G. E. Mitton

“ About "Paddington Basin," as it is called, are clustered many poor houses. The streets between the Harrow Road on the one side, and the basin on the other, are miserable and squalid. At the corner of Green Street is a church formerly belonging to the Catholic Apostolic community, later purchased by the Baptists, and now belonging to the Salvation Army. This is a structure of Kentish ragstone in a Gothic style with small steeple. In the Edgware Road are one or two public-houses, which, if not actually old, stand on the sites and inherit the names of famous old predecessors. ”

“ On the west side, at the corner of Buckingham Palace Road, are Belgrave Mansions, built from designs by Cundy in 1868, a large block in French Renaissance style, with a frontage of nearly 300 feet. The ground-floor is occupied by shops, and above are five floors of flats. The centre of the open space is occupied by two triangular enclosed gardens, and is crossed by Ebury Street, once an open lane leading over the fields to Chelsea. Houses were built on it after 1750, and in 1779 the north-eastern end was named Upper Ranelagh Street and Ranelagh Street. ”

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

“ The ward of Maida Vale is bounded by Church ward on the south, Westbourne and Harrow Road wards on the west, and the borough boundary north and east. Between the Maida Vale Road and St. Saviour's Church in the Warwick Road there is nothing to comment on. The church of St. Saviour is in a Decorated style of Gothic. It is ornately built, with a square tower buttressed and pinnacled. The church was consecrated in 1856, and in 1883 a very fine and solidly-built chancel was added. This is faced on the interior with Cosham stone. ”

“ Berkeley Square was built about 1698 on the site of the gardens of Berkeley House, the residence of Sir John Berkeley, afterwards Lord Berkeley, of Stratton, to whose descendant, Earl Fitzhardinge, the property still belongs. It slopes somewhat steeply to the south, and has a well-wooded garden in the centre, planted about the end of the eighteenth century. ”

“ The larger portion of the district is included in the ancient estate of Eia, 890 acres in extent, reaching from the Bayswater Road to the Thames, which was given by William the Conqueror to Geoffrey de Mandeville, who at his death bequeathed it to the Abbey of Westminster. In Domesday Book it is divided into three manors of Hyde, Ebury, and Neyte. Of these the first occupies the site of Hyde Park; Ebury, from Knightsbridge to Buckingham Palace Road; Neyte, nearer the river, was the favourite residence of the Abbots. ”

“ The whole district is singularly uninteresting, the streets of good breadth, and the houses faced with plaster of the type we have seen in Belgravia. North of Belgrave Road the streets are occupied by the poorer classes, but the [Pg 82] squares and principal streets in this neighbourhood are tenanted by the wealthy. The southern portion is dully respectable, and most of the houses are let in lodgings. The eastern end of Warwick Street and Lupus Street contain the only shops, and those of no great size or importance. ”

“ In Queen's Road there is a United Methodist Free Church, built in 1868 of white brick with stone facings. It has an open arcade on to the street. The interior is circular, and seats about 900 persons. In the Bayswater Road are many palatial houses facing Kensington Gardens. Orme Square, on the north side of the road, was built in 1815, and is therefore ancient for Paddington. It was doubtless named after Mr. Edward Orme, of Bayswater, who built a chapel at his own expense in Petersburgh Place 1818. In Petersburgh Place there is a large red-brick synagogue in the Byzantine style. ”

“ District Railway, commenced in 1863 and opened in 1868. The line runs in a curve underground from Sloane Square, crossing Ebury Street at Eaton Terrace, and Buckingham Palace Road at Grosvenor Gardens. From the Underground Station a subterranean passage leads to the Victoria terminus, the starting-point of the London, Brighton, and South Coast and London, Chatham, and Dover Railway Companies. The present station, which has no pretension to architectural beauty, is being greatly enlarged and partly rebuilt. ”

“ Beyond this, in the most northerly part of the borough, is the Kilburn Orphanage. This was begun in 1875 in two houses in the Kilburn Park Road, but funds were raised for building purposes, and in 1880 the present orphanage was completed. The Sisters themselves supplied quite half of the money required. The rule of the Sisterhood is that, though each retains control of her own capital, her income goes into the common fund. The orphanage is a large red-brick building standing in Randolph Gardens. The western wing, now connected with the main building, was added later, and the chapel last of all ”

“ The hospital now faces Praed Street as well as Cambridge Place, the intervening houses having been pulled down. It is a great square red-brick building with stone facings. Behind the hospital are All Saints' Schools, and to the west of them the Great Western Railway Terminus. The Act for the extension of the Great Western line to Paddington, and for the erection of a station, was dated 1836. ”

“ All the wards are here and all the paupers except the school-children. Beyond the workhouse still remain some nursery gardens, and in the continuation of the Harrow Road is a Roman Catholic church, the Church of Our Lady of Lourdes and St. Vincent de Paul, of Kentish ragstone with a wheel window in the east end. The foundation-stone was laid in 1878, and it was opened in 1882 as a private chapel. ”

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

“ Clieveden Place, first built over in 1826, was so named in 1890 from the Duke of Westminster's late estate near Cookham, instead of its original name, Westbourne Place.
Between Clieveden Place and Pimlico Road the streets are narrow and unimportant. In Westbourne Street (1826) , so called from the neighbouring Westbourne River, stood the York Hospital for invalid soldiers, removed to Chatham in 1819. On the east side is a Baptist chapel, a plain building, erected in 1825. ”

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

“ On the site are a noticeable stone-fronted house, now a carriage warehouse, and the Royal Orthopædic Hospital, founded 1838 and removed here from Bloomsbury Square in 1856.
Park Lane, up to 1769 called Tyburn Lane, was in the reign of Queen Anne a desolate by-road, but is now a favourite place of residence for the [Pg 11] fashionable persons in the Metropolis. It is open to Hyde Park as far as Hamilton Place, whence it reaches Piccadilly by a narrow street. ”

