Part 1
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LONDON
AND ITS
ENVIRONS
DESCRIBED.
VOL. I.
LONDON
AND ITS
ENVIRONS DESCRIBED.
CONTAINING
An Account of whatever is most remarkable for GRANDEUR, ELEGANCE, CURIOSITY or USE,
In the CITY and in the COUNTRY Twenty Miles round it.
COMPREHENDING ALSO
Whatever is most material in the History and Antiquities of this great Metropolis.
Decorated and illustrated with a great Number of Views in Perspective, engraved from original Drawings, taken on purpose for this Work.
Together with a PLAN of LONDON, A Map of the ENVIRONS, and several other useful CUTS.
In SIX VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
LONDON: Printed for R. and J. DODSLEY in Pall-Mall.
M DCC LXI.
TO HIS
ROYAL HIGHNESS
GEORGE,
PRINCE OF WALES,
THIS WORK IS MOST HUMBLY INSCRIBED, BY
HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS’s
MOST DEVOTED
AND OBEDIENT
HUMBLE SERVANTS,
THE PROPRIETORS.
PREFACE.
IT is hoped that the great variety of new, useful, curious and entertaining articles which will be found in the following work, will entitle it to a favourable reception from the public. No pains nor expence have been spared to give it as much accuracy and perfection as the nature of such a work will admit of. And though we do not flatter ourselves that it will be absolutely free from errors or imperfections, yet we doubt not but the candid reader will find so much to commend, that he will easily be inclined to excuse some unavoidable deficiencies.
The Environs of London, though they contain many of the most remarkable seats and places in the kingdom, have never before been included in any account of that metropolis; and we are persuaded, that the most intelligent enquirer will here find numberless curiosities, not hitherto taken notice of by any other writers: besides, we have not only been particular in our descriptions of whatever is remarkable twenty miles round; but to assist his observation, we have added a map, which we flatter ourselves will be found to have some advantages over any other that has yet appeared. This map, and these descriptions, will serve both as a guide and an instructor to the travelling Virtuosi, whether natives or foreigners, in their little excursions to any part of these delightfully adorned and richly cultivated environs.
In order to render the knowledge of this metropolis as complete as possible, we have necessarily been obliged, in conformity with our plan, to treat of what may to some appear little and uninteresting, as well as of what is great and important. Among these the citizens are particularly interested in knowing the extent and limits of the wards in which they reside: and it was absolutely necessary to mention in their proper places all the several companies that compose their whole body: and as every inhabitant of the kingdom may, at one time or another, have occasion to visit or write to their friends or relations residing in this great city, the names and situation of all the several streets, lanes, rows, courts, yards and allies could not be omitted. With regard to these an ingenious gentleman has furnished us with a key, which has let us into the origin of many of their names; and this part of our work is farther illustrated by a new and correct plan.
The prints with which the whole is decorated, are all engraved by the best hands, after original drawings, which were taken on purpose for this work, from the several objects themselves, at a very great expence; and we imagine they will not only be considered as an ornament, but that they will be found of use in illustrating the verbal descriptions.
We beg leave in this place to make our grateful acknowledgments to several of the nobility and gentry, who have been pleased to favour us on this occasion with lists and accounts of their pictures, curiosities, &c. which have greatly enriched and added a value to our work; and being entirely new, cannot but be acceptable to the public.
LONDON
AND ITS
ENVIRONS
DESCRIBED, &c.
† _Those with this mark generally derived their name from the ground landlord, who built the street, lane, or alley, &c._
* _From signs._
☐ _From neighbouring places, as churches, &c._
‡ _From trees formerly growing there._
║ _From ridicule._
§ _From their situation, as backwards, forwards, with respect to other streets._
A
ABBEY _Church of St. Peter’s, Westminster_. Many have been the fables invented and propagated by the monks, relating to the original foundation of this ancient edifice; but the most probable account is given by those who place it under Sebert, King of the East Saxons, who died in 616. These say, that this Prince being converted to christianity by Austin’s discourses, and his uncle Ethelbert’s example, erected this church on the ruins of a temple dedicated to Apollo, in the island of Thorney, and caused Mellitus, Bishop of London, to consecrate it to St. Peter.
