Wanderings in London, Piccadilly, Mayfair, and Pall Mall E-Book

E. Beresford Chancellor

• Herausgeber: Librorium Editions
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

Dr. Johnson in one of his rhetorical flights said that Charing Cross was practically the centre of the universe. “I think,” he observed to Boswell, on a celebrated occasion, “the full tide of human existence is at Charing Cross.” Theodore Hook, on the other hand, considered that that small area in St. James’s, bounded by Piccadilly and Pall Mall, St. James’s Street and Waterloo Place, was the acme of fashion, and contained within itself all that was best worth cultivating in the Metropolis.
Like all generalizations, neither of these dicta will bear the test of logical analysis. Hook’s favourite quarter has undergone many a change, and its present-day equivalent is more likely to be found in that larger area known to all the world as Mayfair. Similarly, although much of the tide of human existence still flows past the spot where Queen Eleanor’s body rested for the last time, on its way to the Abbey, that tide flows as fully and with as much noisy vehemence past half a hundred other crowded spots in London. It is probable, however, that at no one point does it surge and rage (to carry on the metaphor), with greater force than at the spot where Piccadilly and Bond Street join. At this spot stands “Stewart’s”—famed all the world over. I say “Stewart’s,” as I should say in Venice, “Florian’s,” or in New York, “Delmonico’s”; for there are certain famous establishments in all great cities which require no more specific designation.

Leseprobe

Wanderings in Piccadilly Mayfair and Pall Mall

GARDENS OF CARLTON HOUSE IN 1784.

Wanderings in LondonPiccadilly, Mayfair and Pall Mall

By

E. BERESFORD CHANCELLOR

© 2023 Librorium Editions

ISBN : 9782385743833

PUBLISHERS’ NOTE

Old London vanishes, another London takes its place; the interesting old spots associated with the leisurely life and refinement of the century that has gone, are being swept away one by one. In many ways we would welcome a return of those dear old days, with their appreciation of the belles lettres and the fine arts, and with all their oddities and quaint customs, but they have gone for ever. They played their part in the development of the national life: to us they are but memories.

We owe no small debt of gratitude, however, to those who—like the author—amidst all the changes that are taking place, have tried to keep alive for us with pen and pencil, a remembrance of a period so different from our own. Especially, perhaps, will many of our American cousins recognise this debt when in their migrations they try to hunt up places of interest connected with their English forbears.

Mr. Chancellor is most happy as he takes us round the old streets and houses, and gives—as it were—almost personal introductions to the quaint and interesting people who inhabited them. His pages are sentient with living personages, and as we read we forget the years that have rolled away, while we enjoy the laugh and quip with the interesting old characters which are met with at every turn and corner.

To begin one’s peregrinations at the corner of Bond Street and Piccadilly seems at first sight a little arbitrary, but one soon realises that in starting from “Stewart’s,” and keeping within a half-mile radius of this centre, one is really covering by far the most interesting portion of the West End; while the old shop, which—during more than two centuries—has given its name to this corner of Bond Street, and which, as Mr. Chancellor declares, is to Americans one of the best known spots in Europe, is in itself a most interesting link with the past and present.

The Author, and the Publishers, acknowledge with thanks their indebtedness to Edward Gardner, Esq., for kind permission to reproduce six views of Old London from his unique Collection of Drawings and Prints.

Contents.

PAGE

CHAPTER I.—PICCADILLY. Stewart’s Corner—Albemarle Street—Dover Street—The White Horse Cellar—Hatchett’s Restaurant—Berkeley Street—Devonshire House—Stratton Street—Bolton Street—Bath House—The Clubs of Piccadilly—Clarges Street—Half Moon Street—Cambridge House—Ritz Hotel—Down Street—Gloucester House—“Old Q.”

