the new parish was transferred to St. Michael and All Angels in 1864. The church is in a late Gothic style. It was completely renovated during 1895, when the present reredos was added.

In Titchborne Road are St. John's Schools. In Junction Mews, off Sale Street, is a boatmen's chapel. In Market Street is one of the Dudley Stuart night refuges for the destitute. And to the north, in Praed Street, is a small Baptist tabernacle with painted front, and further west[Pg 96]ward the church and schools of St. Michael and All Angels. The church was built in 1862; it is in the Decorated style, and the architect was Mr. Hawkins. Its predecessor was a chapel of ease to St. John's, but in 1859 the district was made separate. The organ is by Hill.

In Norfolk Square we find All Saints' Church. This has been lately rebuilt, having been burnt down on May 31, 1894. The old church was consecrated on All Saints' Day, 1847, and its architecture is described as having been "Gothic of the eleventh century." The first architect was Mr. Clutton. The building was restored and the chancel added in 1873 from Mr. J. Brooks's designs.

The new church is striking, being of red brick with terra-cotta mouldings over the doors and windows. The architect was Ralph Nevill, F.S.A., F.R.I.B.A. The old walls that remained have been engrafted into the new building. The organ is by Hill. The floor of the church is of mosaic, and stalls, screens, and nave seats are of Burmese wood, called padouk. The church is lit by electric light.

In the 1827 map a spot at the extreme end of Stanhope Street, just where it touches Westbourne Street, is marked Archery Ground, and a little to the north, at the corner of Bathhurst Street, are "Bagnigge Wells," probably named[Pg 97] after the more famous Bagnigge Wells, near Gray's Inn Road.

In Maitland's "History of London" we are told that in the year 1439 the Abbot of Westminster granted to the Mayor and citizens of London one head of water containing twenty-six perches in length and one in breadth, together with all its springs in the manor of Paddington, for which two peppercorns were to be paid annually. In these wells of water we have the origin of the latter part of the word Bayswater. Some writers affirm that the name originated in a public-house kept by a Mr. Bays, where horses were given water, hence the more ancient rendering "Bayswatering." Lysons says of it, "The springs at this place lie near the surface, and the water is very fine." He adds, "The conduit at Bayswater belongs to the City of London, and, being conveyed by brick drains, supplies the houses in and about Bond Street, which stand upon the City lands."

Robins quotes an Act (49 George III.) in which "Byard's Watering Place" is mentioned in Tyburn.

In George III.'s reign the mayor and citizens were empowered by an Act of Parliament to see their water rights at Bayswater, which was done for the sum of £2,500.

Robins says that a Juliana Baysbolle held land in Westbourne, and conjectures that the former[Pg 98] part of her name may have descended to the place. He adds: "At the end of the fourteenth century we find from Tanner's note, before quoted, that the head of water given by the Abbot was called Baynard's Watering Place; and although this may have been the name used in legal documents for the district surrounding it, yet Bayswatering has been the name used by the people."

From the springs doubtless arose the names of Brook's Mews, Conduit Mews, Spring Street West, and Eastbourne Terraces.

Bayswatering is marked on Rocque's 1748 map at a spot nearly due south of Christ Church. St. James's Church was built and made parochial in 1845. Loftie says that then "the parish for the fourth time changed its patron and reverted to its former saint."

The old parish church will be noticed at Paddington Green, on which it stands. The new church of St. James's, one of the finest modern churches in London, was rebuilt, with the exception of the tower and spire, in 1882, the material used being flint, and the design was the last of G. E. Street's. The chancel is now at the west end, having been transformed at the time of rebuilding. There are some very fine stained-glass windows, and the organ is by Hill. The walls of the chancel and nave are faced with[Pg 99] Devonshire marble, and the pulpit and font are of the same material. The reredos, of the Last Supper, is a marble bas-relief. The old registers are now held by St. James's, and contain some interesting entries, notably those referring to burials in the time of the Great Plague. Among other items there are the following, which, it must be remembered, really refer to the old church:

"William Hogarth, esq., and Jane Thornhill of St. Paul's, Covent Garden, married March 23, 1729."

"Joseph Francis Nollekens, buried Jan. 24, 1747." This was the father of the famous sculptor.

