Tottenham for the purpose of ventilating the vaults or catacombs. The flank of the church has a central pro to be seen. I never heard of any accident or injury to any one with it, except in the fray at Melksham, on the noted journey to Bath, when thejection, occupied by antæ, and six insulated Ionic fair people set upon it, burnt their fingers, threw stones, and wounded poor Martyn, the stoker. The steam-carriage returned from Bath to the Hounslow Barracks--eighty-four miles-stoppages for fire and water included, in nine hours and twenty minutes, or at the rate, when running, of columns; the windows in the inter-columns are in the same style as those in front; the whole is surmounted by a balustrade. The tower is in two heights; the lower part has eight columns of the Corinthian order, after the temple of Vesta at Tivoli. These columns, with their stylobate and Montague House G.Russell Street St. Giles Church HOLBOURN 1755. Clay Lane Cavendish Square 110 OXFORD Hanover Square Square Middlesex M Hospital Si Giles Islington PLAN OF NEW ROAD FROM ISLINGTON TO EDGWARE ROAD, 1755. (See page 302.) fourteen miles an hour. This journey from London | entablature, project, and give a very extraordinary to Bath, the first ever maintained with speed by any steam locomotive, was made in July, 1829, on the common turnpike road, in the face of the public, and two months before the trial at Rainhill." At the south end of this street, with Osnaburgh Street on its east side, is Trinity Church, which was built from the designs of Sir John Soane. The principal front consists of a portico of four columns of the Ionic order, approached by a small flight of steps; on each side is a long window, divided into two heights by a stone transom (panelled). Each of the windows is filled with ornamental iron-work, relief in the perspective view of the building. The upper part consists of a circular peristyle of six columns, the example apparently taken from the portico of the octagon tower of Andronicus Cyrrhestes, or tower of the winds, from the summit of which rises a conical dome, surmounted by the vane. The more minute detail may be seen by the engraving (page 294). The prevailing ornament is the Grecian fret. The Rev. Dr. Chandler, late Dean of Chichester, was for many years rector of this church, in which he was succeeded by Dean Elliot, and he again by the late Rev. William Cadman. CAMDEN TOWN, FROM THE HAMPSTEAD ROAD, MARYLEBONE, 1780. (See page 305.) EUSTON ROAD, HAMPSTEAD ROAD, AND THE ADJACENT NEIGHBOURHOOD. "Not many weeks ago it was not so, But Pleasures had their passage to and fro, I lately did behold with much content, The Fields bestrew'd with people all about; Some paceing homeward and some passing out; Some by the Bancks of Thame their pleasure taking, Some Sulli-bibs among the milk-maids making; With musique some upon the waters rowing; Some to the adjoining Hamlets going, And Hogsdone, Islington, and Tothnam (sic) Court, For Cakes and Cream had then no small resort."-Britain's Remembrancer. Pastoral Character of the Locality in the Last Century-The Euston Road-Statuary-yards-The "Adam and Eve" Tavern-Its Tea-gardens and its Cakes and Creams-A "Strange and Wonderful Fruit"-Hogarth's Picture of the "March of the Guards to Finchley"-The "Paddington Drag"-A Miniature Menagerie-A Spring-water Bath-Eden Street-Hampstead Road-The "Sol's Arms" TavernDavid Wilkie's Residence-Granby Street-Mornington Crescent-Charles Dickens' School-days-Clarkson Stanfield-George CruikshankThe "Old King's Head" Tavern-Tolmer's Square-Drummond Street-St. James's Church-St. Pancras Female Charity School-The Original Distillery of "Old Tom "-Bedford New Town-Ampthill Square-The "Infant Roscius "-Harrington Square. THERE was, till the reign of William IV., a rustic character which invested the outskirts of London between King's Cross and St. John's Wood. But, thanks to the progress of the demon of bricks and mortar, the once rural tea-gardens have been made in every suburb of London to give way to the modern gin-palace with its flaring gas and its other attractions. Chambers draws out this " change for the worse" in his "Book of Days: "-"Readers of our old dramatic literature may be amused with the rustic character which invests the (then) residents of the outskirts of Old London comprehended between King's Cross and St. John's Wood, as they are depicted by Swift in the Tale of a Tub. The action of the drama takes place in St. Pancras Fields, the country near Kentish Town, Tottenham 66 Court, and Marylebone. The dramatis personæ," palaces round about you-Southampton House continues Mr. Chambers, seem as innocent of and Montagu House.' 