CHAPTER VIII

WANDSWORTH, PUTNEY, BARNES, AND OTHER SOUTHERN SUBURBS

A century ago a charming little hamlet, traversed by the limpid stream of the Wandle, after which it is named, and surrounded on every side by breezy undulating commons, the thriving, bustling, and, in its poorer quarters, somewhat squalid town of Wandsworth has now little that is attractive about it except two or three ancient mills which, with the tawny-sailed barges, generally grouped at the mouth of the river that here joins the Thames, present a really picturesque appearance. There is, moreover, something dignified about the massive eighteenth-century church of All Saints in the modern High Street, and it contains several interesting monuments, notably one to Alderman Smith, a native of Wandsworth, whose memory, though he passed away as long ago as 1627, is still held dear in the neighbourhood, for he bequeathed large sums of money for the relief of the poor, and also for giving them work, proving his recognition of the importance of the problem of the unemployed, which {173} public-spirited philanthropists had evidently much at heart even at that early date.

Wandsworth is unfortunately associated with but few important historic memories, but towards the end of the seventeenth century many French Protestants, who had fled to England after the massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve, took refuge in it, and in the Huguenots' cemetery, just outside the town on the way to Clapham, are several tombstones marking their burial-places. Later, the exiled Voltaire was for three years the guest at Wandsworth, in a mansion now destroyed, of Sir Everard Fawkener; and the famous novelist, George Eliot, lived for some time in a house in Southfields, still distinguished by a vine growing on it planted by her.

In 1792 was founded in the neighbouring hamlet of Garratt, now absorbed in Wandsworth, the club for checking encroachments on the common, that for several years enjoyed some little fame through the addresses of the candidates for election having been written by the witty dramatist, Samuel Foote, who made the Mayor of Garratt the hero of a popular comedy, the great actor, David Garrick, and the versatile patriot, John Wilkes. Through the instrumentality of this gifted trio a purely local question was turned to account to bring forcibly before the public the abuses that attended the election of members of Parliament, but unfortunately the Garratt ceremony degenerated by degrees into an occasion for mob meetings characterised by riotous behaviour, the candidates being chosen, not on account of their fitness for the dignity to be {174} conferred on them, but for some accidental reason, such as a personal deformity or a caustic wit. The rowdy scenes that took place at these mock elections were immortalised in a series of clever etchings by the celebrated mezzotint engraver, Valentine Green, and the names of Sir John Harper, Sir Jeffrey Dunstan, and Sir Harry Dunstable, none of whom had any right to the titles they assumed, are still remembered as 'mayors' who successively held office. In 1796 the elections were suppressed, and the Garratt Club ceased to exist, but early in the nineteenth century the work it had inaugurated was completed by the purchase for the public of all that was still left of the once vast Wandsworth Common.

[Sidenote: Putney]

Though it has grown during the last fifty years as rapidly as Wandsworth, the adjacent suburb of Putney, thanks to its fine situation on the main stream of the Thames, has retained a distinction that is wanting to its neighbour on the Wandle. It is, moreover, in close touch with much beautiful scenery, and is associated with the names of many men who have left their mark in history and in literature. True, the ancient church, supposed to have been founded early in the fourteenth century, in which, according to tradition, Cromwell and his generals several times met to hold council during the Civil War, was, with the exception of the tower, replaced by a modern building in 1836; many a noble riverside mansion has been pulled down; and the quaint old wooden bridge, on which the tolls were long levied by collectors wearing blue cloth costumes and armed with copper-headed staves, {175} was improved away in 1886 when the present solid structure was completed, but the view across the river to Fulham, and up and down stream, remains full of charm. The grand water highway that has witnessed so many historic pageants is alive, for the greater part of the year, with a great variety of picturesque crafts, and the towing-path on the Surrey side is the scene of constant activity in the spring and summer, for Putney is still the headquarters of boating men, and it has for a long spell of years been the starting-point of the world-famous Oxford and Cambridge boat-race witnessed by thousands of spectators, whilst in 1906 took place, over the same course, the contest between the Cambridge and Harvard crews that excited, if possible, an even greater amount of interest.

