Percy Fitzgerald

“ Not a soul is to be seen; and our footfalls echo in the deserted court.
In every direction we see old, flamboyant black oak. How imposing is the entrance to the Banqueting Hall, and really monumental—a massive ponderous gateway of black oak, with pillars and pediments and capitals, and figures soaring and gesticulating aloft, and flanked by solid panelling! Within there is the great oaken gallery, the tall windows, with the leaded panes. There is nothing finer in London than the great fireplace and mantel, which rises to the ceiling and offers an extraordinary display of the carver’s art. ”

“ Nowhere is the current of life and traffic so congested as on Ludgate Hill: the stream surges up and down the hill, yet here we come upon such an oasis. Turning out of Paternoster Row, and passing near its aorta, as we might almost style Stationers’ Hall Court, we stand before a red arch and gateway, quite modern, but not out of keeping. This is the entrance to Amen Court, happily named, a little sequestered square, where the canons of St. Paul’s live when they are “in residence.” Nothing more lazy, dreamy, or retired can be imagined. ”

“ Apropos of London towers, one of the most truly graceful and effective is that of St. Clement Dane’s Church in the Strand, though it is encumbered with a clumsy church behind. Often of a winter’s evening, as you come down Holywell Street, or Booksellers’ Row, you hear its merry chimes jangling out, growing more and more noisy and riotous as you approach. It may be some moonlight night, when its graceful outlines are projected against the bluish sky behind, while the tower windows, lit up from within, show where the ringers are at work. ”

“ We ascend by one of the alleys, and come once more into something like life and motion and see the clattering cabs and omnibuses hurrying by.
Again, what can be better than the view as you walk towards Cripplegate, through winding streets, and begin to see the old gaunt, quaint, weather-beaten tower of St. Giles’s Church rising above the houses? There is nothing in London better than this solemn tower, formed of old stones half the way up, the other half of grimed, caked brick, the whole surmounted by an odd and quaint belfry. ”

“ Down this quaintly-named Laurence Pountney Hill, stand two grimed, solid old houses—handsome, truly, in their design and decoration. We look first at the elaborate, richly-carved, and wrought doorways, so original and florid in design; and indeed lift our eyes in admiration to the lofty and stately façade of this fine and ripe piece of antique brick, well-toned, full of dark shadows, and marvellously effective. The cornice is like nothing that is to be seen in London, the supports being grouped three together, thus giving a fine effect. ”

“ The general effect of this charming, tranquil little retreat, devoted to business, with its trees and old graveyard and carvings, its secular air of solitude as you turn in from the noisy street, is singular and pleasing. One or two of the old windows display the old heavy flat sashes, in contrast to the new plate-glass. Going a little to the left we find ourselves in a small square, surrounded by warehouses, old and new, some gloomy and grimed, while we pass on between two miniature churchyards, each displaying a few altar-tombs, and some twig-like trees. ”

“ One could hardly find more remarkable houses outside a Christmas number. Those we see here are high-roofed and long-windowed—with the old panes—which must at least be as old as Elizabeth. Each has its gardens round it, and looks snug and comfortable. Here is an old “moated” house, the water running lazily below—for the road is a bridge—actually round the foundations. To this mansion much has been done by way of restoration. Coming to the Palace, it is delightful to meet with the elegant and original banqueting hall, ruined fragment as it is. ”

“ The curious mixture of associations, as we wander up and down; the strange incredible squalor of some portions, the comparative stateliness and imposing air of others, the pretty gardens, the way in which memories of Garrick, Franklin, Peter the Great, the Romans, Charles Dickens, and many more, are suggested and jumbled together at every turn, make the old familiar Strand one of the most interesting quarters in London.
This may seem a puzzling statement. As all the world knows there is little or nothing of pretension about the streets—the houses are mean, the shops poor. ”

“ There is a general look of monotonous hopelessness that cannot be described. No one seems to be about or doing. There is one compensation—the good, clear, inspiring air. This is felt as we mount those gently-rising hills which lead out of the main road, and land us among the still more saddening squares and abjectly-correct terraces. One of these is Canonbury Road, at the top of which the atmosphere is positively “bracing,” and here—that is, a little way on—we come to a most interesting old memorial, well worthy the long jaunt from the West End. ”

“ How many people are there who think of looking at the view from one of our London bridges, at the picturesque groups of sailing barges, at the curious effects of light behind, and the towers of Westminster in the distance? How many men wending their way homewards from the City on the top of an omnibus in summer ever thought of noting the flood of golden haze in Oxford Street, a street which from its position is peculiarly adapted for the study of sunlight effects? ”

“ The windows exhibit a feeling of design and balance. There are the high, the solidly imperishable carved eaves which no damp can penetrate. The whole has an air of grace; it suits its garden, and its garden suits it. Out at Clapton, nearly opposite to the Salvationist Barracks, is a house of this pattern; pleasing, if only as a survival of the well-designed suburban house, and which will well repay a walk. It is now a ladies’ school.
The larger mansions in London, which answer to noblemen’s “hôtels” in Paris, are few, and are not very imposing of their class. ”

“ Entering, there is the true old-world flavour—the galleries, the tumble-down stairs fashioned of wood-panelling with projecting eaves, the files of bells outside, the kitchen to the left as in a foreign hotel, strange little rickety stairsteps as from the cabin of a ship, with also the occasional appearance of a figure in one of the galleries. The inn life here, from these arrangements, is certain to correspond—every one is, as it were, in evidence. You can hardly dream of the noisy Holborn just outside. ”