'Where you wretches go London as if they were inhabitants of Berkshire, and fight duels,' cries Mrs. Steele." and talk a broad country dialect. This northern side of London preserved its pastoral character until a comparatively recent time, it not being very long since some of the marks used by the Finsbury archers of the days of Charles II. remained in the Shepherd and Shepherdess Fields between the Regent's Canal and Islington. . . The prætorium of a Roman camp was visible where now stands Barnsbury Terrace; the remains of another, as described by Stukely, were situated opposite old St. Pancras Church, and herds of cows grazed near where now stands the Euston Square Terminus of our North-Western Railway, but which then was Rhode's Farm. At the commencement of the present century the country was open from the back of the British Museum to Kentish Town; the New Road from Battle Bridge to Tottenham (Court Road) was considered unsafe after dark; and parties used to collect at stated points to take the chance of the escort of the watchman in his half-hourly round." In 1707 there were no streets west of Tottenham Court Road; and one cluster of houses only, besides the "Spring Water House" nearly half a century later, at which time what is now the Euston Road was part of an expanse of verdant fields. In the reign of George IV., as Mr. Samuel Palmer writes in his "History of St. Pancras," "the rural lanes, hedgeside roads, and lovely fields made Camden Town the constant resort of those who, busily engaged during the day in the bustle of . . London, sought its quietude and fresh air to re-invigorate their spirits. Then the old 'Mother Red Cap' was the evening resort of worn-out Londoners, and many a happy evening was spent in the green fields round about the old wayside house by the children of the poorer classes. At that time the Dairy, at the junction of the Hampstead and Kentish Town Roads, was a rural cottage, furnished with forms and benches for the pedestrians to rest upon the road-side, whilst its master and mistress served out milk fresh from the cow to all who came." In fact, as we have already noticed in our account of Bloomsbury Square and other places, down to the close of the last or even the beginning of the present century, all this neighbourhood was open country; so that, after all, Thackeray was not far wide of the mark when he put these words into the mouth of Mr. St. John in "Esmond: "-"Why, Bloomsbury is the very height of the mode! 'Tis rus in urbe; you have gardens all the way to Hampstead, and But it is time for us to be again on our perambulation. Leaving Trinity Church, we now make our way eastward along the Euston Road, as far as the junction of the Tottenham Court and the Hampstead Roads. The Euston Road-formerly called the New Road-was at the time of its formation, about the middle of the last century, the boundaryline for limiting the "ruinous rage for building" on the north side of the town. It was made by virtue of an Act of Parliament passed in the reign of George II. (1756), after a most violent contest with the Duke of Bedford, who opposed its construction on the ground of its approaching too near to Bedford House, the duke's town mansion. The Duke of Grafton, on the other hand, strenuously supported it, and after a fierce legal battle it was ultimately decided that the road should be formed. In the Gentleman's Magazine for 1755 there is a "ground plan" of the New Road, from Islington to Edgware Road, showing the then state of the ground (and the names of the proprietors thereof) between Oxford Street and the New Road. The Act of Parliament for the formation of this great thoroughfare, as we have already had occasion to observe, directs that no building should be erected "within fifty feet of the New Road." In Gwynn's "London Improved," published about the beginning of this century, it is stated that "the present mean appearance of the backs of the houses and hovels have rendered this approach to the capital a scene of confusion and deformity, extremely unbecoming the character of a great and opulent city." Down to a comparatively recent date, Mr. Gwynn's remarks would have applied very aptly to that quarter of a mile of the New Road which lies between Gower Street North, where the old Westgate Turnpike formerly stood, and the eastern entrance to the Regent's Park. Here the road was narrow, and perpetually obstructed by wagons, &c., that might be unloading at the various timber and stone yards, which occupied the ground that an Act of Parliament had ordered should be "used only for gardens." "The intention of this judicious clause," says the author of a work on London about half a century ago, "was, no doubt, to preserve light, air, and cheerfulness, so highly necessary to a great leading thoroughfare. Such it has hitherto been, and with increasing respectability, excepting at the point I am about to mention-many great improvements have taken place, such as the Regent's Park and Crescent, the new Pancras Church and Euston Square, &c. Euston Road.} THE "ADAM AND EVE" TAVERN. 