The extent of London in 1837, that is to say, of close and continuous London, may be easily understood by drawing on the map a red line a little above the south side of Regent’s Park. This line must be prolonged west until it strikes the Edgware Road, and eastward until it strikes the Regent’s Canal, after which it follows the Canal until it falls into the Regent’s Canal Docks. This is, roughly speaking, the boundary of the great city on the north and east. Its western boundary is the lower end of the Edgware Road, Park Lane, and a line drawn from Hyde Park Corner to Westminster Bridge. The river is its southern boundary, but if you wish to include the Borough, there will be a narrow fringe on the south side. This was the whole of London proper, that is to say, not the City of London, or London with her suburbs, but continuous London. If you look at Mr. Loftie’s excellent map of London,1 showing the extent built upon at different periods, you will find a greater area than this ascribed to London at this period. That is because Mr. Loftie has chosen to include many parts which at this time were suburbs of one street, straggling houses, with fields, nurseries, and market-gardens. Thus Kennington, Brixton, and Camberwell are included. But these suburban places were not in any sense part of continuous London. Open fields and gardens were lying behind the roads; at the north end of Kennington Common—then a dreary expanse uncared for and down-trodden—lay open ponds and fields; there were fields between Vauxhall Gardens and the Oval. If we look at the north of London, there were no houses round Primrose Hill; fields stretched north and east; to the west one or two roads were already pushing out, such as the Abbey Road and Avenue Road; through the pleasant fields of Kilburn, where still stood the picturesque fragments of Kilburn Priory, the Bayswater rivulet ran pleasantly; it was joined by two other brooks, one rising in St. John’s Wood, and flowing through what are now called Craven Gardens into the Serpentine. On Haverstock Hill were a few villas; Chalk Farm still had its farm buildings; Belsize House, with its park and lake, was the nearest house to Primrose Hill. A few houses showed the site of Kentish Town, while Camden Town was then a village, clustered about its High Street in the Hampstead Road. Even the York and Albany Tavern looked out back and front on fields; Mornington Crescent gazed across its garden upon open fields and farms; the great burial-ground of St. James’s Church had fields at the back; behind St. Pancras’ Churchyard stretched ‘Mr. Agar’s Farm;’ Islington was little more than a single street, with houses on either side; Bagnigge Wells—it stood at the north-east of St. Andrew’s Burying-ground in Gray’s Inn Road—was still in full swing; Hoxton had some of its old houses still standing, with the Haberdashers’ Almshouses; the rest was laid out in nurseries and gardens. King’s Cross was Battle Bridge; and Pentonville was only in its infancy.

Looking at this comparatively narrow area, consider the enormous growth of fifty years. What was Bow? A little village. What was Stratford, now a town of 70,000 people? There was no Stratford. Bromley was a waste; Dalston, Clapham, Hackney, Tottenham, Canonbury, Barnsbury—these were mere villages; now they are great and populous towns. But perhaps the change is more remarkable still when one considers the West End. All that great cantlet lying between Marylebone Road and Oxford Street was then much in the same state as now, though with some difference in detail; thus, one is surprised to find that the south of Blandford Square was occupied by a great nursery. But west of Edgware Road there was next to nothing. Connaught Square was already built, and the ground between the Grand Junction Road and the Bayswater Road was just laid out for building; but the great burying-ground of St. George’s, now hidden from view and built round, was in fields. The whole length of the Bayswater Road ran along market-gardens; a few houses stood in St. Petersburg Place; Westbourne Green had hardly a cottage on it; Westbourne Park was a green enclosure; there were no houses on Notting Hill; Campden Hill had only one or two great houses, and a field-path led pleasantly from Westbourne Green to the Kensington Gravel Pits.

On the west and south-west the Neat Houses, with their gardens, occupied the ground west of Vauxhall Bridge. Earl’s Court, with its great gardens and mound, stood in the centre of the now crowded and dreary suburb; south of the Park stood many great houses, such as Rutland House, now destroyed and replaced by terraces and squares. But though London was then so small compared with its present extent, it was already a most creditable city. Those who want more figures will be pleased to read that at the census of 1831 London contained 14,000 acres, or nearly twenty-two square miles. This area was divided into 153 parishes, containing 10,000 streets and courts and 250,000 houses. Its population was 1,646,288. Fifty years before it was half that number, fifty years later it was double that number. We may take the population of the year 1837 as two millions.