1 to 28

CHAPTER II.—ST. JAMES’S STREET & PALL MALL. The Green Park—Constitution Hill—Cleveland Row—St. James’s Palace—Arlington Street—St. James’s Street—The Clubs of St. James’s Street—Chocolate Houses—King Street—Pall Mall—Pall Mall Clubs—Pall Mall Taverns—Carlton House

29 to 56

CHAPTER III.—THE HAYMARKET, ST. JAMES’S SQUARE AND PICCADILLY (EAST). The Haymarket—The Haymarket Theatre—Suffolk Street—The Opera House—His Majesty’s Theatre—St. James’s Square—Jermyn Street—St. James’s Church—Piccadilly Circus—Pickadilla Hall—Piccadilly East—Quaritch’s—The Albany—Burlington House, Burlington Arcade

57 to 83

CHAPTER IV.—BOND STREET. Bond Street—Famous Residents—Prince of Wales’s Coffee House—Burlington Street—Burlington Gardens—Vigo Street—Clifford Street—Savile Row—Cork Street—Conduit Street—Maddox Street—George Street—Hanover Square—St. George’s Church—Brook Street—Grosvenor Street—Bruton Street—Grafton Street—Hay Hill—Berkeley Square

84 to 114

CHAPTER V.—MAYFAIR. Sir Richard Grosvenor and the Westminster Property—Origin of “Mayfair”—Davies Street—Grosvenor Square—North and South Audley Streets—Park Street—Norfolk Street—Upper Brook Street—Upper Grosvenor Street—Mount Street—Charles Street—Curzon Street—Curzon Chapel—Hertford and Chesterfield Streets—Lesser Streets of Mayfair—Park Lane—Tyburn Lane—Great Houses in Park Lane—Hamilton Place—Mayfair, the Home of Fashion

115 to 140

PRESS OPINIONS.

“A good little book for pilgrims, ‘more especially,’ as it states, ‘those from America,’ who wish to recognise the multitude of distinguished ghosts who crowd the district dealt with.”—Graphic.

“Always readable and interesting. The chief attraction of the book, which, by the way, is charmingly ‘got up,’ is to be found in the twenty plate illustrations of Old London streets and houses. Four are successful reproductions in colour.”—Antiquarian.

“In this pretty little book ... these notes on the heart of the West End are made to gyrate round Stewart’s Tea Rooms at the corner of Bond Street, called ‘Stewart’s Corner.’ The publisher seems to have felt that to assume this shop to be the hub of the best part of London is sufficiently remarkable to require explanation, so he writes:—‘To begin one’s peregrinations at the corner of Bond Street and Piccadilly seems at first sight a little arbitrary, but one soon realizes that in starting from “Stewart’s” and keeping within a half-mile radius of this centre, one is really covering by far the most interesting portion of the West End.’ The plates, which are mostly reproductions of old prints, are singularly interesting (especially the coloured ones), and are themselves worth the price of the book.”—Athenæum.

“Mr. Chancellor guides the reader round the old streets and houses, introducing him personally, as it were, to the quaint and interesting people who inhabited them.”—The Queen.

“A little book gathering up in a quite popular way some of the associations of the district, with many illustrations of it as it appeared in the past.”—“Times” Literary Supplement.

“The author of ‘The Squares of London’ has in a high degree the faculties of selection and concentration, and in his hundred and fifty pages he has been able to tell us so much and to tell it so well.”—Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News.

“There is no lack of interest, past and present, in the district about which our author discourses. Piccadilly is notorious for its ‘ghosts’; and St. James’s Street, Park Lane, Grosvenor Square, Pall Mall, Albemarle Street, to name a few places at random, have an abundant population of the same kind. This little volume, which is judiciously illustrated, makes good reading.”—The Spectator.

“A pretty little book this, with charming illustrations of the West End in days of old, four of them in colour. The pages are rich in brief anecdote, as well as topographical details of interest.”—The Lady’s Pictorial.