As many ridiculous miracles have been related of its foundation, it is the less surprizing that its dedication should also be represented as miraculous, and that St. Peter himself, five hundred years after his decease, should be represented by the monks, as doing honour to the new fabric, by performing the ceremony himself. For according to the legend, the King having ordered Mellitus to perform the ceremony, St. Peter over-night called upon Edricus, a fisherman, and desired to be ferried over to Thorney, which happened to be then overflowed by the heavy rains that had lately fallen; the fisherman consented, and having carried over the Apostle, he saw him consecrate the church amidst a grand chorus of celestial music, and a glorious appearance of heavenly lights. After which the Apostle returning, discovered himself to the fisherman, and bid him tell Mellitus what he had heard and seen, and as a proof of his divine mission, gave him a miraculous draught of salmon, and then assured him, that none of his profession should ever want that kind of fish in the proper season, provided they made an offering of the tenth fish for the use of the new church; which custom, it seems, was continued by the fishermen four hundred years after.
This church and its monastery were afterwards repaired and enlarged by Offa, King of Mercia, but being destroyed by the Pagan Danes, they were rebuilt by King Edgar, who endowed them with lands and manors, and in the year 969 granted them many ample privileges.
The church and monastery having again suffered by the ravages of the Danes, were again rebuilt by Edward the Confessor, who pulled down the old church, and erected a most magnificent one, for that age, in its room, in the form of a cross, which afterwards became a pattern for that kind of building. The work being finished in the year 1065, he caused it to be consecrated with the greatest pomp and solemnity, and by several charters not only confirmed all its ancient rights and privileges, but endowed it with many rich manors, and additional immunities: ordained that all its lands and possessions, should be subject to none but its own jurisdiction, and the convent be free from the authority of the Bishop of London; and the church, by a bull of Pope Nicholas I. was constituted the place for the inauguration of the Kings of England. In short, he gave it a charter of sanctuary, in which he declares, that any person whatsoever, let his crimes be ever so great, who takes sanctuary in that holy place, shall be assured of life, liberty, and limbs, and that none of his ministers, nor those of his successors, should seize any of his goods, lands or possessions, under pain of everlasting damnation, and that whoever presumed to act contrary to this grant, should lose his name, worship, dignity, and power, and with the traitor Judas, be in the everlasting fire of hell. This was the pious language of St. Edward the Confessor, and from this charter, Westminster Abbey became an asylum for traitors, murderers, robbers, and the most abandoned miscreants, who lived there in open defiance of the laws.
This, and King Edward’s other charters, in which he recites the ridiculous story of its consecration by St. Peter, as above related, its destruction by the Danes, the grants and privileges of his predecessors, and those bestowed by himself, drew people thither from all parts, so that in a short time there was not sufficient room in the Abbey church for the accommodation of the numerous inhabitants, without incommoding the monks; he therefore caused a church to be erected on the north side of the monastery, for the use of the inhabitants, and dedicated it to St. Margaret.
William the Conqueror, to shew his regard to the memory of his late friend King Edward, no sooner arrived in London, than he repaired to this church, and offered a sumptuous pall, as a covering for his tomb; he also gave fifty marks of silver, together with a very rich altar cloth, and two caskets of gold; and the Christmas following was solemnly crowned there, his being the first coronation performed in that place.
The next Prince who improved this great work, was Henry III. who in the year 1200 began to erect a new chapel to the blessed Virgin; but about twenty years after, finding the walls and steeple of the old structure much decayed, he pulled them all down, with a design to enlarge, and rebuild them in a more regular manner; but he did not live to accomplish this great work, which was not compleated till 1285, about fourteen years after his decease. And this is the date of the building as it now stands.
About the year 1502, King Henry began that magnificent structure which is now generally called by his name; for this purpose, he pulled down the chapel of Henry III. already mentioned, and an adjoining house called the White Rose Tavern; this chapel, like the former, he dedicated to the blessed Virgin, and designing it for a burial place for himself and his posterity, he carefully ordered in his will, that none but those of royal blood should be permitted to lie there.
At length on the general suppression of religious houses, the Abbey was surrendered to Henry VIII. by William Benson, the Abbot, and seventeen of the monks, in the year 1539, when its revenues amounted to 3977_l._ 6_s._ 4_d._ ¾ _per annum_, a sum at least equal to 20,000_l._ a year at present. Besides its furniture, which was of inestimable value, it had in different parts of the kingdom, no less than two hundred, and sixteen manors, seventeen hamlets, and ninety-seven towns and villages. And tho’ the Abbey was only the second in rank, yet in all other respects it was the chief in the kingdom; and its Abbots having episcopal jurisdiction, had a seat in the house of Lords.