On the east side of Craven Terrace is a finely-built Congregational Church. This is in a decorated style, with a large wheel window and elaborately ornamented pinnacles. It was built between forty and fifty years ago, and contains seats for about 700 people. St. James's Schools are opposite. Craven Terrace and Hill, and Hill Gardens, recall the memory of the fine old Earl Craven, who remained in London during the 1665 plague, when most of those able to do so had fled. He married the titular Queen of Bohemia, a daughter of James I., whom he had loved devotedly all his life.[Pg 100]

The pest-house marked so prominently on Rocque's map was almost on the site of the present Craven Terrace Chapel. Lord Craven gave a site at Soho for the purpose of a burial-ground, having seen the difficulty attending burial after the plague of 1665, and also for a cottage hospital for the suburbs. When this site was built over, he gave another site, presumably the pest-house marked by Rocque. Lysons says, "which if London should ever again be visited by the plague is still subject to the said use"—a sentence which reads quaintly in these days of the Intramural Burials Act.

Lord Craven's own house was further westward. Lysons says: "Lord Craven has an estate in this parish, called Craven Hill, on which is a small hamlet very pleasantly situated." It was to Lord Craven's house Queen Anne first took her little son on account of his health, but, finding it too small for the numerous retinue, she afterwards removed to Campden House. Christ Church, in Lancaster Gate, is in a decorated style of Gothic. It was consecrated July 17, 1855, and the architects were Messrs. F. and H. Francis. It contains a very fine marble pulpit, and a fresco reredos, enclosed in a heavy stone setting. Though Paddington is of such modern date, the streets are not conveniently built; it is frequently necessary to walk the whole length[Pg 101] of a street or terrace for lack of a cross-cut into a parallel one, and this is particularly noticeable just at this part. In Queen's Road there is a United Methodist Free Church, built in 1868 of white brick with stone facings. It has an open arcade on to the street. The interior is circular, and seats about 900 persons. In the Bayswater Road are many palatial houses facing Kensington Gardens. Orme Square, on the north side of the road, was built in 1815, and is therefore ancient for Paddington. It was doubtless named after Mr. Edward Orme, of Bayswater, who built a chapel at his own expense in Petersburgh Place 1818. In Petersburgh Place there is a large red-brick synagogue in the Byzantine style. It was opened in March, 1879. The walls are lined with slabs of alabaster set in marble, and the details of the fittings are rich in gilding. The pillars are of light-green marble from the quarries near Sion in the Rhone Valley. These decorations are the result of many separate memorial gifts. Further northward, on the west side of Petersburgh Place, is the fine church of St. Matthew, consecrated on May 20, 1882. The church contains 1,550 seats, of which 355 are free. The church is in an Early English style, and has an immensely high spire. Westward is what was known as the Shaftesbury House Estate, through which Palace Court now runs. Lysons says "Little Shaftesbury House in[Pg 102] this parish (near Kensington gravel pits), the seat of Ambrose Godfrey, Esq., is said to have been built by the Earl of Shaftesbury, author of the 'Characteristics,' or his father the Chancellor."

The borough boundary turns out of Kensington Gardens in Palace Gardens, and, crossing the Bayswater Road, goes up northward between Ossington Street and Clanricarde Gardens. North of Moscow Road there is a Greek church of St. Sophia, built of red brick with a high central dome.

There is a small Baptist chapel at the back of Porchester Gardens. Across the Queen's Road there are St. Matthew's Parochial Schools, built in 1831, enlarged 1861. Further northward in Queen's Road are the capacious buildings of the Paddington Public Baths and Washhouses, erected at a cost of £40,000.

Holy Trinity Church, in Bishop's Road, was consecrated July 30, 1846, and considerably renovated in 1893. It is a very handsome church, of Kentish ragstone, in the Perpendicular style, with quatrefoil parapet, ornamental pinnacles and spire. The site on which it stands was formerly a deep hole, and consequently the cost of foundations alone came to £2,000.

Almost on the spot where Royal Oak Station now is was once the rural Westbourne Green, companion to Paddington Green further eastward.[Pg 103] In Rocque's time there were a few scattered houses here. At Westbourne Farm, which stood until about 1860, Mrs. Siddons lived for some time. Lysons says: "A capital messuage called Westbourne Place, with certain lands thereto belonging, was granted by Henry VIII. anno 1540 to Robert White. This estate was some years ago the property of Isaac Ware, the architect (editor of Palladio's works and other professional publications), who, with the materials brought from Lord Chesterfield's house in Mayfair (which he was employed to rebuild), erected the present mansion called Westbourne Place a little to the south of the old house, which was suffered to stand several years longer. Westbourne Place was sold by Ware's executors to Sir William Yorke, Bart., Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in Ireland, who resided there a short time and afterwards let it to a Venetian Ambassador. In the year 1768 he sold it to Jukes Coulson, Esq., who expended a very considerable sum in enlarging the house and laying out the grounds. The library which he added to the house is said to have cost about £1,500. The situation is extremely pleasant, and so uncommonly retired that a person residing here could hardly conceive himself to be in a parish adjoining that of St. George's, Hanover Square." The vast meshes of the railway network at present on the spot are in[Pg 104] eloquent contrast to the above. Further down in the Porchester Road is the Westbourne Park Chapel, a red-brick building in the Pointed or Gothic style, built in 1876.