“ Gabriel's, by Cundy, built circa 1870 to replace a mission church; opposite it is the Pimlico Pier for river steamboats. Adjoining St. George's Square is the Army Clothing Factory, established in 1857 in the Vauxhall Bridge Road as an experiment to provide labour for women. The present establishment was opened in 1859, and has since been largely increased, occupying a space of about 7 acres. The east block is the Government store, the west the factory, the centre of which is occupied by a glass-roofed hall, three stories high, surrounded by spacious galleries. ”

“ A stream somewhat similar in course was the Tyburn, which also rose at Hampstead, but flowed through the parish of Marylebone, the ancient Tyburnia. This was considerably to the east of Paddington, and has been treated in the Marylebone section. Oxford Street was the ancient Tyburn Road, and the gallows stood opposite the Marble Arch. [Pg 89]
In Rocque's map (1748) only the Westbourne is marked, but we see Tyburn Turnpike at the junction of the Edgware Road, and near by "the stone where soldiers are shot." ”

“ Grosvenor Square and the surrounding streets have always been the centre of the aristocratic world; the Square, which includes about six acres, was built in 1695. The garden was laid out by Kent, and in the centre stood formerly an equestrian statue of George I., by Van Nost, placed there in 1726. On the site, in 1642, was erected a fort named Oliver's Mount, which stood as one of the defences against the Royalists until 1647. Owing to the prejudices of the inhabitants, Grosvenor Square was not lit by gas until 1842.
Inhabitants: Duchess of Kendal, d. 1743; Earl of Chesterfield, 1733-50 ”

“ It is an uninteresting street of unpretending houses and shops. In Upper Ebury Street lived: Rodwell the composer; William Skelton, engraver, d. 1848; No. 174 is the Boys' School belonging to the parish of St. Barnabas. [Pg 71]
At the north-east end of Ebury Street is Victoria Square, a small square of plain houses built about 1837, out of which Albert Street leads to Grosvenor Place. In the square lived, at No. 8, Thomas Campbell, 1841-43; 5, Earl of Mount Edgcumbe.
At the other end, near Ebury Bridge, is Ebury Square, built about 1820 on the site of Ebury Farm. ”

“ Westmoreland Street (1852) contains the Pimlico chapel for United Free Methodists.
Lupus Street (1842) is named after Hugh Lupus, Earl of Chester, an ancestor of the Duke of Westminster. It contains a hospital for women and children.
At the eastern end is St. George's Square (1850) , a long narrow space reaching to the river with an enclosed garden in the centre. The houses are large. At No. 9 Sir J. Barnby d. 1896.
At the north end is St. Saviour's Church, built in 1864 from designs by Cundy in a Decorated Gothic style. ”

“ The Serpentine, a noble stretch of water of 50 acres, has already been described in "Kensington."
Hyde Park has always been noted for its springs. In 1725 the Chelsea Waterworks Company obtained a license to supply the surrounding districts, and built a reservoir and engine-house near Grosvenor Gate, which existed until 1835, when, on the recall of the license, the engine-house was demolished and the basin laid out with flower-beds and a fountain. ”

“ Its chief feature is the Parish Church of St. George, designed by John James, begun in 1713 and consecrated in 1724, one of Queen Anne's fifty churches. The style is Classical, the body plain, but having a Corinthian portico of good proportions, and a clock-tower 100 feet high. The interior contains a good Jesse [Pg 25] window put in in 1841. In 1895 the building was redecorated, repaired, and reseated, and the old organ by Snitzler, put up in 1761, was replaced by a Hope Jones electric instrument. This church has been long celebrated for fashionable marriages. ”

“ The Red Lion, No. 239, a little to the north of Praed Street, claims as ancient a date. Tradition says that Shakespeare acted in one of the old wooden rooms, now vanished, and the inn boasts a haunted chamber.
In Cambridge Place is St. Mary's Hospital and Medical School. The suggestion of a hospital was discussed in 1840, but the foundation was not laid until 1843 by the late Prince Consort. The [Pg 118] building was designed to hold 380 beds, but though it has been added to from time to time it still contains less than this, a supply totally inadequate to the demand for accommodation. ”

“ It has always been a fashionable place of residence. The houses below St. George's Hospital were formerly small and plain. The best-known inhabitants were: No. 1, Dr. Lewes' School of Anatomy and Medicine; 4, Lord [Pg 59] Egremont (the third) ; north corner of Halkin Street, the Earl of Carlisle, Byron's guardian.
These houses were replaced in 1873-76 by five palatial stone houses built for the Duke of Grafton, Duke of Northumberland, Sir Anthony Rothschild, and Earl Stanhope.
They are occupied now by: No. 1, the Wellington Club (proprietary) , social and non-political ”

“ It takes its name from the Tyburn, which flowed down the course of South Molton Lane and Avery Row, by Bruton Mews to the bottom of Hay Hill, and through the gardens of Lansdowne House to Shepherd's Market. It then crossed Piccadilly at Engine Street, and flowed through the Green Park to Buckingham Palace. ”

“ Here also are kept the old and new state coaches, the former of which was built in 1762 of English oak, with paintings by Cipriani, and cost £7,660.
Buckingham Palace Road, now a broad street with large houses and shops, was in 1725 an open country road, known as the coach-road to Chelsea. The houses in it are rated under the name of Pimlico as late as 1786, but rows of houses under [Pg 73] various names had been built earlier—Stafford Row in 1752, Queen's Row in 1766. ”