The Abbey thus dissolved, that Prince erected first into a college of secular Canons, under the government of a Dean, an honour which he chose to confer on the last Abbot. This establishment, however, was of no long duration, for two years after he converted it into a bishopric, which was dissolved nine years after by Edward VI. who restored the government by a Dean, which continued till Mary’s accession to the crown; when she, in 1557, restored it to its ancient conventual state; but Queen Elizabeth again ejected the monks, and in 1560 erected Westminster Abbey into a college, under the government of a Dean, and twelve secular Canons or Prebendaries, a Schoolmaster, Usher, and forty Scholars, denominated the Queen’s, to be educated in the liberal sciences preparatory to the university, and to have all the necessaries of life, except cloathing, of which they were to have only a gown every year. To this foundation also belong choristers, singing-men, an organist, twelve almsmen, &c.
The Abbey church, which was stripped of many of its decorations by Henry VIII. and was much damaged both within and without during the unhappy civil commotions that defaced the ancient beauty of most of the religious houses in this kingdom, has continued from the death of Henry VII. almost to the present time, without any other considerable repairs, and was gradually falling to ruin, when the Parliament interposed, and ordered a thorough reparation at the national expence.
This venerable fabric has been accordingly new coated on the outside, except that part called Henry the Seventh’s chapel, which is indeed a separate building: and the west end has been adorned with two new stately towers that have been lately rebuilt, in such a manner as to be thought equal in point of workmanship to any part of the ancient building; but though such pains have been taken in the coating, to preserve the ancient Gothic grandeur, that this church in its distant prospect has all the venerable majesty of its former state, yet the beautiful carving with which it was once adorned, is irretrievably lost; the buttresses, once capped with turrets, are now made in plain pyramidical forms, and topped with freestone; and the statues of our ancient Kings that formerly stood in niches, near the tops of those buttresses, are for the most part removed, and their broken fragments lodged in the roof of Henry the Seventh’s chapel. Three of these statues are still standing next the towers on the north side, and indeed that is the only side where you can take a view of the Abbey, the other side being so incumbered with buildings, that even its situation cannot be distinguished.
What next to the new towers principally engages the attention on the outside, is the Gothic portico which leads into the north cross, which by some has been stiled _the Beautiful_, or _Solomon’s Gate_. This was probably built by Richard II. as his arms carved in stone was formerly over the gate. It has been lately beautified, and over it is a new window admirably well executed. Besides these there is little in the outward appearance capable of engaging the attention, and its principal beauties are to be found within.
The author of the work entitled _English Architecture_, seems to prefer the Gothic to the Grecian architecture, as most suited to the purposes of devotion, and gives this edifice as an instance, “There is in it, says he, a majesty and grandeur, a sedate, and if we may so speak, religious dignity, which immediately strikes the imagination; and never failed to impress on the most insensible observer, that holy awe which should attend, and which always disposes the mind to devotion.” But this holy awe, thus mechanically incited, would be as friendly to Paganism as to Christianity; and indeed, this awe is so far from being holy, that it is a thing entirely distinct from rational piety and devotion, and may be felt without any inclination to enter the choir.
Indeed the multiplicity of puerile ornaments profusely lavished, the strong and beautiful perspective, and that romantic air of grandeur so visible in this structure, and above all the height of the middle isle at our first entrance, fill the eye, strike us in a very forcible manner, and at once raise our admiration and astonishment. To which let it be added, that the ranges of venerable monuments on each hand, some of them most magnificent, have a natural tendency to strike the mind with an uncommon degree of solemnity, and to raise the most serious reflections.
The extent of the building is very considerable; for it is 360 feet within the walls, at the nave it is 72 feet broad, and at the cross 195. The Gothic arches and side isles are supported by 48 pillars of grey marble, each composed of clusters of very slender ones, and covered with ornaments. The moment you enter the west door the whole body of the church opens itself at once to your view, the pillars dividing the nave from the side isles being so formed as not to obstruct the side openings, nor is your sight terminated to the east, but by the fine painted window over Edward the Confessor’s chapel, which anciently, when the altar was low, and adorned with the beautiful shrine of that pretended saint, must have afforded one of the finest prospects that can be imagined.