To the south, near Westbourne Grove, lies St. Thomas's Church, a temporary iron building. Close by is a Presbyterian church named St. Paul's. It is faced with Kentish ragstone, and was consecrated 1862. In the Artesian Road is a Roman Catholic church, St. Mary of the Angels, consecrated on July 2, 1857, but since enlarged three times. The architect of the latter portions was J. F. Bentley. There is in the interior a fine painting of St. Anthony of Padua, supposed to be a genuine Murillo. The schools in connection are on the south side. In Westbourne Park Road is St. Stephen's Church. The organ is by Hill. At the north end of Westbourne Park Road are national schools.

St. Paul's Church and schools stand in Marlborough Street. The church was built in 1873, and is of earth-brick, without spire or tower. This part of Paddington is considerably cut up both by the railway and canal. Crossing the latter at the Lock Bridge, we see the Lock Hospital and Asylum standing on the west side of the road. The hospital was established in 1737, and the asylum in 1787. Adjoining the hospital is the workhouse, occupying with its infirmary about[Pg 105] 5 acres. The workhouse has 623 beds, and the infirmary 280. All the wards are here and all the paupers except the school-children. Beyond the workhouse still remain some nursery gardens, and in the continuation of the Harrow Road is a Roman Catholic church, the Church of Our Lady of Lourdes and St. Vincent de Paul, of Kentish ragstone with a wheel window in the east end. The foundation-stone was laid in 1878, and it was opened in 1882 as a private chapel. In 1893 it was opened to the public. The altar and altar-rails are of white Carrara marble inlaid with malachite. In connection with the church next door is the St. Vincent's Home for boys. This was begun by a railway clerk, and passed into the hands of the Brotherhood of St. Vincent de Paul. Lord Douglas took up the work, established the home in its present position, and built the church. In 1889 St. Joseph's Home, Enfield, was amalgamated with St. Vincent's. The home contains 100 boys, received between the years of twelve and sixteen, who are taught various trades by which to earn their own living. Further on in the Harrow Road, opposite Ashmore Road, is Emmanuel Church, built of brick in a plain Pointed style. The foundation-stone was laid in 1886. The schools in connection are next door.

The new bit of Paddington at Kensal Green requires little comment; chapels, schools, and St.[Pg 106] John's Church break the monotony of dreary streets. In fact, all this part of northern Paddington, though varying in the width of streets and the class of its houses, contains nothing of any interest. We must now return southward and eastward to what is known as Church Ward, which contains nearly all that is most interesting of old Paddington. The old parish church, named St. Mary's, stands to the north of the Harrow Road. It is a small building of earth-brick in the form of a Maltese cross, with a cupola in the centre, supposed to have been designed after a Greek model. The side fronting the road has a portico, and on the south and west walls there are curious niches formed by bricks. The interior is heavy and ugly, with a massive circular gallery running round three sides. The pulpit stands right over the central aisle, supported by the steps on one side and the reading-desk on the other, making thus a curious arch under which everyone must pass to reach the Communion rails; it is of mahogany which has been painted, and the figures of Dutch oak on the panels are supposed to be Flemish work. The church holds about 800 persons. There are many monuments and tablets on the walls, but only two worthy of note: one in memory of Mrs. Siddons, who is buried in the churchyard, on the north side of the chancel; one to Nollekens the sculptor, who[Pg 107] died 1823, on the south side of the chancel. This is a bas-relief of a man seated by the side of a pallet or bench, on which rests a woman holding a baby; behind, an angel, representing Religion, points upward. The apparently irrelevant subject excited much comment until an explanation was suggested. In the Howard Chapel of Wetherall Church, in Cumberland, there is a sculptured monument in memory of one of the ladies of the Howard family who died in childbirth. The bas-relief over Nollekens' tomb is the facsimile of this sculpture, with the exception of the male figure in the foreground. The sculpture was executed by Nollekens himself, and is supposed to be one of his masterpieces. The monument to Nollekens is, therefore, obviously representative of the sculptor himself executing this great work. The present church was built in 1791, and stands on the site of a pond. Its predecessor was dedicated to St. James, a saint to whom the present parish church has returned, and stood a little to the northward on the site of the present right of way.

