G. E. Mitton

There is a subtle difference in the river above and below Hammersmith: above, it is a stream of pleasure—below, it is something less beautiful, but grander, more crowded with memories, more important.

Though pleasure boats are to be seen in quantities any summer evening about Putney; though market gardens still border the banks at Fulham; yet the river is for the greater part lined with wharves and piers and embankments. It is no wild thing running loose, but a strong worker full of earnest purpose. It is the great river without which there would have been no London, the river which bears the largest trade the world has ever known.

Unfortunately, the habit of using the river at London as a highway was lost some time in the eighteenth century and has not yet been recovered, notwithstanding the gallant attempt of the London County Council to educate the people to it. At one time the river was used for every sort of traffic: tilt boats, covered with an awning, ran up and down like omnibuses and charged sixpence a passenger; and every man of importance kept his private barge, for the smoothly gliding waters made an infinitely preferable route to the vile roads. At every set of stairs—and the stairs were frequent—numberless wherries awaited hire. In the sixteenth century there were two thousand on the water, and it was reckoned that nine thousand watermen earned their living by transporting people up and down or from shore to shore. When it is objected that these men were a pest and a nuisance, so that we are well rid of them, that their language was unspeakable and their manners filthy, it may be replied, autres temps autres moeurs, for there are a few watermen still to be had at Westminster, at the Tower, and at most of the river stairs, and they are civil and obliging, only, alas, the public rarely patronises them. Occasionally, an uncommonly adventurous person, probably a visitor staying in London, penetrates to the haunt of the watermen, and, upon inquiry, he finds a respectable man, duly licensed like a cabman, liable to be reported for rudeness or misconduct, strictly limited by law as to the fees he may demand, and ready to add greatly to the pleasure of the trip by his genial, shrewd humour and his keen observation; qualities found frequently in men whose business is upon great waters.

BEYOND HAMMERSMITH BRIDGE

Without counting the railways, fourteen bridges now span the Thames from Hammersmith downward, and even fourteen we sometimes find inadequate to our needs in this hurrying life. Not until the middle of the eighteenth century was the historic London Bridge backed up by a second. Before that time, all men crossed by boat, or by the ferry at Westminster, or even by the ford there, a feat which the embanking of the river has long rendered impossible.

We can see it, this great river of ours, as in a vision, gradually emerging from its primeval wilderness. First it spread widely between the rising ground on each side, a vast area of lagoons, flooded at high tide, and at low tide a swampy place full of half-submerged islets. Then one or two small settlements for trade were planted on its banks, first at Westminster, and others about the site of Cannon Street Station, where the Walbrook leapt to meet the larger current. There was a gradual extension of houses along the brink. At last an attempt was made to bridge the river over, probably by a wooden bridge. This succeeded, and when the bridge had stood for some time it was replaced by another in the twelfth century. This was built and rebuilt, as the turbulent river, feeling the erection of earthworks to curtail its flood, fretted to be free, and rushed seaward with force, tearing down the obstruction offered by this quaint old London Bridge with its double line of houses. Many a picture of this bridge still remains. It was a fascinating, a wonderful structure. Numberless children have yearned to have lived there, high above the flood. What delight to look out from one's nursery window and see the grey-green water hastening past. To see it mysteriously stop as if by some command from on High, then slowly turn and race inward again. Marvellous feat! Miraculous bridge! There was a beautiful chapel, a veritable gem of work, upon this bridge. There was a house like a puzzle-house, put together with pegs, without an iron nail in it. There were gateways at each end, and on the gateways were the grisly remains of the heads of men and women who had been executed. There were shops on each side of the road where ribbons and laces and other haberdashery might be bought at will.

THE CUSTOM HOUSE

There were gaps between the houses, where one could escape for a moment from the lumbering, creaking, groaning traffic pent up in the narrow, mud-splashed roadway, and see the water itself, and see how the houses were built out over it, resting on nothing. Another miracle! A mighty tome might be written about Old London Bridge; of all the relics of a past London, it is the one I should like most to have seen. Mills there were on this bridge, to which the people could bring their corn to be ground by the force of the water. Waterworks there were, too, and the bridge itself contained a drawbridge to protect London against invasion, for, as there was none other crossing, an enemy prevented here might well be held in check altogether.