More figures. There were 90,000 passengers across London Bridge every day, there were 1,200 cabriolets, 600 hackney coaches, and 400 omnibuses; there were 30,000 deaths annually. The visitors every year were estimated at 12,000. Among the residents were 130,000 Scotchmen, 200,000 Irish, and 30,000 French. These figures convey to my own mind very little meaning, but they look big, and so I have put them down. Speaking roughly, London fifty years ago was twice as big as Paris is now, or the present New York.

As for the buildings of London proper, fifty years have witnessed many changes, and have brought many losses—more losses, perhaps, than gains. The Royal Exchange, built by Edward Jerman in place of Sir Thomas Gresham’s of 1570, was burnt to the ground on January 10, 1838. The present building, designed by Sir William Tite, was opened by the Queen in person on October 28, 1844. Jerman’s Exchange was a quadrangular building, with a clock-tower of timber on the Cornhill side. It had an inner cloister and a ‘pawn,’ or gallery, above for the sale of fancy goods. It was decorated by a series of statues of the Kings, from Edward I. to George IV. Sion College, which until the other day stood in the street called London Wall, was not yet wantonly and wickedly destroyed by those who should have been its natural and official protectors, the London clergy.

Things happen so quickly that one easily forgets; yet let me pay a farewell tribute and drop a tear to the memory of the most delightful spot in the whole of London. The building was not of extreme age, but it stood upon the ancient site of Elsinge Spital, which itself stood upon the site of the old Cripplegate Nunnery; it was founded in 1623 by the will of one Dr. Thomas White, Vicar of St. Dunstan’s-in-the-West; the place was damaged by the Great Fire, and little of the building was older, I believe, than 1690, or thereabouts. But one stepped out of the noise and hurry of the very heart of London into a courtyard where the air was instantly hushed; on the right hand were the houses of the almsmen and women, though I believe they had of late ceased to occupy them. Above the almshouses was the long narrow library crammed with books, the sight and fragrance of which filled the grateful soul with joy. On the left side of the court was the Hall used for meetings, and open all day to the London clergy for reading the magazines, reviews, and papers. A quiet, holy place. Fuller wrote his ‘Church History’ in this college; the illustrious Psalmanazar wrote here his ‘Universal History’—it was after he repented of his colossal lies, and had begun to live cleanly. Two hundred and fifty years have witnessed a long succession of London clergymen, learned and devout most of them, reading in this library and meeting in this hall. Now it is pulled down, and a huge warehouse occupies its place. The London clergy themselves, for the sake of gain, have sold it. And, as for the garish thing they have stuck up on the Embankment, they may call it what they like, but it is not Sion College.

Another piece of wanton wickedness was the destruction of Northumberland House. It is, of course, absurd to say that its removal was required. The removal of a great historic house can never be required. It was the last of the great houses, with the exception of Somerset House, and that is nearly all modern, having been erected in 1776–1786 on the site of the old palace.

The Strand, indeed, is very much altered since the year 1837. At the west end the removal of Northumberland House has been followed by the building of the Grand Hotel, and the opening of the Northumberland Avenue: the Charing Cross Station and Hotel have been erected: two or three new theatres have been added: Temple Bar has been taken down—in any other country the old gate would have been simply left standing, because it was an ancient historical monument; they would have spared it and made a roadway on either side; the rookeries which formerly stood on the north side close to the Bar have been swept away, and the Law Courts stand in their place—where the rooks are gone it is impossible to say. I myself dimly remember a labyrinth of lanes, streets, and courts on this site. They were inhabited, I believe, by low-class solicitors, money-lenders, racing and betting men, and by all kinds of adventurers. Did not Mr. Altamont have chambers here, when he visited Captain Costigan in Lyons Inn? Lyons Inn itself is pulled down, and on its site is the Globe Theatre.