But this itself was only the successor of a still more ancient building, of which Newcourt says: "As to the church here, I guess it was dedicated to St. Katharine, because, before the old church was pulled down, I observed the picture of St. Katharine to be set up in painted glass at the top of the middle panel of the east window in the[Pg 108] chancel.... The church was but small, and being very old and ruinous, was, about the year 1678, pulled down, and new-built from the ground at the cost and charges of Sir Joseph Sheldon, knight, sometime Lord Mayor of the City of London, and his brother, Mr. Daniel Sheldon, then Lessees of the Mannor of Paddington."

These Sheldons were the nephews of the Bishop Sheldon to whom the manor was restored at the Restoration in 1661. Newcourt tells us that before the Parliament had seized it the church was a donative or curacy in the gift of the Bishop of London; that the pension of the curate was but £28 per annum. This was increased by Bishop Sheldon to £80, and the larger sum was fixed by Act of Parliament, and the lessee was bound by his lease to pay the Vicar £80 a year. The first curate mentioned is one "Griffin Edwards, A.B., licentiat., December 18, 1598." The churchyard proper only comprises about 1 acre of land, but the old burial-ground, including the site of the older church, adjoins to the northward and includes 3 acres. This was laid out as a public garden in 1885. The freehold rests with the Vicar of Paddington. On the east side, above the centre pathway, is a flat stone to the memory of Mrs. Siddons, who died 1831, aged 76. On it are three glazed vases added later by the parish. In the same vault is buried Mrs. Martha Wilkin[Pg 109]son, her dresser, who died in 1847, and was laid here by her own especial request. On the west side, below the centre path, is a flat stone to the memory of one John Hubbard, who lived from 1554 to 1665, and therefore reached the patriarchal age of 111 years. The churchyard also contains the remains of Collins, an artist, who painted English coast scenery; Dr. Geddes, translator of the historical books of the Old Testament; Banks, the sculptor, 1805; Nollekens; the Marquis of Lansdowne; Vivares, the engraver, 1780. The churchyard was enlarged in 1753, when Sherlock was Bishop of London, and further in 1810, when the piece of ground at the north-east corner, which is marked on a map of the beginning of the nineteenth century "Manor House," was enclosed. To the east of the church is the famous Paddington Green, now shrunk to very small dimensions. A statue of Mrs. Siddons in white marble has been erected on Paddington Green. The statue was designed by M. Chavalliand, and executed by Messrs. Brindley. The total cost was about £450.

In Greville House, which stands on the north side of the Green, Emma, afterwards Lady Hamilton, lived for four years under the protection of the Hon. Charles Greville, to whom her mother was housekeeper. None of the other houses now standing are old enough to merit com[Pg 110]ment. Paddington House, "a handsome brick structure," built by Denis Chirac, who had been jeweller to Queen Anne, formerly stood on the east side of the Green, near to Harrow Road. He entered upon his residence here in 1753. At the corner of Church Street, on the Green, stands the Children's Hospital, a large red-brick building. The origin of this was a Free Dispensary for Sick Children, opened in 1862 in Lisson Grove by two medical men. Relief was afforded to 20,000 children during the first six years of the work, which was carried on under the management of a medical committee. In 1869 a building fund was suggested. But it was in 1881, by the earnest work of Mr. George Hanbury, that practical steps were taken for the establishment of a small hospital. In 1883 the freehold of the land at the corner of Church Street was purchased, and the buildings standing there were adapted for the purpose. Further ground was bought at the back in 1885, and an out-patient department established. In 1890, owing to the pressure of applications for in-patients, it was decided to build a new wing. However, for sanitary reasons, it was considered better to pull down the old building and entirely rebuild the hospital. The children then in the hospital were temporarily sent to Harrow, and the new building was commenced in 1894, and was reopened in June, 1895. An interesting old[Pg 111] shop at the corner of Church Street was pulled down to make way for it. It contains all modern improvements, including electric light and cooking by gas. There is an isolation ward for any infectious illness which may break out, and two large, bright wards for the ordinary patients. The walls of these are lined with glazed bricks and tiles, and one of the wards contains large tile-work pictures representing well-known fairy tales. Boys are received up to the age of twelve, and girls to fourteen years. Babes of even three and four days are admitted. The out-patients' department is entirely free, no letter of any sort being required. The payment of a nominal fee of a penny to insure genuine cases is all that is exacted. Out-patients are selected by the medical staff to become in-patients. The children look bright and well cared for; the wards are models of cleanliness and comfort. The hospital is entirely supported by voluntary contributions and subscriptions. The temporary house at Harrow has been retained as a convalescent home.