Next to London Bridge, the oldest bridge across the river was at Kingston, and it is on record that in 1554, Sir Thomas Wyatt, finding London Bridge closed against him, marched all the way to Kingston in order to cross, but on arrival there, found that he had been anticipated, and that the bridge was broken down.

The present London Bridge has been recently widened. At one end of it rises the white tower of St. Magnus, a Danish saint, and behind it is the pointing finger of the Monument, while down the river are the market of Billingsgate, the quay of the Custom House, and beyond, rising tall and ghostly, close to the Tower itself, the Tower Bridge, the latest addition to the list.

On the south side of London Bridge, over the houses peep the pinnacles of St. Saviour's tower, Southwark. Anciently, it was called St. Mary Overies, and was once a priory, one of the most ancient houses in London. From this there ran a ferry, which was in use long after the bridge was built, for the narrowness of the street and the continual blocks made a passage by the bridge a process of time. Gower, the poet, was a benefactor to the priory, and is buried in the church.

DUTCH BARGES NEAR THE TOWER

As the Tower Bridge can swing open, ships of all sizes can get up as far as London Bridge, when the tide allows them sufficient water-way, and a busy scene, watched by a never-failing crowd of idlers, is always to be witnessed in the reach below. Ships there are of all shapes and sizes, but mostly hideous, made for merchandise and not for show. Many of them are iron, and run between eight and twelve hundred tons. They come from Hamburg, Hull, Newcastle, Holland, and many another port. There, out in the river, is a dredger working with a hideous grinding noise, and beyond it are two or three brilliantly painted green and red boats with great wooden flaps, or lee boards, on their sides. They are Dutch eel boats, and are allowed to lie in the river free from dues, if they keep always in the same place. It is a survival of an ancient custom.

As we pass through under London Bridge, and come out on the other side, we can see the grey river with its bustling craft, framed like a series of pictures in the wide arches.

Some of the oldest theatres in London stood on the part called Bankside, about Southwark Bridge; at present the view is dingy and uninteresting. The Bishop of Winchester's palace once adjoined Bankside, as that of the Archbishop of Canterbury, at Lambeth, still stands near Westminster Bridge; but it fell into ruins and the bishops removed to Chelsea.

It is impossible to enumerate the palaces and fine houses that once stood along Thames Street, which, in the fourteenth century, was the most fashionable street in London. The part of the foreshore now occupied by wharves and great warehouses—where cranes swing and lighters await their loads all day long, and every working day—has all been reclaimed from the river. Once it was covered at every returning tide, but strong piles were driven into the mud, and on this unpromising spot houses began to rise and dÉbris accumulated, until firm ground was made, and this became one side of a busy street.

On the up-side of Cannon Street, close to the cavernous jaws of the station, is a wharf marked in white letters, "Walbrook Wharf." This is as near as we can get to the first site of London, where the Briton made his modest lake-fort, Llyn-din, and afterwards the Romans pitched their strong citadel.

THE TOWER OF ST. MAGNUS

Queenhithe was given by King John to his mother, Queen Eleanor. Hence arose the name. It was no trifling gift, for this was the most important dock on the Thames at that time, and dues were collected from all the ships unlading here. Now it is a small area in which the water laps at rotting lichened posts as it slowly uncovers and re-covers the slimy mud.

The whole of this district lying north of the Thames is the oldest part of our ancient city, and it is thick with memories. Down the crooked streets Spenser came as a boy from his home beyond the city ditch to his school of the Merchant Taylors in Dowgate. Here a fair-haired gentle lad, called Chaucer, loitered many a time, for his father's house was in Thames Street.