“ Lifting the latch we enter the silent inclosure, which might be one of the old retired colleges at Cambridge, and not an antique survival in the heart of London. The courtyard is original: the façade fronts us with its rows of louvre windows, pierced in the ripe and red old brick; the long windows below them, with their small leaded panes, furnish light to the great Hall, and are framed in a rich mass of carving, flowers and fruits. To the right a fine bold staircase leads to the Hall. ”

“ On a long, irregular pier, not of the correct hewn stone, modern pattern, but of earth and wood, or piles, and through the trees and that delightful shade which dapples all the walk in patterns, though outside it the sun is blazing fiercely, we see figures promenading, and beyond them as background—a cosy row of red brick houses—an old-fashioned terrace, of the brick of Queen Anne’s special hue, with twisted iron railings and gates in front. ”

“ The London inns and inn-yards, still used as houses of entertainment, are among the last few survivals which link us to the antique customs of old London. These are now being swept away with a pitiless rapidity, and in a dozen years more not one will be left. The enormous, sheltering, tiled roofs, the galleries, balustrades, crannies, winding stairs, joined to make these singular structures picturesque, with their lights and shadows, suggestive of the buildings in an old Normandy town. The strange part is that these hostelries seem to do business up to the moment of their extinction ”

“ Entering, for it is open to all, a walk leads us up to what is something of a surprise. Here we are confronted by a fine solid building of the Wren pattern, high roofed, deep gabled, and red bricked. Its many windows are set off with deep green “jalousies,” and in the middle there is a pediment and pavilion with the two statues of the founder and foundress, standing side by side, in their old-fashioned dress; below are carved flourishings and graceful garlands of stone flowers, with a deep and spreading archway, through which we see the interior of a square. ”

“ There are plenty of these ghostly chambers in London, and the feeling on disturbing their antique solitude is a curious one. It is specially present when we invade the repose of the now disused Palaces, some of which are interesting places enough, but have a particularly forlorn and faded air.
No building has been so rudely, even coarsely, treated as the venerable old Palace, St. James’s, whose gate tower is so interesting and piquant a monument. Portions have been burnt and re-built; but the “restorations” seem always to have been carried out on the meanest and shabbiest fashion. ”

“ Too little, indeed nothing, is done for the entertainment of the people in London. Neither music, nor shows, nor reviews of soldiers, nor anything entertaining is supplied. Were such an open space provided, and a kiosk or pavilion, an orchestra erected, a pleasant and cheap attraction for poor, much-neglected Demos would be found. Of a summer’s evening we could call up a picture of the Embankment crowded, and the river covered with boats, the crowd scattered, promenading, or seated—a café or two busy. ”

“ Entering by the gate, left open, we stroll up to the rather grim-looking quadrangle of solemn black and red brick in a diapered pattern. Nothing can be more pleasing than the still retirement of the inclosure with its circular and waterless basin in the centre, and the imposing doorway facing the archway. The windows are long and diamond-paned, and flush with the wall—lank and gloomy-looking. There is the picturesque lantern over the hall or chapel. No one is to be seen. ”

“ To hear its chimes, not at midnight, but on some December evening, when the steeple is projected on a cold blue background, while you can see the shadows of the ringers in the bell-tower, offers a picturesque effect. The bells fling out their janglings more wildly than any peal in London: they are nearer the ground, and the hurly-burly is melodious enough. Those tones the Doctor often heard in Gough Square and Bolt Court, and within he had his favourite seat, to this day reverently marked by a plate and inscription. ”

“ The Drapers’ Hall is a vast and ponderous mass, already blackened with age, though young in years, but very striking in character, with its enormous and richly florid cornice, bold windows, and heavily arched portals. As we look through the iron rails, we can see a retired court, curious contrast to the noisy scene without. The old “Drapers’ Gardens” used to stretch down the whole street that turns out of Throgmorton Street, and were admired for their tranquil air of old fashion. Gradually they have been encroached upon; warehouses have been reared, and a fragment only now remains. ”

“ Beside the river runs a wall which encloses the grounds and gardens of Chiswick House, the Duke of Devonshire’s villa, a classical structure, built by that nobleman of elegant taste—Lord Burlington, whose work is to be seen not only in London, but at York and other places. His buildings all exhibit this character, and are effective. This Italian villa, with the cupola to its octagon room rising over the pillared pediment, is in his best style. Not far away on the roadside is another villa, with an ambitious portico and pillars which may have been designed by the same amateur. ”

“ There are people who have been brought up, “man and boy,” as it is called, in London, and lived there all their life long, and who think it is little more than a repetition of the Strand and Fleet Street, and that the City is all like Lombard Street. What London abounds in is the picturesque and the poetical: there is really an abundance of charming “bits,” of artistic buildings, and of relics as noteworthy as any in a foreign town. Some of them we pass every day, but familiarity obscures their merit. ”

“ Perhaps the truest “painter” of the modern English school who could be called a master, and whose works would stand the test of criticism, is Wilkie. No praise could do justice to that masterpiece, “The Blind Fiddler,” with its minutely delicate handling of faces and hands, yet offering a grand breadth of style. The beautiful limpid colouring, the firmness, yet delicacy, of the touch, the pleasant, quiet, unforced humour of the scene—akin to that of Goldsmith—the brilliancy and largeness of treatment, are perfectly miraculous in a youth little more than twenty. ”

“ Higher up is a modern, red-brick, not ineffective building, of a gorgeous pattern. The eye is then led down to the bottom of the steep and winding lane, which seems closed by the elegant steeple of a church in wrought clean grey stone, so high and airy in its {200}treatment as to recall the charming old Town Hall at Calais. From its side is projected the well-gilt clock-face, richly glowing on a well-carved bracket.
In truth there is this perpetual charm and flavour in the old City which few are aware of—a sort of antique air which recalls old Flemish cities. ”