A house, No. 13, close by the hospital, is one of Dr. Stainer's Homes for Deaf and Dumb Children.

The Paddington charities may be here described. But it must be remembered that amounts where mentioned are only given in general terms, and are liable to variation.[Pg 112]

The Bread and Cheese Charity is of very ancient origin, and is said to have been founded by two maiden ladies. The bequest was in the form of land, though the name of the donors and the date of the gift are unknown. With the rents of the land bread and cheese were purchased, and thrown from the church tower to poor people on the Sunday before Christmas. The annual income arising from this source is now divided, being expended partly upon education, partly upon apprenticeship, and a certain amount upon coals and blankets to be distributed among the poor of the parish.

Johnson's Charity is a rent-charge of £1 a year, distributed in small sums among the poor of the parish. The date of this bequest is not known.

Lyon's Charity is of very ancient date—namely, 1578. It consists of an estate in Kilburn and an estate in Paddington, and is distributed among many different parishes. The greater part of the income, which, of course, varies in amount, goes to the repairing of roads.

Harvest's Charity in 1610 bequeathed an estate to the parishes of Paddington and Marylebone for repairing the highways. The income derived from this source is devoted to the above-mentioned purpose.

Dr. Compton's and Margaret Robertson's, or[Pg 113] Robinson's Charity.—This is supposed to have been partly the gift of Dr. Compton, Bishop of London. The first grant was made in 1717, which was after Dr. Compton's death, but it is possible that he promised the gift which was granted by his successor, Dr. Robinson. Lysons says "the donation was confirmed by Dr. Robinson." "The first admission to the land, the property of Margaret Robertson's Charity, was on the 18th day of April, 1721" (Charity Commissioners' Report). The same persons are trustees for both charities. The gross total income, which amounts to about £535, is distributed as follows: £321 for education purposes, £107 for apprenticing, and the same as the latter sum to be given to the poor of the parish in kind.

The Almshouse Charity.—Paddington is singularly deficient in almshouses, the only houses of the kind having been pulled down between 1860 and 1870. These stood opposite the Vestry Hall, and are mentioned below. The Almshouse Charity includes the charity of Frances King. It is described as having been mentioned first on the Court Rolls of the manor of Paddington in 1720, but Lysons, in referring to the same charity, says: "Several small almshouses were built at the parish expense in the year 1714." There were seventeen of these almshouses in all,[Pg 114] inclusive of four built by Samuel Pepys Cockerell. Two of them were used as rooms by the master and mistress of the Charity School. Some of these houses must have been pulled down previous to the year 1853, for at that date the Vestry applied for permission to pull down the twelve almshouses in the Harrow Road, considering that the estate could be more advantageously administered. It was not until 1867, however, that the order of the Court of Chancery was finally obtained, and after the demolition part of the land was let on a building lease. Another part, with a frontage to the Harrow Road, was let also on a building lease 1869. The houses erected on this are Nos. 111, 113, 115, 117, 119, Harrow Road. Frances King's Charity was £200, given by will in 1845 to be expended in coals for the inhabitants of the above-mentioned almshouses. The total income of the Almshouse Charity is somewhere about £200; of this amount the trustees pay a yearly sum of £50 to the trustees of St. Mary's School, and the remainder is applied to necessary expenses, and to pensions of £10 to £12 a year to deserving candidates in the parish.

Denis Chirac left in 1777 a sum of £100 (Report Charity Commissioners; Lysons says £138) for the benefit of the poor children of the parish. This amount, together with £120 given by[Pg 115] Baron Maseres, was applied to the building of a schoolroom. The old Charity School, still standing near the site of the almshouses, was built in 1822 upon copyhold land granted for the purpose by the Bishop. St. Mary's Schools at present stand near the spot in Church Place.

Abourne's Charity was left in 1767. It is at present £300 in stock, and produces an annual income of from £8 to £9, distributed in bread among the poor of the parish.

Simmonds' Charity consists of the dividends on £600 stock, from which an annual income of from £16 to £20 is distributed among poor women of the parish in sums of 10s. 6d.

Marion Mayne's Charity.—In 1854 Marion Mayne left a sum of money by her will for keeping in repair certain tombstones, tablets, etc., including her own, and a sum for the maintenance of Paddington Green in good order, and a sum to be expended in annuities among the poor of the parish. The present income is derived from the dividends on £6,416 1s. 7d. stock, the latest income of which is expended as directed.