At a very early date Putney was included in the manor of Wimbledon, and is referred to in the Doomsday Survey as Putenhei, a name supposed to mean the landing-place, that was changed to Puttenheth before it was contracted into its present form. A local tradition, however, explains the word Putney in another and somewhat amusing fashion. The original parish churches of Fulham and Putney, that greatly resembled each other, were, it is related, built with their own hands by two sisters who had but one set of tools between them. They therefore took it in turns to use them, flinging them across the river to each other, the Fulham builder crying out, for instance, when she wanted the hammer, to heave it full home, the Putney one, when her turn came, shouting--'Put it nigh.' Whatever explanation of {176} its name be adopted it seems certain that even before the Conquest the hamlet of Putenhei was a place of some little importance, for the last of the Saxon kings had a fishery there, and also owned the ferry that existed long before the erection of the wooden bridge alluded to above, and was valued at 20s. a year. Harold's immediate successor as holder of the property was Archbishop Lanfranc of Canterbury, who paid no toll for crossing the river, but later it became customary for the lord of the manor to exact the payment of several salmon from the lessee of the fishery for the right of landing the spoil of the river on the Putney side, and up to the middle of the seventeenth century the three best salmon in every haul taken in March, April, and May were delivered at the manor-house of Wimbledon. About 1786, however, a money payment was substituted for value in kind, the amount varying from six to eight pounds per season until 1786, when for some unexplained reason, probably because of the decrease in the amount of fish taken, the landlord waived his right to tolls of any kind. For another thirty years, however, it was compulsory to present to the Lord Mayor of London all sturgeons or porpoises caught, the fishermen receiving one guinea for each of the former and thirteen shillings for each of the latter.

The Putenhei ferry continued to yield what was then considered a considerable revenue for many centuries, and a fine of 2s. 6d. was inflicted on any waterman who failed to exact a halfpenny from every stranger and a farthing from every inhabitant of Putney who availed himself of his services. In {177} 1611 two delinquents, one hailing from Fulham, the other from Kingston, were summoned for carrying across divers persons at and near Kingston and Putney against the custom, and to the annoyance and prejudice of the owners of the common ferry, 'and having pleaded guilty and expressed contrition, they were, very much to their own surprise, let off with a reprimand.'

In 1727 the last owners of the ferry, Dr. Pethward and William Skelton, sold their rights to the custodians of the new bridge for £7999, 19s. 11d., the latter giving a further sum to the lady of the manor, the Duchess of Marlborough, for her share in the property, and £23 to the then Bishop of London, who, in virtue of his office, enjoyed the privilege of free passage of the river. Long before the eighteenth century, however, the need of some safer mode of transit was felt, for as traffic increased many accidents took place, through the upsetting of the ferry barges, collisions, etc. About 1629, for instance, Bishop Laud, lately appointed to the see of London, was nearly drowned with his whole suite when on his way one dark evening from Putney to his palace at Fulham, and for this reason he strongly advocated the building of a bridge, but more pressing affairs prevented him from taking any definite steps in the matter. When in 1642 the twin villages of Putney and Fulham were for the first time united by the temporary bridge of boats thrown across the river, after the battle of Brentford, by the Earl of Essex, Laud had left his palace at Fulham for the last time, for he was in the Tower awaiting the {178} issue of his protracted trial. One of the forts that protected the linked lighters and barges, by means of which the defeated Parliamentary army passed over from Middlesex to Surrey, eager to retrieve the disaster at Brentford, is still standing, about five hundred yards below the present bridge, but the connection between the two banks was of course destroyed as soon as it had served its purpose, and it was not until 1871 that a bill was brought before Parliament for building a bridge to replace the ancient Putenhei ferry. It was, however, rejected by thirteen votes, and the reasons given for their opposition by the dissentients throw a singular light on the ignorance and prejudice of men sufficiently well educated to have secured election to the national assembly. The member for London, for instance, declared that 'a bridge so far up stream would not only injure and jeopardise the great and important city he had the honour to represent, and destroy its commerce, but would actually annihilate it altogether,' adding 'not even common wherries would be able to pass the river at low water, and would not only affect the interests of his majesty's government, but those of the nation at large.' This remarkable opinion was endorsed by the Lord Mayor of London, who believed 'that the piles of a bridge would stop the tide altogether,' and by Sir William Thompson, a truly typical Conservative, who went so far as to assert that if the bridge were built quicksands and shelves would be created through the whole course of the river ... and not a ship would be able to get nearer London than Woolwich. The limits of {179} London,' he added, 'were set by the wisdom of our ancestors, and God forbid they should ever be altered.' This remarkable speech was delivered at a time when the rebuilding of the metropolis, after the Great Fire, was actively proceeding, and the most casual observer could not fail to realise how utterly inadequate to avert a catastrophe had been the wisdom of those who had set limits respected neither by the powers of nature nor by man. The city was indeed at that very time in the throes of a new birth; its old boundaries had been swept away, and out of the ashes of the picturesque but plague-haunted town of the past was rising up a new capital that was ere long to send forth outshoots in every direction, and eventually to absorb not only reluctant Putney, but many hamlets and villages even further afield than it.