Not far from Puddle dock stood Baynard's Castle with its high buttressed walls. In it Edward IV. was proclaimed, and in it, also, Richard III. made a feint of refusing the crown belonging to his imprisoned nephew. Tower Royal, Montfichet, and many another glorious building, have gone utterly, so that their sites can be fixed only approximately. The river Fleet, up which large ships could ply once, flowed into the Thames where is now Blackfriars Bridge. By its banks the great religious houses of the Black and White Friars rose, and the boundary cliff hewed by its current may still be traced in the steep rise up Ludgate Hill, which tries the patient omnibus horses day by day. Over all, as we draw further up the river, towers the great dome of St. Paul's.

The Surrey side of the Thames continues unlovely—a medley of browns and greys, tall chimneys and tumble-down sheds; it needs the veil which the atmosphere of London mercifully throws over it.

The railway bridge and Blackfriars are so close together, they almost touch. As we pass underneath there is a hollow reverberation, like the beat of the surf in a cave on the shore. Just above the bridge is anchored the Buzzard, the Naval Volunteer training ship.

ST. PAUL'S

Along the northern side now begins the Embankment, with its solid granite walls and fringe of young planes. The green lawns and red buildings of the Temple can be seen only when the river is very high. Further on is Somerset House, followed by a line of hotels, the palaces of modern days. Somerset House is the successor of the palace built by the arrogant Protector Somerset, from the stones of churches and religious buildings; between it and the Temple stood Arundel and Essex Houses. The latter had earlier been called Leicester House, and Spenser lived there for a time as secretary to the Earl of Leicester.

The tide has turned and is coming in. Little steam tugs, gallantly towing six barges, two abreast and each twice as large as themselves, pant up stream; while the bargees, with faces the colour of brickdust, the colour they are so fond of reproducing in their paint and even in their sails, stand by their huge rudders. Some barges are struggling along without mechanical aid. The men in charge bend back horizontally in their manipulation of the huge sweeps. There must be a knack in it. No one could work so hard as they seem to be doing; spine and sinews would give way altogether. Their whole strength results in but a slow progress, and the barge, responding to the push of the water, makes a kind of crab-like movement, sidling up the river broadside on. One, laden with yellow straw till it appears like a huge barn, is stranded right in mid-stream. The long ends of the straw sweep in the water, and there is no moving until the current increases.

Here and there red-brown sails, patched and stained, spring up, and others still furled, stand up along the wharves like crooked warning fingers. Just before Waterloo Bridge there is, neatly tucked away below the Embankment, so that few ever know of its existence, a station of the river police, with trim muslin curtains over the windows.

Between Waterloo and Charing Cross Bridges the same sort of thing continues. An enormous chimney on the Surrey side mocks the dignity of Cleopatra's Needle, now safe in haven after many vicissitudes. The sweep of the river makes these two bridges radiate out like the spokes of a wheel, so that the southern ends are nearer than the northern. The chimneys and wharves and the ubiquitous barges still continue, and as we pass beneath the hideous red iron bridge of Charing Cross, we get a vision of the many towers and pinnacles of Westminster ahead.

THE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT

Besides the great houses of old times already mentioned, there were others down this stretch of the river too—the Savoy, home of John of Gaunt, and in its time prison and hospital; Durham, Worcester, and Salisbury Houses. These were all either flush with the water or hemmed in by high walls in which were stairs "to take water at." The only relic of these mansions lies in the watergate of York House, now about a hundred yards from the river, behind a strip of land which has all been reclaimed by the making of the Embankment. But that the Embankment does not always suffice to curb the current was proved not so long ago, for in March, 1906, there was a combination of circumstances which swelled the volume of water abnormally. Sudden floods of rain caused every weir far up the river to be opened, and bounding, exulting to be free, the huge mass of water, swelled by every brook and tributary and swollen to twice its usual size, rushed seaward. But it was met by a high spring tide, and the collision was increased by a strong wind, so that the water rose higher and higher, and the curious spectacle was witnessed of barges floating above the roadway, propelled by sweeps braced against the granite walls. The water burst up through the pavement and the manholes, and ran in a flood under Charing Cross Bridge, but it just did not overtop the Embankment wall by an inch or two, and as the tide subsided the tension relaxed. In the higher reaches, about Barnes and Chiswick, "tide-boards" were used to fill up the crevices below the doors, and by this means alone many a house was saved from being swamped.