Smith Charity.—Under Augustus Frederick Smith's will, proved March 19, 1881, dividends on £9,985 3s. 8d. were left to the parish. The income is between £200 and £300. This is distributed amongst poor women about sixty years[Pg 116] of age resident in Paddington, in pensions of not more than £20, or less than £10 per annum.

Following St. Mary's Terrace northwards, we see on the east side a curious little passage leading to a small Welsh chapel, an iron building. Close by the chapel stands a genuine old cottage, whitewashed and thatched, a remnant of the time when Paddington was largely composed of open ground. This cottage is said by an antiquarian authority to be several centuries old. It was granted to the Welsh congregation by the Bishop of London in 1890. Not far from this, up another narrow opening, is an old brick house with quaint red-tiled roof. This is Claremont House. It is picturesque, but has no authentic history. Opening out of St. Mary's Terrace on the east side, Howley and Fulham Places and Porteus Road recall the ownership of the Bishops of London.

We must now mention the Grand Junction Canal. When it was first opened it was the fashion to go excursions by the day on the water, a custom referred to in "Nollekens and his Times." In 1812 the Regent's Canal Company was incorporated and given authority to make and maintain a navigable canal from the Grand Junction Canal in the parish of Paddington to the river Thames in the parish of Limehouse. The canal to the Regent's Park basin was opened two years after this, but was only completed in 1820.[Pg 117] About "Paddington Basin," as it is called, are clustered many poor houses. The streets between the Harrow Road on the one side, and the basin on the other, are miserable and squalid. At the corner of Green Street is a church formerly belonging to the Catholic Apostolic community, later purchased by the Baptists, and now belonging to the Salvation Army. This is a structure of Kentish ragstone in a Gothic style with small steeple. In the Edgware Road are one or two public-houses, which, if not actually old, stand on the sites and inherit the names of famous old predecessors. The White Lion, now amalgamated with a music-hall, bears date of foundation 1524. It is said that G. Morland, the animal painter, painted a sign for this. It is No. 267. Northward, at the corner of Church Street, is the Wheatsheaf, which, says Robins, "has the credit of having frequently entertained honest and learned Ben Jonson."

The Red Lion, No. 239, a little to the north of Praed Street, claims as ancient a date. Tradition says that Shakespeare acted in one of the old wooden rooms, now vanished, and the inn boasts a haunted chamber.

In Cambridge Place is St. Mary's Hospital and Medical School. The suggestion of a hospital was discussed in 1840, but the foundation was not laid until 1843 by the late Prince Consort. The[Pg 118] building was designed to hold 380 beds, but though it has been added to from time to time it still contains less than this, a supply totally inadequate to the demand for accommodation. The first wing was opened in 1857, and contained 150 beds. In 1865 the present King laid the foundation-stone of a further wing, and in 1892 the stone of the Clarence memorial wing. By 1886 all the building land acquired by the hospital had been used, and it was found necessary to purchase other land. In 1887 negotiations were made by which the Grand Junction Canal Company agreed to sell their interest in the required land. After five years' labour and the expenditure of £48,000, the desired result was achieved, and the Clarence wing was commenced. The hospital now faces Praed Street as well as Cambridge Place, the intervening houses having been pulled down. It is a great square red-brick building with stone facings. Behind the hospital are All Saints' Schools, and to the west of them the Great Western Railway Terminus. The Act for the extension of the Great Western line to Paddington, and for the erection of a station, was dated 1836. The first station was, however, only temporary. The present one was designed by I. K. Brunel, commenced 1849, and completed in 1854. It contains three passenger platforms, and the roof is divided by columns into three great[Pg 119] spans, of which the centre one measures over 102 feet in width, and the outer ones 68 feet each. The station buildings and platforms at Paddington cover an area of 373,407 feet, but even this extent is insufficient for the railway purposes. Adjacent houses have consequently been adapted for the offices, and there is continual need for further accommodation. There are eight platform lines, and the platforms themselves are 780 feet in length. The daily passenger trains number from 250 to 300, and with the addition of excursion trains in the season the total daily average has reached 350. The diurnal number of passengers is estimated at 14,000, but high-water mark has been touched between 40,000 and 50,000. Twenty-five tons of news parcels are despatched from Paddington in one day, and nearly 3,000 mail-bags and parcels-post packages pass through the station in the same time, besides about 5,000 milk-churns. The above figures give some indication of the enormous traffic at this great terminus. The army of workers employed numbers 2,000, exclusive of the large clerical staff employed in the general department. The Great Western Hotel in a Renaissance style fronts Praed Street. It was built from 1850 to 1852, and its frontage is nearly 89 yards in length, and it is connected with the station by means of a covered way. Covered ways also connect the station with[Pg 120] Praed Street and Bishop's Road Stations of the Metropolitan Railway.