“It is just the book for the Londoner who is always interested in the old spots that are being swept away one by one; and the novice who knows nothing of the subject will be fascinated by these pictures of former days.”—Methodist Times.

“Those who are interested in this class of literature will find Mr. Chancellor’s book interesting, all the more so if they have some acquaintance with the English literature of the last two centuries. The area covered is large, but there is no lack of interest, past and present, in our author’s discoursings about it. The volume is judiciously illustrated.”—Catholic Times.

“Pictures of St. James’s Street in George the Third’s reign, the palace at the foot in the days of the Stuarts, Carlton House during the Regency, together with various old inns, mansions, and other vanished buildings, combine to make an illustrated gallery of a departed era.”—The Bookseller.

“Famous streets, famous buildings, famous men. Mr. Chancellor catalogues them in an agreeable literary form, with plenty of notes and incidents and historic origins.”—The Globe.

“Mr. Chancellor’s small volume is among the best. It has a real literary flavour, and is full of reminiscences of times long past. The twenty illustrations of old London (four of them in colour) are particularly well chosen.”—Publishers’ Circular.

“A compact memorial volume like this is of special value. We are conducted round the fine old streets and famous houses, and are given almost personal introductions to the famous and quaint folk who inhabited them.”—Christian Commonwealth.

“In hunting up places of interest connected with our forbears, the author has endeavoured, and successfully, to keep alive for us a remembrance of a past period.”—Broad Arrow.

“A pleasant sketch describing the West End of London in the eighteenth and the early part of the nineteenth century, drawing a vivid picture of life in that part of London at that time, and giving details concerning many famous buildings.”—Record.

“This charming little work must needs be invaluable to all lovers of London, among whom the author reckons our American cousins, for whose more especial benefit he has given a map of the district in two parts, one representing the Eastern and the other the Western limits of his rambles.”—Western Morning News.

“Mr. Chancellor recalls many historical facts about these old streets and houses, re-peopling them with English men and women of long ago, telling anecdotes and gossiping in pleasantest manner.”—Yorkshire Daily Post.

“There is much to be learned from these pages how these parts of London came to be built, and why the streets bear various strange names, of which Maddox is one.”—Nottingham Guardian.

“The author of ‘The Squares of London’ has undoubtedly done a great deal to keep alive for us, with a ready and able pen, memories of the old London which are tending to become less and less distinct with the march of time and the rush of new ideas.”—Huddersfield Examiner.

“The book is full of delightful gossip regarding the clubs, theatres, and great houses of past and present times.”—The Northern Whig.

“A capital and interesting book of its kind, full of pleasant reminiscences of the days of the leisurely life and refinement of the century that has gone.”—Manchester Evening News.

“The volume is well illustrated, and the reproductions from old prints and drawings of mansions which have altogether disappeared—as, for instance, Northumberland House, with its famous lion—are particularly interesting.”—Glasgow Herald.

“This admirable book is packed full of historical and biographical information, retailed in the pleasantest possible manner.”—Liverpool Daily Courier.

“Mr. Chancellor is an excellent cicerone in describing for us the old streets and houses and the quaint people who inhabited them.”—Yorkshire Herald.

“With this little book in his pocket (where it will hardly reveal itself), or on his table, the visitor to London can add greatly to his enjoyment.”—Aberdeen Journal.

“A delightful little guide to the localities mentioned.”—Aberdeen Free Press.

“With this book in the coat pocket—to glance at in convenient corners—one could spend some pleasant hours.”—Bolton Journal.

List of Plates.

GARDENS OF CARLTON HOUSE IN 1784

To face Title

STEWART’S CORNER

To face page2

*CLARENDON HOUSE

8

*THE WHITE HORSE CELLAR (HATCHETT’S RESTAURANT), PICCADILLY (From a Drawing by George Cruickshank.)

12

THE GLOUCESTER COFFEE HOUSE, PICCADILLY

14

THE GATES OF HYDE PARK IN 1756 (From a Drawing by Jones.)