Another fifty years were to pass away before the bridge between Putney and Fulham was actually built, and according to tradition it was George II., when Prince of Wales, who brought about what was then considered an extraordinary innovation, impelled thereto by the inconvenience to which he was put when hunting in the Surrey forests an incidental illustration of the great change that has taken place since the sites of Putney, Wimbledon, Barnes, and Richmond were the haunts of wild animals that used to go down to the river to drink, and if sorely pressed in the chase, were able to swim over to the further side. Sir Robert Walpole, father of the more celebrated Horace, was entrusted with the onerous task of carrying {180} a bill through Parliament authorising the construction of the bridge, which was begun in 1727 and completed in 1729. It very quickly justified the predictions of its promoters, for in 1731 the revenue yielded by the tolls amounted to £1500 a year, a sum that was nearly doubled by the beginning of the nineteenth century. The tolls were not remitted until 1880, by which time the bridge was already in so lamentable a state of decay that it had to be pulled down. It was replaced by the present structure, which, though it cannot be called a work of art, has nothing unsightly about it, a commendation that cannot, unfortunately, be extended to the aqueduct of the Chelsea Waterworks that spans the stream a little higher up, and has done more to spoil the picturesque appearance of Fulham and Putney than anything else.

Connected with the parish church of Putney, which, as already stated, was rebuilt in 1836, is a gem of early sixteenth-century architecture, a little chapel with a beautiful fan tracery roof, built by Bishop West of Ely, who was the son of a baker of Putney, and greatly loved his native place. The chapel originally stood on the south of the chancel, but when the restoration of the main building took place it was carefully removed to its present position, and is still practically what it was when first completed, though the ancient window-frames have been filled in with modern stained glass. Unfortunately, some of the quaint monuments that were in the old church have been destroyed, but its {181} successor still retains some interesting tombs with characteristic laudatory inscriptions, including those of Richard Lister, some time Lord Mayor of London, and his wife Margaret Diggs, and of Philadelphia Palmer, whilst in the Bishop's Chapel is a noteworthy brass to the memory of John Welbeck and his wife.

Less than a century ago Putney still owned many an historic mansion standing in its own grounds, including the so-called Palace, Fairfax House, Essex House, Windsor Lodge, and Putney House, but they have all, alas, been demolished, as has also the no less interesting gabled cottage by the riverside in which Henry VIII.'s hated minister Thomas Cromwell was born, and the more important Lime Grove House, standing well back from the village on the road to Wimbledon, in which the great historian Edward Gibbon first saw the light. Fortunately, however, their sites can still be identified, and are even now, to some extent, haunted by the memory of the great names associated with them. The palace, built about the end of the fifteenth century, and now represented by River Street and River Terrace, was a place of no little note, and was connected with the one occupied by the Bishop of London by a subterranean passage. Long the seat of the Waldeck family, the palace was owned in the reign of Elizabeth by Mr. John Lacy, a wealthy cloth-merchant, who several times entertained the maiden queen in it. Her first visit took place in 1579, and her last in 1603, when she was on her way to her beloved palace at Richmond, where she {182} died two months later. To the Putney Palace came also her successor James I., just before his coronation, and thirty-nine years later it was for a time the headquarters of one of his son's most bitter enemies, General Lord Fairfax, who had succeeded the Earl of Essex in command of the Parliamentary army that was encamped at Putney during the three months of 1647 when Charles I. was a prisoner at Hampton Court. The mansion was then the property of the High Sheriff, Mr. Wymonsold, and after the Restoration it changed hands many times. Early in the nineteenth century the property was thrown into Chancery, and sold to a gentleman whose name, fortunately perhaps for his memory, has not been preserved, for he showed no appreciation for the associations connected with the beautiful old house, but had it pulled down to make room for totally uninteresting buildings. The only still existing relics of the palace are the iron entrance-gates, that were often flung open to admit Queen Elizabeth and her retinue, which were bought by a brush manufacturer of Putney, by whose descendants they are prized as heirlooms.