As for churches, there has been such an enormous increase of churches in the last fifty years, that it seems churlish to lament the loss of half a dozen. But this half-dozen belongs to the City: they were churches built, for the most part, by Wren, on the site of ancient churches destroyed in the Fire; they were all hallowed by old and sacred associations; many of them were interesting and curious for their architecture: in a word, they ought not to have been pulled down in order to raise hideous warehouses over their site. Greed of gain prevailed; and they are gone. People found out that their number of worshippers was small, and argued that there was no longer any use for them. So they are gone, and can never be replaced. As for their names, they were the churches of Allhallows, Broad Street; St. Benet’s, Gracechurch Street; St. Dionis Backchurch; St. Michael’s, Queenhithe; St. Antholin’s, Budge Row; St. Bene’t Fink; St. Mary Somerset; St. Mary Magdalen; and St. Matthew, Friday Street. The church of St. Michael, Crooked Lane, in which was the grave of Sir William Walworth, disappeared in the year 1831; those of St. Bartholomew by Eastcheap, and of St. Christopher-le-Stock, which stood on either side of the Bank, were taken down in the years 1802 and 1781 respectively. The site of these old churches is generally marked by a small enclosure, grown over with thin grass, containing one, or at most two, tombs. It is about the size of a dining-room table, and you may read of it that the burying-ground of Saint So-and-so is still preserved. Indeed! Were the City churchyards of such dimensions? The ‘preservation’ of the burial-grounds is like the respect which used to be paid to the First Day of the week in the early lustra of the Victorian Age by the tobacconist. He kept one shutter up. So the desecrators of the City churchyards, God’s acre, the holy ground filled with the bones of dead citizens, measured off a square yard or two, kept one tomb, and built their warehouses over all the rest.

All round London the roads were blocked everywhere by turnpikes. It is difficult to understand the annoyance of being stopped continually to show a pass or to pay the pike. Thus, there were two or three turnpikes in what is now called the Euston Road, and was then the New Road; one of them was close to Great Portland Street, another at Gower Street. At Battle Bridge, which is now King’s Cross, there were two, one on the east, and one on the west; there was a pike in St. John Street, Clerkenwell. There were two in the City Road, and one in New North Road, Hoxton; one at Shoreditch, one in Bethnal Green Road, one in Commercial Road. No fewer than three in East India Dock Road, three in the Old Kent Road, one in Bridge Street, Vauxhall; one in Great Surrey Street, near the Obelisk; one at Kennington Church—what man turned of forty cannot remember the scene at the turnpike on Derby Day, when hundreds of carriages would be stopped while the pikeman was fighting for his fee? There was a turnpike named after Tyburn, close to Marble Arch; another at the beginning of Kensington Gardens; one at St. James’s Church, Hampstead Road. Ingenious persons knew how to avoid the pike by making a long dÉtour.

The turnpike has gone, and the pikeman with his apron has gone—nearly everybody’s apron has gone too—and the gates have been removed. That is a clear gain. But there are also losses. What, for instance, has become of all the baths? Surely we have not, as a nation, ceased to desire cleanliness? Yet in reading the list of the London baths fifty years ago one cannot choose but ask the question. St. Annice-le-Clair used to be a medicinal spring, considered efficacious in rheumatic cases. Who stopped that spring and built upon its site? The Peerless Pool close beside it was the best swimming bath in all London. When was that filled up and built over? Where are St. Chad’s Wells now? Formerly they were in Gray’s Inn Road, near ‘Battle Bridge,’ which is now King’s Cross, and their waters saved many an apothecary’s bill. There were swimming baths in Shepherdess Walk, near the almshouses. When were they destroyed? There was another in Cold Bath Fields; the spring, a remarkably cold one, still runs into a bath of marble slabs, represented to have been laid for Mistress Nell Gwynne in the days of the Merry Monarch. Curiously, the list from which I am quoting does not mention the most delightful bath of all—the old Roman Bath in the Strand. I remember making the acquaintance of this bath long ago, in the fifties, being then a student at King’s. The water is icy cold, but fresh and bright, and always running. The place is never crowded; hardly anybody seems to know that here, in the heart of London, is a monument of Roman times, to visit which, if it were at Arles or Avignon, people would go all the way from London. Some day, no doubt, we shall hear that it has been sold and destroyed, like Sion College, and the spring built over.