27

THE TURNPIKE AT HYDE PARK CORNER

28

ST. JAMES’S STREET, WHITE’S CLUB, AND BROOKS’S CLUB

36

ST. JAMES’S PALACE

44

CARLTON HOUSE (George IV. proclaimed King)

52

THE OPERA HOUSE COLONNADE, PALL MALL, AND CARLTON HOUSE SCREEN

64

ST. JAMES’S SQUARE

68

*“THE BULL AND MOUTH,” PICCADILLY

75

LOWER REGENT STREET, FROM PICCADILLY CIRCUS, WITH CARLTON HOUSE AND SCREEN

76

“THE WHITE BEAR,” FORMERLY “THE FLEECE,” PICCADILLY

78

THE PICCADILLY HOTEL

79

DENMAN HOUSE, PICCADILLY

81

OLD BURLINGTON HOUSE, PICCADILLY

82

*LONG’S HOTEL, BOND STREET

87

*“THE WESTERN EXCHANGE,” OLD BOND STREET

91

*THE MAY FAIR IN 1716

115

THE ENTRANCE TO PICCADILLY, AT HYDE PARK CORNER, WITH ST. GEORGE’S HOSPITAL

139

*From the Collection of Edward Gardner, Esq.

CHAPTER I.

PICCADILLY.

“By night or by day, whether noisy or stilly,

Whatever my mood is—I love Piccadilly.”

Locker-Lampson.

Dr. Johnson in one of his rhetorical flights said that Charing Cross was practically the centre of the universe. “I think,” he observed to Boswell, on a celebrated occasion, “the full tide of human existence is at Charing Cross.” Theodore Hook, on the other hand, considered that that small area in St. James’s, bounded by Piccadilly and Pall Mall, St. James’s Street and Waterloo Place, was the acme of fashion, and contained within itself all that was best worth cultivating in the Metropolis.

Like all generalizations, neither of these dicta will bear the test of logical analysis. Hook’s favourite quarter has undergone many a change, and its present-day equivalent is more likely to be found in that larger area known to all the world as Mayfair. Similarly, although much of the tide of human existence still flows past the spot where Queen Eleanor’s body rested for the last time, on its way to the Abbey, that tide flows as fully and with as much noisy vehemence past half a hundred other crowded spots in London. It is probable, however, that at no one point does it surge and rage (to carry on the metaphor), with greater force than at the spot where Piccadilly and Bond Street join. At this spot stands “Stewart’s”—famed all the world over. I say “Stewart’s,” as I should say in Venice, “Florian’s,” or in New York, “Delmonico’s”; for there are certain famous establishments in all great cities which require no more specific designation.

Who is there, indeed, that knows not Stewart’s? It has been presiding over this corner for the last two hundred years and more. It must be the oldest baker’s and confectioner’s business in London, beside which even such ancient houses as “Birch’s” or “Gunter’s” are comparatively modern. To-day it bears upon its rebuilt front, the date of its establishment—1688, and the massive foundations and old brickwork, which were brought to light during the recent rebuilding, fully support the theory that this was one of the original buildings erected by Sir Thomas Bond on the site of Clarendon House, when he laid out the street which bears his name.

Let us take this shop, as characteristic of many others, and try to recall what it may have witnessed in the lapse of years. In its early days it was, no doubt, too much occupied with its own affairs to take much note of great personages or historic events; but after it had settled down, so to speak, and had become, as it did, the purveyor of the staff of life to the Coffee-houses that had sprung up around it, it may be supposed to have given an eye, now and then, to the interesting men and beautiful women who passed by, or who made it a rendezvous while some of them waited for those who were spending or making fortunes in the gambling hells of St. James’s Street hard by.

Stewart’s CornerOld Bond Sᵗ & Piccadilly REBVILT 1907.