Fairfax House, named, not as is generally taken for granted, after the Parliamentarian leader, but a private gentleman, was until quite recently one of the most noteworthy features of the High Street, and the lawn overshadowed by trees, said to have been planted by Bishop Juxon in the happy days before his royal master's troubles began, is still in existence. Essex House, that stood not far from Fairfax House, is generally supposed to have been {183} built by Queen Elizabeth's ill-fated favourite, and he may probably have been living in it when his royal mistress was the guest of Mr. Lacy at Putney Palace. It, too, was destroyed in the iconoclastic nineteenth century, but in a humble shop occupying part of its site is preserved a very significant relic of it--a ceiling bearing the coat of arms of Queen Elizabeth, set in a circlet representing the Prince of Wales's feathers and the Harp of Ireland, and with the initials of Essex and the queen worked into a true-lovers' knot.

Of Windsor Lodge, once, it is said, part of a convent, some remains were dug up a short time ago proving it to have been a fine building in the Gothic style; but of Putney House, in which George III. was often entertained by its owner, Mr. Gerard Van Neck, the memory alone survives, for after serving from 1839 to 1857 as a college for civil engineers, it was pulled down and is now replaced by a row of commonplace villas.

It is difficult to determine exactly where the cottage stood in which Thomas Cromwell was born, but it is well known that his father, who held a good position in Putney as a blacksmith, brewer, wool-merchant, and inn-keeper, owned a considerable amount of property under the lord of the manor of Wimbledon. Part of his land was by the Thames, and was known as the 'Homestall,' the probability being that the homestead in which the family lived, the brewery, and hostelry were three separate buildings grouped together not far from the parish church. In any case, the young Thomas must have {184} been very familiar with riverside Putney; he often helped to load his father's barges with wool, to be taken down to the ships awaiting them below London Bridge, and he attended a day-school close to his home. At the age of fourteen he was apprenticed to his uncle John Williams, who was then overseer of Wimbledon Manor and lived in a homestead at Mortlake, on the site of which is a house still named after him. On the death of his master in 1502, Thomas Cromwell collected the Wimbledon rents till the appointment was given to his father, under whom he worked until 1504, when he fell into disgrace and ran away from home. What his crime was is not known, but his father never forgave him, and for many years his native place knew him no more. Walter Cromwell, too, seems to have lost the good position he had long held in Putney, and he would have died in absolute want but for the generosity of his son-in-law Morgan Williams, who gave him a little cottage on Wimbledon Green, near to his own brewery and inn, called the Crooked Billet, the site of which is now occupied by a group of small houses. In this cottage the elder Cromwell died in 1516, without having seen his son again. By this time, however, Thomas had returned to England and was already in the service of Wolsey, the Crooked Billet had passed into the hands of his sister and her husband, and all connection between him and the neighbourhood seemed to be finally severed. Strange to say, however, some twenty-three years later he became lord of the manor of the very estate on which he was born, and owner of the {185} princely income it yielded which he had himself once helped to collect for another. No doubt he had sometimes in the interval landed at the steps near his old home when in attendance as secretary on Cardinal Wolsey, who often halted at Putney on his way up the river to Richmond or Hampton Court before the memorable occasion in 1529--ten years before his _protégé_ became lord of the manor of Wimbledon, when in his sad journey to Esher after the Great Seal had been taken from him, he eluded the malice of his enemies by going by land, attended only by two or three faithful servants, riding up the then gorse and heather-clad Putney Hill towards the heath, which he intended to cross in a westerly direction. The story goes that the disgraced favourite was stopped before he reached the summit of the ascent by a messenger from the king, no less a personage than the Lord Chamberlain, Sir John Norris, who gave him a ring in token that he was once more forgiven. In his gratitude and surprise he is said to have hurriedly dismounted, to fall on his knees in the road, and give earnest thanks to God for this unexpected mercy. Sir John followed his example, their escorts looking on in amazement; and when the two great men rose up again, a deeply interesting conversation took place between them, Wolsey declaring that the tidings were worth half a kingdom, and bitterly regretting that he had nothing to send to his master to prove his deep appreciation of his goodness, adding, on second thoughts, 'but here is my fool that rides beside me, take him, I beseech thee, to court, and give him to his majesty; I {186} assure you he is worth a thousand pounds for any nobleman's pleasure.'