The scene is lively enough. Seagulls of all ages—big dingy drab ones and neat ones in liveries of dove-grey and white—float merrily on the ripples, or poise and wheel in the air. Here a County Council steamer ploughs past, churning the river into wavelets, there a lad paddles a boat from shore to shore with a single oar used rudderwise, a feat possible only to a born waterman.

As we pass on we can see the high bastion towers of Scotland Yard. Northumberland Avenue stretches over ground which was once the gardens of Northumberland House—they came down to the water—and beyond this were quadrangles and a medley of buildings, mostly low and mostly of brick, which formed the palace of Whitehall, snatched by Henry VIII. from Wolsey because the royal palace at Westminster had fallen into decay. The Houses of Parliament, standing on the site of the latter palace, are the finest work of Barry, who has been abused for many things, but who seems to have been touched by a genuine spirit of architecture in this instance, and to have realised the right characteristics of majesty and delicacy in his work. But he had a noble chance, for the position of the building, standing on the edge of the water, with the bridge rising beside it, gave room for a fine conception.

From Westminster to the Tower or Fleet prison, how many prisoners have come and gone—come up against the current full of hope, and returned of hope bereft! The ghosts are endless, because the river was the usual mode of communication between the Tower and the Court at Westminster, as the Strand was full of holes and seamed by watercourses. If this reach of water were to tell its tale, much of the history of England would be interwoven with it, and it would be tinged with the bitterest sorrow human life can know—death with disgrace.

From the time of Edward the Confessor to the time of Henry VIII., our kings were housed at Westminster as one of the chief of their royal palaces. Luckily the Great Hall, which Rufus built, escaped the fire of 1834, and still may be seen, but all else, with the exception of the crypt of St. Stephen's, has vanished utterly.

The time to see the Houses of Parliament is undoubtedly at night, when Big Ben's illuminated face sheds a sort of ethereal light on the architectural fretwork near him.

Wordsworth admired the view most in the early morning, before the first waking of the great world of bustle and business:

Westminster Bridge is particularly wide, and has a low parapet. In the sudden gusts of wind that come sweeping down the river it is a marvel that no one has been caught up and tossed over into the rolling green torrent. These peculiarities also are noticeable when the bridge is seen from the Embankment, for the traffic looms up very high on it, and the omnibuses and cabs look almost as if they were careering along on the parapet itself.

From Westminster to Lambeth is but a short way, and what Westminster Palace was, while it existed, to the lord temporal, so Lambeth has been, and is, to the lord spiritual; from the very earliest times the Archbishops of Canterbury have lodged here.

In our peaceful days the holder of the highest dignity of the Church has not to fear the Tower and the "sharp medicine of the axe" as some of his predecessors did. Laud and Juxon were executed, and for Cranmer there was the worse horror of the torturing stake. Lambeth has seen much cruelty mingled with the name of religion in the time that it has stood above the flood. The Lollards, imprisoned within the tower which still bears their name, made deep incisions on the walls to wile away the weary hours of suspense, and the groans of prisoners have been stifled by these walls as well as by those of the grim Tower.

On the same side as Lambeth, nearer Westminster Bridge, are the curious detached buildings of St. Thomas's Hospital, looking like nothing in the world less than a hospital.

