The Portsmouth Road and Its Tributaries: To-Day and in Days of Old

Let us now turn our attention to the original route to Portsmouth; the road between the Stone’s End, Borough, and Wandsworth. I warrant we shall find it much more interesting than going from the West-end coach-offices with the fashionables; for they were more varied crowds that assembled round the old “Elephant and Castle” than were any of the coach-loads from the “Cross Keys,” Cheapside, or from that other old inn of coaching memories, the “Golden Cross,” Charing Cross.

OLD “ELEPHANT AND CASTLE,” 1824.

AN UNCONSIDERED TRIFLE

Every one journeyed from the “Elephant and Castle” in the old stage-coach days, before the mails were introduced, and this well-known house early became famous. It was about 1670 that the first inn bearing this sign was erected here, on a piece of waste ground that, although situated so near the borders of busy Southwark, had been, up to the time of Cromwell and the era of the Commonwealth, quite an unconsidered and worthless plot of ground, at one period the practising-ground for archers,—hence the neighbouring title of Newington Butts,—but then barren of everything but the potsherds and general refuse of neighbouring London. In 1658, some one, willing to be generous at inconsiderable cost, gave this Place of Desolation towards the maintenance of the poor of Newington; and it is to be hoped that the poor derived much benefit from the gift. I am, however, not very sure that they found their condition much improved by such generosity. Fifteen years later, things wore a different complexion, for when we hear of the gift being confirmed in 1673, and that the premises of the “Elephant and Castle” inn were but recently built, the prospects of the poor seem to be improving in some slight degree. Documents of this period put the rent of this piece of waste at £5 per annum! and this amount had only risen to £8 10s. in the space of a hundred years. But so rapidly did the value of land now rise, that in 1776 a lease was granted at the yearly rent of £100; and fourteen years later a renewal was effected for twenty-one years at £190.

The poor of Newington should have been in excellent case by this time, unless, indeed, their numbers increased with the times. And certainly the neighbourhood had now grown by prodigious leaps and bounds, and Newington Butts had now become a busy coaching centre. How rapidly the value of land had increased about this time may be judged from the results of the auction held upon the expiration of the lease in 1811. The whole of the estate was put up for auction in four lots, and a certain Jane Fisher became tenant of “the house called the ‘Elephant and Castle,’ used as a public-house,” for a term of thirty-one years, at the enormously increased rent of £405, and an immediate outlay of £1200. The whole estate realized £623 a year. As shown by a return of charities, printed for the House of Commons in 1868, the “Elephant and Castle” Charity, including fourteen houses and an investment in Government stock, yielded at that time an annual income of £1453 10s. 0d.

THE ‘ELEPHANT AND CASTLE’

The two old views of the “Elephant and Castle” reproduced here, show the relative importance of the place at different periods. The first was in existence until 1824, and the larger house was built two years later. A dreadful relic of the barbarous practice by which suicides were buried in the highways, at the crossing of the roads, was discovered, some few years since, under the roadway opposite the “Elephant and Castle,” during the progress of some alterations in the paving. The mutilated skeleton of a girl was found, which had apparently been in that place for considerably over a hundred years. Local gossips at once rushed to the conclusion that this had been some undiscovered murder, but the registers of St. George’s Church, Southwark, probably afford a clue to the mystery. The significant entry occurs—“1666: Abigall Smith, poisoned herself: buried in the highway neere the Fishmongers’ Almshouses.”

No one has come forward to explain the reason of this particular sign being selected. “Y^t is call’d y^e Elephaunt and Castell,” says an old writer, “and this is y^e cognizaunce of y^e Cotelers, as appeareth likewise off y^e Bell Savage by Lud Gate;” but this was never the property of the Cutlers’ Company, while the site of “Belle Sauvage” is still theirs, and is marked by an old carved stone, bearing the initials “J. A.,” with a jocular-looking elephant pawing the ground and carrying a castle.

When the first “Elephant and Castle” was built on this site, the land to the westward as far as Lambeth and Kennington was quite rustic, and remained almost entirely open until the end of last century. Lambeth and Kennington were both villages, difficult of access except by water, and this tract of ground, now covered with the crowded houses of an old suburb, was known as St. George’s Fields. It was low and flat, and was traversed by broad ditches, generally full of stagnant water. Roman and British remains have been found here, and it seems likely that some prehistoric fighting was performed on this site, but as all this took place a very long while before the Portsmouth Road was thought of, I shall not propose to go back to the days of Ostorius Scapula or of Boadicea to determine the facts. Instead, I will pass over the centuries until the times of King James I., when there stood in the midst of St. George’s Fields, and on the site of Bethlehem Hospital, a disreputable tavern known as the “Dog and Duck,” at which no good young man of that period who held his reputation dear would have been seen for worlds.

“DOG AND DUCK” TAVERN.

There still remains, let into the boundary-wall of “Bedlam,” the old stone sign of the “Dog and Duck,” divided into two compartments; one showing a dog holding what is intended for a duck in his mouth, while the other bears the badge of the Bridge House Estate, pointing to the fact that the property belonged to that corporation. Duck-hunting was the chiefest amusement here, and was carried on before a company the very reverse of select in the grounds attached to the tavern, where a lake and rustic arbours preceded the establishment of Rosherville.

At later periods St. George’s Fields were the scene of “Wilkes and Liberty” riots, and of the lively proceedings of Lord George Gordon’s “No Popery” enthusiasts. It is by a singular irony that upon the very spot where forty thousand rabid Protestants assembled in 1780 to wreak their vengeance upon the Catholics of London, there stands to-day the Roman Catholic cathedral of St. George.

SIGN OF THE “DOG AND DUCK.”

THE ROADS

This event brings us to the threshold of the coaching era, for in 1784, four years after the Gordon Riots, mail-coaches were introduced, and the roads were set in order. Years before, when only the slow stages were running, a journey from London to Portsmouth occupied fourteen hours, if the roads were good! Nothing is said of the time consumed on the way in the other contingency; but we may pluck a phrase from a public announcement towards the end of the seventeenth century that seems to hint at dangers and problematical arrivals. “Ye ‘Portsmouth Machine’ sets out from ye Elephant and Castell, and arrives presently by the Grace of God....” In those days men did well to trust to grace, considering the condition of the roads; but in more recent times coach-proprietors put their trust in their cattle and McAdam, and dropped the piety.

A fine crowd of coaches left town daily in the ’20’s. The “Portsmouth Regulator” left at eight a.m., and reached Portsmouth at five o’clock in the afternoon; the “Royal Mail” started from the “Angel,” by St. Clement’s, Strand, at a quarter-past seven every evening, calling at the “George and Gate,” Gracechurch Street, at eight, and arriving at the “George,” Portsmouth, at ten minutes past six the following morning; the “Rocket” left the “Belle Sauvage,” Ludgate Hill, every morning at half-past eight, calling at the “White Bear,” Piccadilly, at nine, and arriving (quite the speediest coach of this road) at the “Fountain,” Portsmouth, at half-past five, just in time for tea; while the “Light Post” coach took quite two hours longer on the journey, leaving London at eight in the morning, and only reaching its destination in time for a late dinner at seven p.m.

The “Night Post” coach, travelling all night, from seven o’clock to half-past seven the next morning, took an intolerable time; the “Hero,” which started from the “Spread Eagle,” Gracechurch Street, at eight a.m., did better, bringing weary passengers to their destination in ten hours; and the “Portsmouth Telegraph” flew between the “Golden Cross,” Charing Cross, and the “Blue Posts,” Portsmouth, in nine hours and a half.

“ELEPHANT AND CASTLE,” 1826.

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