The Augustan age is here! Can that little shrivelled body limping along, having just come from its lodging in Berkeley Street, contain the great mind of Alexander Pope? Surely ’tis he, having but this moment penned a letter to Martha Blount, or put the finishing touches to his “Farewell to London.” He is probably on his way to visit my lord Burlington, whose home (the precursor of the later mansion built by his great grandson, and now known by the massive buildings of the modern Burlington House), is close by. Horace Walpole tells us that when asked why he built his mansion so far out of town, the first Earl replied, “Because he was determined to have no building beyond him!” Credite posteri! but he meant, and should have added, “to the north,” which is, in itself, wonderful enough for us to realize now, for Clarendon House and Berkeley House were already in existence to the west. Could it have been Pope, who asked the question? It seems likely, for we remember the anecdote of the irate gentleman who being in the poet’s company and required to give a definition of “a point of interrogation,” replied “that it was a little crooked thing that asked questions!”

And then that fine looking man in the full bottomed wig, can that be Mr. Addison of the Spectator, fresh from his lodgings in the Haymarket hard by, and still glowing in the reflected glory of “The Campaign?” None other. And lo! here is the handsome face of his hero, who “taught the doubtful battle where to rage,” as he hobbles along (he will soon be off to Bath to try and cure his gout)—fit indeed, monstrari digito, for other things besides his military glory. He will not turn in at Stewart’s we may be sure, for if the “tears of dotage” have not yet begun to flow, at least he is learning to save his money.

Here, too, comes jolly Dick Steele; he has just been into a coffee house to pen a line of excuse to his “dearest Prue,” in Kensington Square, and is on his way to a jollification with some of his boon companions; forgetful of his “Apology,” and hardly living up to the ethics of his “Christian Hero.” Still with all his faults, a pleasanter figure to meet than that dark-faced, dissatisfied-looking man in clerical attire. That is the redoubtable Dean Swift himself, one of the great geniuses, not only of his own day, but of all time. He knows this part of the town as well as he knows all the turns and twists of contemporary politics; and has probably come from his rooms in Ryder Street almost opposite. Wherever he is he will be penning that famous “Journal to Stella,” or plotting and planning with the heads of the Opposition—and there is no clearer or more potent brain among them. If he goes into the St. James’ Coffee House, or White’s Chocolate House, “the most fashionable hell in London,” or trudges further east to Willis’s, in Bow Street, be sure there will be plenty to note his strange manner and call him “the mad parson!” Perchance he may be taking the air to prepare himself for that particular dinner with my Lord Abercorn when there smoked upon the board the “fine fat haunch of venison, that smelt rarely on one side,” which he mentions, with such gusto, in his journal; or perhaps he is setting out on one of his long rambles to Chelsea to dine with the Dean of Carlisle, or to sup with Lord Mountjoy at Kensington Gravel Pits.

An observant traveller who visited London about this period, remarks that “Most of the streets are wonderfully well lighted, for in front of each house hangs a lantern or a large globe of glass, inside of which is placed a lamp which burns all night.” The light which hung before “Stewart’s” must have illuminated the face of many a “toast,” many a “Macaroni,” as they came up Bond Street, and sometimes that of one of those terrible “mohocks.” My Lord Mohun, not yet dreaming of his sanguinary and fatal encounter with his grace of Hamilton, but sufficiently notorious for that mysterious affair when Mountfort the player fell mortally wounded near his lodging in Norfolk Street; the eccentric Duke of Wharton, who once sent a bear to his tutor as an appropriate concomitant to his “bearish conduct”; who, marrying at sixteen, became a sort of Jacobite hero, and showed by some of his writings in “The True Briton,” what gifts he had squandered by a riotous life; and who finally ended his career in a Bernardine Convent, “the scorn and wonder of our days,” as Pope writes, “a sad outcast of each church and state.” Hervey, the “Sporus” of the same bitter pen, having dragged himself for a space from the Court, of which he was so characteristic an ornament, and from the company of the Princess who secretly loved him. Perhaps he will to-morrow fight, behind Arlington House, hard by, with Pulteney, who called him “a thing below contempt.” That slip of the foot at the critical moment saved the “thin-spun life,” and like so many protagonists in such encounters, the whilom enemies embrace, with more fervour on Pulteney’s part than on that of “My Lord” who but bows in silence and withdraws.