If there be any truth in this graphic tale, it must have been with a light heart that the cardinal proceeded on his way; but, as is well known, the end was already close at hand: he was shortly afterwards charged with high treason, and died of a broken heart at Leicester Abbey on his way to London to stand his trial. Never again did he use the long familiar landing-stage at Putney, or make a stately progress up the river to his palace at Hampton Court. As the star of Wolsey set, however, another man, whose name is also closely associated with Putney, rose into prominence, for Edmund Bonner, who owed much to him, and lived in a house now destroyed at the foot of the hill, had by that time won the king's confidence, and in 1540 was rewarded for his tactful zeal by being made Bishop of London. His end, though not quite so dramatic as that of his first patron, but for whom he would probably have remained an obscure lawyer all his life, was sad enough, for he died in poverty and disgrace in the Marshalsea Prison, after his Putney home had passed into the hands of strangers.

[Sidenote: Putney Heath]

Fortunately, in spite of all the encroachments of the builder in and near the once secluded hamlet of Putney, the heath, named after it, that is divided only by a road from the scarcely less beautiful Wimbledon Common, and extends on the other side to the charming park of Richmond, has been permanently secured to the public, and will probably ever remain one of the most popular of the open-air {187} resorts near London. Its loftier portions command extensive views, and although until quite recently it had a somewhat sinister reputation as a favourite haunt of highwaymen, it is also associated with many interesting historic memories. On it, for instance, in 1648, when the doom of Charles I. was already practically sealed, the people of Surrey met to draw up a petition for the re-establishment of Episcopacy, and there soon after the Restoration Charles II. held a grand review of his army. In 1652 a duel took place on the heath between Lord Chandos and Colonel Henry Compton, in which the latter was killed; in 1798 William Pitt, then Prime Minister, met William Tierney, M.P. for Southwark, one of his most determined political opponents, and rendered the encounter abortive by firing in the air; and in 1809 occurred the meeting between the two great statesmen, George Canning and Lord Castlereagh, the result of a temporary estrangement only, in which the former was slightly wounded in the thigh, whilst the future Foreign Secretary, who was to do so much to promote the coalition against Napoleon, escaped unhurt. It is unfortunately impossible to identify exactly the scenes of these various duels, but the last is known to have occurred on what is now the garden of the private residence, Wildcroft, near an obelisk that was set up a century after the breaking out of the Great Fire of London to commemorate the discovery by David Hartley of a means for rendering buildings fireproof.

[Sidenote: Bowling-Green House]

On the outskirts of Putney Heath are several houses that have been at one time or another {188} occupied by persons of note, of which the most interesting is perhaps that in which William Pitt lived for some years and died. It occupies the site and retains the name of Bowling-Green House, a noted place of entertainment to which the fashionable world of London used to flock in the early eighteenth century to meet their friends at breakfast or at supper, and to take part in or watch the bowling matches that took place on the fine green belonging to the inn that is constantly referred to in the contemporary press, and was long considered the finest in England. The ancient hostelry was pulled down about 1760 and replaced a little later by the present Bowling-Green House, that was occupied for some little time by Admiral Cornwallis before the more famous William Pitt took possession of it, hoping to find in its quiet seclusion exemption from the many cares that harassed the closing years of his brief but chequered career. Already, before he took up his abode in his new home, the storm had broken that led to his resignation in 1801, and even after his return to office in 1804 nothing but disappointment, aggravated by physical suffering, awaited him. The disgrace of his trusted friend Lord Melville, who was often his guest at Putney, and with whom he there discussed, after the death of Nelson, the difficult question of what should be done for Lady Hamilton, was a bitter blow to him, and even the victory of Trafalgar failed to restore to him confidence in the future of the country he had loved and served so well. To the very last, however, Pitt retained an outward cheerfulness, and many anecdotes are told {189} of the interviews that took place between him and his distinguished visitors in Bowling-Green House. Lord Brougham, for instance, relates how he and Lord Wellesley, the latter fresh from his triumphs in India, went together early in January 1806 to see the great peace minister, who though he was to pass away but a few days later, welcomed them gaily, declaring he would soon be well again, and showing the greatest interest in all the news they brought him. Strange to say, in spite of the devoted attachment of many friends, and the deep love of his gifted niece Lady Hester Stanhope, who lived with him for three years at Putney, Pitt is said to have died absolutely alone. The story has again and again been repeated that a messenger who called to inquire for him on the day of his death, after waiting a long time at the door, which stood open, went into Bowling-Green House unannounced, and found his way to the minister's bedroom, where the man who, a short time before, had been so popular, lay dead, unwatched by a single attendant. Whatever truth there may be in this report, there is no doubt that Pitt was deeply mourned throughout the length and breadth of England; a public funeral, and a grave in Westminster Abbey, were voted for him by an immense majority in the House of Commons, and his memory was long held dear in the neighbourhood in which he breathed his last. Lady Hester Stanhope is said never to have fully recovered from his loss; she indignantly refused the increase in the annuity granted to her by the king because that increase was suggested by Fox, her beloved uncle's {190} political opponent, and a few years after Pitt's death she left England, to which she never returned, to embark on her extraordinary career in the East.