303 As we have stated in a previous chapter, the Metropolitan Railway Company have laid their railway entirely under the Euston Road from end to end. To carry out that great undertaking, the road was, at great expense, torn completely up. After constructing the railway at a considerable depth, the company re-made the roadway, and now it is one of the finest roads in London. At the corner of the Euston Road and the Hampstead Road stands a public-house which perpetuates the sign of an older tavern of some repute, called "The Adam and Eve," which was once noted for its tea-gardens. Of this house we have already given an illustration.† With these useful and even splendid works upon of thoroughfares. It is just possible, however, the same line of road, it becomes a matter of sur- that more lions' and stags' heads, and other heraldic prise that the distance between Westgate Turn- devices for decorating the park-gates of noble pike, at the crossing of Gower Street North, up lords and "county families" in the country, have to the Regent's Park, should not only remain proceeded of late years from the various statuarywithout any reformation, but that buildings, work- yards which adorn the southern side of the Euston men's huts, sheds, smoky chimneys, and all manner Road than from all the rest of the metropolis of nuisances, should be allowed not only to con- put together. These statuary-yards are really the tinue, but to increase daily close to the road. backs of houses in Warren Street, which we have "In proceeding from the City westward," con- already described in a previous volume.* It may tinues the writer, "a fine line of road, and noble be added here that the houses in Euston Road, footpaths on each side, are found until, on arriving opposite the sculptors' yards, were til recently near Tottenham Court Road, both appear to termi-known as "Quickset Row," thus preserving some nate abruptly, and the road is faced and its regu- trace of the former rurality of the place. larity destroyed by the projection of a range of low buildings and hovels, converted, or now converting, into small houses, close to the highway, which, strange to say, is much narrowed, at a point where, from the increased traffic caused by the crossing of the road to Hampstead, a considerable increase of width is doubly requisite. But here the houses project about ten feet, and nearly close up the footpath; and this being one of the stations for the Paddington coaches to stop at, it becomes a service of no small danger to drive through the very small opening that is left for the public to pass through. A few yards farther, on both sides of the road, are ranges of stone-yards, with the incessant music of sawing, chipping, and hacking stone, grinding chisels, and sharpening of saws; cow-yards, picturesque stacks of timber, building materials, and dead walls. Another angle turned, and the traveller emerges again from the region of smoke, stone-dust, and mud, and traversing some hazardous passages, pounces at once into the magnificent Crescent of Regent's Park, wondering at the utter lack of public taste, which could allow such a combination of nuisances to exist, and even increase, in the immediate neighbourhood of this great public improvement, and along the only road leading to it from the city of London." In course of time, the desired improvement was effected, and that part of the road to which we have specially referred was widened by the removal of some of the obtruding houses, and the thoroughfare made as nearly as possible of one uniform width all along, with the exception of the hundred yards immediately to the west and east of the "Adam and Eve," where the Euston Road is crossed by the junction of the Hampstead and Tottenham Court Roads. Just as Piccadilly was a hundred years ago, so the 200 or 250 yards of roadway lying between Park Crescent and the Hampstead Road is, or was down to a comparatively recent date, one of the dullest and dreariest Hone, in his "Year Book," identifies this tavern with the site of the old Manor of Toten Hall, a lordship belonging to the deans of St. Paul's as far back as the time of the Norman Conquest. Under the earlier Stuarts it passed into the hands of the Crown, and was leased to the Fitzroys, Lords Southampton, in the early part of the reign of George III. Near it was another ancient house called King John's Palace. "Whether that monarch ever really resided there," remarks Mr. Palmer, in his "History of St. Pancras," "it is now impossible to ascertain, but tradition states that it was known as the Palace, and the houses on the site being called 'Palace Row' supports the tradition." Opposite to it, nearly on the site of what now is Tolmer's Square, was a reservoir of the New River Company, surrounded with a grove of trees; this was not removed till about 1860. The "Adam and Eve," even as late as 1832, was quite a rural inn, only one storey in height; and Mr. Hone tells us that he remembered it when it stood quite alone, "with spacious gardens at the side and in the