Where Lambeth Bridge is now, was once the ferry by which King James II. passed when he made a hurried exit from the kingdom that repudiated him. It was a bitter night, and, attended by only one gentleman, the king slipped secretly out of his palace at Whitehall, and crossing the Privy Gardens, made his way to the ferry, where he entered a small boat with a single pair of oars. In mid-stream he threw the Great Seal into the water. A curious and dramatic incident this, that might well be made the subject of a picture by some historical painter. The Great Seal was afterwards accidentally drawn up in the net of some fisherman. But there is another memory further back still, which gives to this strip of river an importance which no other part can boast. Here lay the first ford, to which all the traffic of the north, on its way to the south coast, had to come. In the ages before even the oldest London Bridge was built, a string of pack horses, of weary men and of travellers, continually wandered down through the marshes lying around Thorney Island, on which stands the present Abbey, and, guided by stakes placed for the purpose, arrived at the river's bank, there to await low tide, when they could cross over to the further shore. Through the ages we see them continuing, and when England was Christianised, to the procession were added monks and pilgrims bent on holy missions. When London Bridge was built, a great majority of the age-long procession was diverted that way, but many still continued to prefer the ancient ford at Westminster. Of course, since the Embankment was made, and the river no longer wanders uncurbed over the lowlands and meadows of Westminster, the current runs deep and strong and no fording is possible.

Above Lambeth we pass the Tate Gallery and the new bridge at Vauxhall, and then traverse a dreary strip of river, dreary on both sides, until we come near to Chelsea Bridge. This is a high-swinging and imposing bridge of the same type as the Albert Bridge further up. How different the Chelsea we see now from the ancient Chelsea. Ours is a Chelsea mainly of red brick, with many tall flats and many beautifully designed houses in pseudo-ancient style. A long line of planes runs along the embankment, which is one of the prettiest embankments on the river. The gardens and green lawns of the Royal Hospital reach to the roadway, and away behind them at some distance can be seen the comparatively low and long range of buildings dating from the time of the Stuarts, and forming an asylum for old soldiers. On the strip of ground to the east of them once stood Ranelagh, the gay rotunda which played such a part in all London flirtations; where misses met their beaux and walked round in stately steps to the sound of music. The breakfasts at Ranelagh were at one time almost as popular as the evening entertainments:

Thus Bloomfield satirically described the scene. Ranelagh plays a large part in Evelina and other romances of that date. The last public entertainment was given in 1803, and of the gay rotunda with its gorgeous fittings not a vestige now remains.

High red-brick flats which stand at the foot of the Royal Hospital gardens by the river, are succeeded by smaller houses, and beyond the Albert Bridge the district has not yet been transformed, as it assuredly will be.

In the small public gardens that face the river there is a bronze statue of Carlyle, the Sage of Chelsea, and not far off rises the curious little tower of dark brick that belongs to the old church, a very mausoleum of tombs. Chelsea has, perhaps, been more altered by the formation of the Embankment than any other part of the river. Its very name implies a bank of shingly beach stretching down to the water, and so it was in old times, and to this beach the gardens of the stately palaces reached. Chelsea has been called a village of palaces. A village it was in old times, quite detached from London, and considered a country residence by many a famous nobleman and statesman. On the site of the row of houses in Cheyne Walk stood the New Manor House built by Henry VIII. as part of the jointure of Catherine Parr, who afterwards lived here with her fourth husband, Thomas Seymour, Lord High Admiral. Both Princess Elizabeth and Lady Jane Grey spent part of their childhood in it. The palace of the Bishops of Winchester, at Southwark, having become dilapidated, as we have seen, a new one was built at Chelsea in 1663, and was occupied by eight successive bishops. Shrewsbury House was another palace built in the reign of Henry VIII. The wife of the Earl of Shrewsbury was the founder of Chatsworth, Oldcotes and Hardwick. In Lawrence or Monmouth House, near the church, lived Smollett the novelist, and further on, somewhere near the end of Beaufort Street, was the house once occupied by Sir Thomas More, whose memory is still cherished in Chelsea. No garden among all the famous gardens of Chelsea was so carefully tended as his. When More had been made Lord Chancellor, and had spent his days hearing cases in the stuffy precincts of the court, how joyfully must he have stepped into his barge in the cool of the evening, to be rowed back up-stream to his roses and his children, where he could indulge his kindly humour and his playfulness, and unbend without fear. Sometimes the royal barge would sweep up after him, and the tyrant Harry himself spring ashore and walk up and down the sweet-scented alleys, with his arm round the Chancellor's neck, a dangerous fondness that in time resulted in More's being cut off altogether from his garden and his peaceful evenings, and in his going down that stream never to return. His monument is in the church, with an inscription written by himself, but whether his body lies here is a question that can never be definitely answered.