In No. 19, Warwick Crescent, Robert Browning lived for five-and-twenty years, a fact recorded by a tablet of the Society of Arts. He came here in 1862, broken down by the death of his wife, and remained until a threatened railway near the front of the house—an innovation never carried out—drove him away. We are now once more in the region where the name of Westbourne is freely used. There is Westbourne Terrace and Square, Westbourne Park Crescent and Terrace Road. Near to Park Crescent in Chichester Place is a Jewish synagogue of red brick, with ornate stone carving over doors and windows. Next door is a curiously built Primitive Methodist chapel, with bands of differently coloured bricks in relief. St. Mary Magdalene's Church and schools stand at the corner of Cirencester Street. A temporary church was first opened in 1865, and the real building in 1868. This was the work of G. E. Street, R.A., and is a compactly built church of dark-red brick, with apse and very high spire, 202 feet in height. It stands in rather a peculiar situation at the junction of three or four roads, and suits the position well.

On July 13, 1872, while workmen were still busy with the roofing, the church caught fire.[Pg 121] The damage, however, was not great. The church was finally completed in 1878. The services are High Church. The patronage is held by Keble College, Oxford, and the population of the parish is about 10,000. The ward of Maida Vale is bounded by Church ward on the south, Westbourne and Harrow Road wards on the west, and the borough boundary north and east. Between the Maida Vale Road and St. Saviour's Church in the Warwick Road there is nothing to comment on. The church of St. Saviour is in a Decorated style of Gothic. It is ornately built, with a square tower buttressed and pinnacled. The church was consecrated in 1856, and in 1883 a very fine and solidly-built chancel was added. This is faced on the interior with Cosham stone. Carved stone niches run on the north and south and on both sides of the Communion table. Some of these contain life-size statues of saints and the Apostles. A very handsome set of sanctuary lamps, after a Florentine design, hang across the chancel. In Formosa Street are the Church schools of St. Saviour's, and in Amberley Road there is a Board School. At the north of Shirland Road is a dingy brick building like a large meeting-room. This is the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Church; in it the services are held in Welsh. Across Sutherland Avenue, at the corner of Shirland Road, is a very[Pg 122] large brick building faced with red brick, which has two doorways with porticos supported by columns with ornamented capitals. This is a Wesleyan Methodist chapel, built in 1876. The schools in connection are beneath the chapel. Further northward in the Shirland Road is a large brick building with two entrances. This is the Wordsworth Ladies' College and a branch of the Kilburn Orphanage. It was built in the year 1887 for both purposes, and there is no interior division between the college and home. The orphans are only kept here until nine years of age, when they are passed on to the Central Home. The Kilburn Sisters have patented a form of cot surrounded with wire to prevent the very little ones from falling out in their sleep. The room where there are rows upon rows of these cots with head curtains is a very curious spectacle, though it certainly suggests the desirability of further accommodation. The college has large class-rooms and a studio for art students. Some students board here, but the greater number attend daily. The terms are very low—fifteen shillings a week, including board, lodging, and tuition. The college is intended to assist girls desirous of passing the Government examinations as elementary school teachers. Almost immediately opposite the college is a small brick Baptist chapel, considerably below the level of the road.[Pg 123] In Elgin Avenue there is a school of the Girls' Public Day School Company. On either side of Elgin Avenue are large spaces of open ground used by market-gardeners and others. To the north lies Paddington Recreation Ground, with cricket, football, and tennis grounds, running and cycling tracks. Beyond this, in the most northerly part of the borough, is the Kilburn Orphanage. This was begun in 1875 in two houses in the Kilburn Park Road, but funds were raised for building purposes, and in 1880 the present orphanage was completed. The Sisters themselves supplied quite half of the money required. The rule of the Sisterhood is that, though each retains control of her own capital, her income goes into the common fund. The orphanage is a large red-brick building standing in Randolph Gardens. The western wing, now connected with the main building, was added later, and the chapel last of all; it was not completed until about 1890. The chapel is well fitted up, and the whole building has an air of comfort and warmth in the interior. The passages are paved with tessellated pavement, and the floors of the large schoolrooms are of parquet. This is only one of the orphanage homes. There is a large establishment at Broadstairs, which is partly a home for convalescents and partly for orphans; and another at Margate; a relief home for[Pg 124] little ones, already mentioned, in the Shirland Road; and homes for boys at Brondesbury, Oxford, and elsewhere. In Burwood Place there are printing-offices and workshops connected with the orphanage, entirely managed by the boys. During the last few years there has been much discussion on the methods of the orphanage, and several charges have been brought against the Sisters, of which the chief are: (1) Want of business method and properly audited accounts; (2) injudicious methods: advertising for illegitimate children without inquiry, to the encouragement of vice; (3) receiving payment with such children, when the foundation was intended for the absolutely destitute; (4) repudiation of all external control, evidenced by deposing the Archbishop of Canterbury from his post of patron when he attempted inquiry. These offences seem to have been chiefly the result of mismanagement, not deliberately wrought, and might be condoned. The orphanage receives children from the workhouse under five years of age, and also foundlings. The community comprises about 160 Sisters, of which many are abroad. The orphan girls are trained in domestic work, and do all their own work in the home. They do not leave until they are nineteen or twenty years of age.