Not far from Bowling-Green House is a villa in which Mrs. Siddons and her daughters lived for two years; on the hill is a house in which Pitt resided before his removal to his last home; in another the portrait-painter, Henry Fuseli, died in 1825; in West Lodge, facing the common, some of Douglas Jerrold's essays were written; and in the Pines still lives the famous poet Algernon Charles Swinburne. The neighbouring hamlet of Roehampton, too, has many interesting associations, for before the beautiful park that belonged to the manor was sold for building, there were many fine old mansions in it that were the homes of distinguished men. The estate was long the property of the Crown, but it was given by Charles I. to Sir Richard Weston, who added to the manor-house a chapel (the site of which is occupied by the present church) that was consecrated by Bishop Laud in 1632. Three years later the new owner, who had then become Earl of Portland, added many acres to his property, but his son and successor was compelled, in consequence of his losses during the Civil War, to sell his noble inheritance. It was bought in 1640 by Sir Thomas Lloyd, from whom it passed to the famous beauty, Christina, Duchess of Devonshire, who kept up a cipher correspondence with Charles II. during his exile. After the Restoration, Roehampton Park House was the scene of many a brilliant gathering, the king and queen {191} having often been the guests of the duchess, but its memories did not save it from being again sold in 1698, and after changing hands several times it became the property of Lord Huntingfield, who pulled it down to replace it by a still standing villa known as Roehampton Grove. On part of the park was erected the Convent of the Sacred Heart, and the remainder was divided amongst different purchasers, but some few fine old mansions still remain to bear witness to the time when Roehampton was an aristocratic suburb, including the seat of the Earl of Leven and Melville, and Manresa House, now a Jesuit College, that was built for the Earl of Bessborough, and long bore his name.

[Sidenote: Barnes]

Another village in intimate touch with Putney is Barnes, that some fifty years ago was a pretty riverside hamlet, but is now rapidly growing into a densely populated suburb, the pond on the green fed by the Beverley Brook, and the still unenclosed common alone preserving to it something of its rural character. The ancient church has been so often restored that, with the exception of the fifteenth-century tower, it retains little of the original structure, and most of the ancestral homesteads, that were once a distinctive feature of the neighbourhood, have been pulled down. Within the church, however, are preserved a few interesting memorials of the long ago, such as a brass in memory of William Millebourne, who died in 1415, and a tablet bearing an inscription to Edward Rose of London, who just before his death, in 1653, bequeathed £20 for the purchase of an acre of land, {192} the proceeds of the cultivation of which were to be given to the poor of Barnes after the deduction of enough to keep his own tomb in repair, for the planting of more trees about his grave, and the preservation from injury by the erection of a wooden paling, instructions that were literally obeyed for a long spell of years. The eighteenth-century mural monument to Sir Richard Hoare is also noteworthy, and in the churchyard, which with its venerable trees has an old-world appearance, are several ancient tombs with quaint inscriptions, besides the one in which rests Richard Rose.