The pillars are terminated to the east by a sweep, enclosing the chapel of Edward the Confessor, in a kind of semicircle. And it is worthy of observation, that as far as the gates of the choir, the pillars are filletted with brass, but all beyond with stone. Answering to the middle range of pillars, there are others in the wall, which as they rise, spring into semiarches, and are every where met in acute angles by their opposites, and meeting in the roof are adorned with a variety of carvings. On the arches of the pillars are galleries of double columns fifteen feet wide, covering the side isles, and enlightened by a middle range of windows, over which there is an upper range of larger windows, and by these, together with the four capital windows, facing the north, east, south and west, the whole fabric is so admirably enlightened, that in the day you are never dazzled with its brightness, nor incommoded by its being too dark. But before we leave these capital windows, which are all finely painted, it is necessary to observe, that in the great west window is a curious painting of Edward III. to the left of which in a smaller window is a painting of one of our Kings, supposed to be Richard II. but the colours being of a water blue the features of the face cannot be distinguished. On the other side the great window is a lively representation of Edward the Confessor in his robes, and under his feet are painted his arms. At the bottom of the walls between the pillars are shallow niches, arched about eight or ten feet high, on which the arms of the original benefactors are depicted, and over them are their titles, &c. but these are almost all concealed by the monuments of the dead placed before them, many of which are extremely noble, and which we shall particularly examine after having gone through the several parts of the edifice.
After viewing the open part of the church, the next thing to be seen is the choir, which can only be done during the times of divine service. The grand entrance into it is by a pair of fine iron gates, on each side of which is a very magnificent tomb. The floor is paved with the finest black and white marble. The ancient stalls are covered with Gothic acute arches, supported by small iron pillars, and are painted purple; but what is most worthy of observation, is an ancient portrait near the pulpit, of Richard II. sitting in a gilt chair, dressed in a green vest flowered with gold, with gold shoes powdered with pearls. This piece is six feet eleven inches in length, and three feet seven inches in breadth; but the lower part is much defaced.
The next thing worthy of observation is the fine altar enclos’d with a curious balustrade, within which is a pavement of mosaic work, laid at the expence of Abbot Ware, in the year 1272, and is said to be one of the most beautiful of its kind in the world: the stones of which it is composed are porphyry, jasper, lydian and serpentine. The altar is a beautiful piece of marble, removed from Whitehall, and presented to this church by order of her majesty Queen Anne. On each side of the altar are doors, opening into St. Edward’s chapel.
_Of the several Chapels in Westminster Abbey._ Besides that of Henry VII. which, as we have already observed, is a separate building, and will therefore be mentioned by itself when we have finished our survey of the Abbey, there are ten chapels, round that of St. Edward the Confessor, which stands as it were in the center, and, as has been said, is inclosed in the body of the church, at the east end of the choir, behind the altar; these, beginning from the north cross, and passing round to the south cross, are in the following order: St. Andrew’s, St. Michael’s, St. John the Evangelist’s, Islip’s chapel, St. John the Baptist’s, St. Paul’s, Henry the Fifth’s, St. Nicholas’s, St. Edmund’s, and St. Benedict’s.
_The Chapel of St. Edward._ The first curiosity that here fixes our attention, is the ancient shrine erected by Henry III. upon the canonization of Edward King of England, the third of that name before the conquest, and the last of the Saxon race; a Prince who owed the title of Confessor and Saint, to the vast sums he bestowed on the church, and the sollicitations of the monks, than to his own personal merit: for he was a bad son, a bad husband, and so bad a king, that he shewed greater favour to the Normans than to his own people, and by his folly prepared the way for the conquest. He died in the year 1066, and was canonized by Pope Alexander III. in 1269. This shrine, which was once esteemed the glory of England, is now much defaced and neglected. It was composed of stones of various colours, beautifully enriched with all the cost that art could devise. No sooner was it erected, than the wealth of the kingdom flowed to it from all quarters. Henry III. set the first example, though he afterwards made use of the jewels and treasure he offered there, to defray the charges of an expedition into France. Before this shrine was a lamp kept continually burning, on one side stood a silver image of the blessed Virgin, which with two jewels of immense value, were presented by Queen Eleanor, the wife of Henry III. on the other side stood another image of the Virgin Mary, wrought in ivory, presented by Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury. Here also Edward I. offered the Scots regalia and chair, in which the kings of Scotland used to be crowned, which is still preserved and shewn to all strangers. And about the year 1280, Alphonso, third son to the last mentioned king, offered here the golden coronet of Llewellyn, Prince of Wales, and other jewels; but it would almost fill a volume to enumerate the offerings made at this shrine. Yet it is now so stripped as to afford no satisfaction, except to the curious; however some of the stone-work with which it is adorned, is still to be seen. This stone-work is hollow within, and now incloses a large chest, which Mr. Keep, soon after the coronation of James II. found to contain the remains of St. Edward; for it being broken by accident, he discovered a number of bones, and turning them up, found a crucifix, richly ornamented and enamell’d with a gold chain of twenty inches long, both which he presented to his Majesty, who ordered the bones to be replaced in the old coffin, and enclosed in a new one made very strong, and clamp’d with iron.