rear, a fore-court with large timber trees, and tables and benches for out-door customers. In the gardens were fruit-trees," he adds, • See Vol. IV., p. 476. + See Vol. IV., p. 475. "and bowers and arbours for tea-drinking parties. has represented the "Adam and Eve" in his wellIn the rear there were no houses at all; now there known picture of "The March of the Guards to is a town." At that time the "Adam and Eve" Finchley." Upon the sign-board of the house is tea-gardens were resorted to by thousands, as the inscribed "Tottenham Court Nursery," in allusion end of a short walk into the country; and the to Broughton's Amphitheatre for Boxing erected in trees were allowed to grow and expand naturally, this place. The pugilistic encounters were carried unrestricted by art or fashion. Richardson, in out upon an uncovered stage in a yard open to 1819, said that the place had long been celebrated the high road. The great professor's advertiseas a tea-garden; there was an organ in the long- ment, announcing the attractions of his "Nursery," room, and the company was generally respectable, is somewhat amusing:till the end of the last century, "when," as Mr. Larwood tells us in his "History of Sign-boards," "highwaymen, footpads, pickpockets, and low women beginning to take a fancy to it, the magistrates interfered. The organ was banished, and the gardens were dug up for the foundation of Eden Street." In these gardens Lunardi came down after his unsuccessful balloon ascent from the Artillery Ground, in May, 1783. The "Adam and Eve" was celebrated for its cakes and cream, which were esteemed a very luxury by the rural excursionists; and George Wither, in his "Britain's Remembrancer," published in 1628, doubtless refers to the tea-gardens attached to this tavern, when he speaks of the cakes and cream at "Tothnam Court," in the lines quoted as a motto to this chapter. Gay thus poetically, but scarcely with exaggeration at the time, alludes to this, addressing his friend and patron, Pulteney :"When the sweet-breathing spring unfolds the buds, Love flies the dusty town for shady woods; Then Tottenham Fields with roving beauty swarm." Broome, another poet of the seventeenth century, in his "New Academy," published in 1658, thus writes :-"When shall we walk to Tottenham Court, or crosse o'er the water; or take a coach to Kensington, or Paddington, or to some one or other of the City outleaps, for an afternoon ?" An advertisement in the public journals in September, 1718, tells us how that "there is a strange and wonderful fruit growing at the Adam and Eve,' at Tottenham Court, called a Calabath (? calabash), which is five feet and a half round, where any person may see the same gratis." The "Adam and Eve," as Mr. Larwood tells us, in his work quoted above, "is a very common sign of old, as well as at the present time. Our first parents were constant dramatis personæ in the mediæval mysteries and pageants, on which occasions, with the naïveté of those times, Eve used to come on the stage exactly in the same costume as she appeared to Adam before the Fall.*" Hogarth This statement is made on the authority of Hone, in his "Ancient Mysteries." Doubts, however, have been expressed as to the accuracy of his data upon this particular subject. From the Gymnasium at Tottenham Court, on Thursday next, at Twelve o'clock, will begin : A Lecture on Manhood, or Gymnastic Physiology, wherein By THOMAS SMALLWOOD, A.M., THOMAS DIMMOCK, A.M., Athleta of Southwark (Both Fellows of the Athletic Society). The Syllabus or Compendium for the use of Students in Athleticks, referring to Matters explained in this Lecture, may be had of Mr. Professor Broughton, at the "Crown," in Market Lane, where proper instructions in the Art and Practice of Boxing are delivered without Loss of Eye or Limb to the Student. The "Adam and Eve " was, we need hardly add, a favourite resort for the Londoner of the last century; and its arbours and alcoves, commanding the open road to the north, became the snug quarters for a friendly pipe and glass. The reader, therefore, will "not be surprised" to read that such a hero as "George Barnwell," in the "Rejected Addresses" of the Brothers Smith "Determined to be quite the crack, O! Would lounge at the 'Adam and Eve,' We learn something of the rural appearance of the neighbourhood of the "Adam and Eve," at the beginning of the last century, from the following advertisement, which appeared in the Postman, Dec. 30, 1708:-" At Tottenham Court, near St. Giles's, and within less than a mile of London, a very good Farm House, with outhouses and above seventy acres of extraordinary good pastures and meadows, with all conveniences proper for a cowman, are to be let, together or in parcels, and there is dung ready to lay on. Enquire further at Mr. Bolton's, at the sign of the 'Crown,' in Tottenham Court aforesaid, or at Landon's Coffee House,' over against Somerset House, Strand." |