Adjoining the orphanage is the large red-brick church of St. Augustine. This is a remarkable[Pg 125] church both inside and out. It was designed by J. L. Pearson, who thereby obtained the distinction of adding the letters R.A. to his name. Through this building he also obtained the commission to build Truro Cathedral. The church, as above stated, is of red brick, in the first Pointed style, with long lancet windows. At the four corners are four Pointed towers enriched with stonework. The centre steeple has never been added, for want of funds, though the foundations for it are deeply laid. The interior is very picturesque. There is a triforium formed by the bays of the arches carried up from the centre aisle. The roof is groined, and the chancel-screen, pulpit, walls of the chancel, and the reredos are all stonework, with niches fitted with stone figures. In the transeptal chapels are some fine oil paintings executed on brick; that in the south chapel is the work of a prize pupil of the Royal Academy. The church was built entirely owing to the exertions of the present vicar, Mr. Kirkpatrick, who himself contributed largely. An iron church on the same site was erected in 1870, and was so constructed that the present building could be built over and enclose it; therefore service was never interrupted for one day during the process. In 1871 the greater part of the church was built, and in 1877 the nave was opened. It was completed in 1880.[Pg 126]

There is very little of interest in the remaining part of the district. St. Peter's Church, Elgin Avenue, was consecrated on August 12, 1872. The church is built of Kentish ragstone, and is in a plain Early English style, with an apse at the east end. The square tower, surmounted by a short steeple, was added a few years later. The pillars are of polished Aberdeen granite. St. Peter's National Schools lie to the south in Chippenham Road. In Fernhead Road there is a Wesleyan chapel, built in an ornate style with two square towers. Further north, just within the borough boundary, is St. Luke's Church, built of brick, with schools attached. This was consecrated in January, 1877, and is in a severe Gothic style.

INDEX

THE END

Transcriber's Note:

The following errors in the original index have been corrected.

Radcliffe, Mrs., 74 was Redcliffe, Mrs., and appeared between Reay and Reid.
Savile Club, 52 was Savill Club, 52
Stratford de Redclyffe, Lord, 13 was Stratford de Redcliffe, Lord, 13
Stratheden, Lord, 37 was Strathden, Lord, 37

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The Project Gutenberg eBook, Mayfair, Belgravia, and Bayswater, by Geraldine Edith Mitton, Edited by Sir Walter Besant

E-text prepared by Susan Skinner
and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
(http://www.pgdp.net)

THE FASCINATION
OF LONDON

MAYFAIR, BELGRAVIA, AND
BAYSWATER

IN THIS SERIES.

The Fascination of London

MAYFAIR,
BELGRAVIA AND
BAYSWATER

PREFATORY NOTE

MAYFAIR, BELGRAVIA, AND BAYSWATER

PADDINGTON
By G. E. Mitton

Derivation.

History.

Perambulations.

INDEX

THE END

Transcriber's Note:

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Mayfair, Belgravia, and Bayswater, by Geraldine Edith Mitton, Edited by Sir Walter Besant

E-text prepared by Susan Skinner and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)

THE FASCINATION OF LONDON MAYFAIR, BELGRAVIA, AND BAYSWATER

IN THIS SERIES.

The Fascination of London

MAYFAIR, BELGRAVIA AND BAYSWATER

PREFATORY NOTE

MAYFAIR, BELGRAVIA, AND BAYSWATER

PADDINGTON By G. E. Mitton

Derivation.

History.

Perambulations.

INDEX

THE END

Transcriber's Note:

E-text prepared by Susan Skinner
and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
(http://www.pgdp.net)

THE FASCINATION
OF LONDON

MAYFAIR, BELGRAVIA, AND
BAYSWATER

MAYFAIR,
BELGRAVIA AND
BAYSWATER

PADDINGTON
By G. E. Mitton