[Sidenote: Barn Elms]

The history of Barnes can be traced back to Saxon times, its manor having been given by King Athelstan to the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's, who have held it ever since, though it has been leased to many different tenants. The village is probably named after some early occupant of the ancient homestead that occupied the site of the modern mansion known as Barn Elms, now the headquarters of the popular Ranelagh Club, that with a smaller house connected with it stands in well-cultivated grounds sloping down to the river. In the predecessor of the present Barn Elms Sir Francis Walsingham, who rented it on a long lease from 1579, often received his exacting mistress Queen Elizabeth, and there possibly he may have submitted to her some of the correspondence between the Queen of Scots and her adherents that had been intercepted by his spies. Elizabeth was at Barn Elms in 1588, the year after Mary's execution, when Walsingham had already retired from office, and {193} was a comparatively poor man, but in spite of this the queen was attended by her whole court, who were entertained at her host's expense. In fact, as was the case with many other favourites, the sovereign's partiality nearly ruined the ex-minister, who when he died in 1590 left his widow scarcely enough money to keep up Barn Elms. She was, however, able to leave the lease to her daughter, one of the famous beauties of the day, who was three times married, first to Sir Philip Sidney, then to the Earl of Essex, and lastly to the Earl of Clanricarde. As Countess of Essex she resided for some time in her old home, but the house was deserted after her third wedding, and there is a gap in its history till 1663, when it or the smaller house connected with it was occupied by the then popular poet Samuel Cowley, who was there visited, it is said, by Milton and other contemporary literary celebrities. John Evelyn, and later Samuel Pepys, had both a great affection for Barn Elms, but the latter took a dislike to it after the tragedy that occurred in its grounds in 1678, when the Earl of Shrewsbury was mortally wounded in a duel with Charles II.'s infamous favourite George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. The wife of the former had left him to become the mistress of the latter, and the story goes that she was present at the encounter disguised as a page holding her lover's horse.

During the reign of George II. Barn Elms was the scene of many a merry entertainment, in which the great musician Handel sometimes took part, for it was tenanted by the famous Master of Revels at the {194} English court, Count Heidegger, who was noted for his skill in improvising startling effects. He was succeeded on his death by the wealthy banker Sir Richard Hoare, and in the early nineteenth century it was the home of the editor of the _Weekly Political Register_, William Cobbett, who was aptly called the Ishmael of politics, for his hand was often against every other member of his own party. Somewhat later Barn Elms was rented by Sir Lancelot Shadwell, Vice-Chancellor of England, who was a noted swimmer and keenly interested in river sports. At his hospitable table were several times entertained the crews of the Oxford and Cambridge boats on the evenings of the annual race, that was rowed for the first time from Putney to Mortlake in 1848, the earlier contests having taken place on another course.

The historic Barn Elms house has long since ceased to be, but the smaller residence attached to it, which was known in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as Queen Elizabeth's Dairy, is still standing. In it lived for many years, and died in 1735, the eminent bookseller Jacob Tonson, founder of the famous Kit Cat Club, to which belonged all the chief literary men of the day, including Sir Robert Walpole, Congreve, Dryden, Steele, and Addison, for whose accommodation Tonson added a gallery to his house which was hung with their portraits, painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller, who was then court painter. On the death of the owner the gallery was pulled down, and the portraits were {195} removed to the seat of his family at Bayfordbury, but the surroundings of the meeting-place of the Club are even now much what they were in the eighteenth century.

[Sidenote: Barnes]

The river at Barnes, that here makes a sudden bend to the north, is spanned by several bridges, and its banks are lined with good houses, some of which are associated with famous names. In one of those on the Terrace, for instance, resided the French political refugees the Count and Countess d'Antraigues, who were assassinated in 1812 by an Italian in their service; and in the mansion known as St. Anne's lived the famous eighteenth-century beauty Lady Archer. In an old house overlooking the common Henry Fielding wrote some of his novels, Monk Lewis composed his _Crazy Jane_ in a cottage not far off that cannot now be identified; and amongst the rectors of the parish were the Latin scholar Dr. Hare, the eloquent preacher Henry Melvill, and the well-known hymn-writer, the Rev. John Ellerton. At Barnes, too, in a house now destroyed, lived and died the brother-in-law of Sir Francis Walsingham, Robert Beale, who was perhaps introduced to Queen Elizabeth at Barn Elms, and who was chosen by her for the painful mission of taking to Mary, Queen of Scots, the warrant for her execution, and in the same river-side village the zealous anabaptist Abrezer Coppe took refuge on his release from Newgate in 1651, where he had been imprisoned for a year for issuing his extraordinary pamphlet _The Fiery Flying Roll_. Disguised as a doctor, and calling himself Hiam, {196} he divided his time between preaching and prescribing for patients, and managed to escape further persecution, dying a natural death in 1692, when he was buried under his assumed name in Barnes churchyard.

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