Beyond Battersea Bridge is a little creek, and from a small house on the other side of the road Turner used to look out upon the river. He came here incognito from his real house in Queen Anne Street, and studied the gorgeous sunset effects, which can be seen nowhere better than at Chelsea.

Turner brings us to modern memories. Besides himself and Carlyle, there lived in Chelsea, Rossetti and George Eliot, not to mention living men.

Opposite Chelsea is the long wall that bounds Battersea Park, and after passing Battersea Bridge, we encounter a very unlovely strip of water, with wharves and chimneys and tumble-down buildings. It is utilitarian and not beautiful.

The green embankment which hems in the grounds of Hurlingham Club gives a touch of relief, and the fine trees which existed long before the club, since the time that the house was a private mansion, rise towering above it. On the other side the river Wandle, from which Wandsworth takes its name, a river known to few, empties itself into the Thames. Then we reach Putney Bridge, with its wide, curved white arches. On the east is another embankment which bounds Bishop's Park, partly turned into pleasure gardens open to all the world. The palace itself is not well seen from the river, for it is low and hidden by trees.

The manor of Fulham has belonged to the See of London since the end of the seventh century. The palace is built round two courtyards, the older of which dates from Henry VII.'s reign, and the other from the middle of the eighteenth century. The west or river side contains the rooms used by Laud while he was bishop.

As we draw away from the bridge we see to advantage the two churches, curiously alike, one belonging to Putney and the other to Fulham, which stand at two corners of the bridge, diagonally, looking at one another. Boat-houses and flats fill up the western shore until they are succeeded by the trees of Barn Elms Park, otherwise known as Ranelagh. The chief memories of Ranelagh centre about the Kit-Kat Club, which met here, and included among the members such men as Walpole, Vanbrugh, Congreve, Addison and Steele. Their portraits were all painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller, and hung round the club room; consequently, this particular size of portrait, 36 inches by 28, became known as a kit-kat. The name of the club itself is said to have originated in a pastrycook named Christopher Kat, who used to make excellent mutton pies, called Kit-Kats, which were always included in the bill of fare at club dinners.

Many a visit did Evelyn and Pepys and other notable Londoners make to Barn Elms in summer evenings in the seventeenth century. Pepys was particularly fond of idling under the well-grown trees. Hear him:

This was in April; and another time:

On the opposite side of the river from Barn Elms stood Brandenburg House, where lived Queen Caroline, unhappy consort of George IV.

Below Hammersmith Bridge there is a very untidy bit of foreshore, with factories and chimneys and many dreary objects scattered about it, and always a superfluity of clumsy barges. Beyond the fine suspension bridge there is another bit of foreshore not quite so untidy, where racing boats and other boats lie, and from which many a crew turns out to practice. Along this stretch runs the Mall, Upper and Lower. In the coffee house near the junction of the two, Thomson wrote "Winter," in The Seasons.

The Mall is associated with the Kelmscott Press, founded by William Morris, who named it after his country house. Turner lived in the Mall for six years, and the novelist Marryat was a resident for a short time in 1830. Here also was a large house occupied by Catherine of Braganza after the death of Charles II. The river at Hammersmith is 750 feet wide. The inhabitants make the bridge a favourite lounging place, for seats line both sides; the total amount of fresh air thus imbibed no man can calculate, for the tide races up bringing ozone straight from the sea, and the wind blows freshly over the glittering water. On the south bank are the reservoirs of a large water company.

With Hammersmith we must end this chapter, for we have joined the account of the stream of pleasure which comes down to London.