And then what a galaxy of beauty reflects the light from that “lantern or large globe of glass!” Here is Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, not very much affected by the virulent lines of the “wicked wasp of Twickenham”; the lovely Molly Lepel, who married Lord Hervey, and whom Lady Suffolk loved so much; Mary Bellenden, afterwards Mrs. Campbell, another of those maids of honour whom Gay and Prior sung, and Swift and Arbuthnot undertook to prove the best wives, although we remember that the coachman at Leicester House solemnly forbade his son ever to think of any of them in so tender a way! Here, too, is Lady Mary Coke, who was used to almost regard herself as a royal widow, on the death of Edward Duke of York—for which “mealy faced boy” she had a “tendre”; the Duchess of Queensberry, Prior’s “Kitty ever fair,” whom Walpole thought looked “(by twilight) like a young beauty of an old-fashioned century,” and who died in Savile Row, in 1777, “of a surfeit of cherries.”

The list might be indefinitely extended, but “Anni labuntur” and other centuries are hurrying us along, bringing new faces in their train; George Selwyn with his witty talk and mania for executions; he is off now, probably to see John Rann, or “Sixteen-stringed Jack,” as he was called, strung up at Tyburn tree—my Lord Pembroke accompanies him, and the cronies chancing to meet a lot of young chimney sweeps who beg for money, Selwyn suddenly addresses them solemnly with the words “I have often heard of the sovereignty of the people. I suppose your highnesses are in Court mourning;” Charles James Fox, the most eminent of those “sons of faro,” who having lost his last penny and consoled himself by reading Homer in the small hours, is thinking of a “passover” to the Continent, which, as Selwyn says, will not be relished by the Jews; Lord March may also be seen, the wicked “old Q” of many a notorious story; and Hare—“the hare with many friends,” as his acquaintances nick-named him; and then the dandies of a later day; Alvanley, who succeeded Selwyn as a wit and almost rivalled Brummell as a dandy; “Ball” Hughes and “Teapot” Crawfurd; Lord Yarmouth and Prince Esterhazy; Jack Lee, and the great Brummell himself, who has cut the Regent and is thinking of bringing the old king into fashion!

These, and how many others, have not passed by that corner in Piccadilly where Stewart’s stands; they are but the ghosts of the beauties and exquisites of a bygone day that loiter there—for in this strenuous age no one dawdles—all is hurry and confusion, and the idle stroller, other than Thespian, is almost a thing of the past. Let us for the moment try to imitate our forbears and “take a walk down Piccadilly.”

What changes have not taken place in this street of streets! It was known by the quaint name it still bears as early as 1633, for Gerarde in his famous Herbal, mentions “the wild bu-glosse,” that “grows about the drie ditch-bankes about Pickadilla.” This is not the place to go into the mysteries of nomenclature, and many have been the theories as to the origin of the name; but that is probably the correct solution which traces it to the ruffs called Pickadils, worn by the gallants of James’s and Charles’s time. Blount in his “Glossography” (1656) thus speaks of the matter: “A Pickadil is that round hem, or the several divisions set together about the skirt of a garment or other thing; also a kind of stiff collar, made in fashion of a band. Hence, perhaps, the famous ordinary near St. James’s, called Pickadilly, took denomination, because it was then the utmost, or skirt house of the suburbs, that way.”

Thus Blount, and I think we may leave it at that. We shall return later on to the “famous ordinary,” which was known as Pickadilla Hall, and was situated at the north-east corner of the Haymarket: now we are on our way west, like the wise men of old.[1]

ALBEMARLE STREET.