TWO OLD CITY MANSIONS.

‘The crowning city, whose merchants are princes, whose traffickers are the honourable of the earth.’

Isaiah xxiii. 8.

BEFORE the summer of 1892 a large and interesting old mansion was destroyed in the City. This, known as Nos. 8 and 9, Great St. Helen’s, Bishopsgate Street, was situated on the south side of the churchyard. It was of brick, having engaged pilasters, which were furnished with stone bases and capitals; they also had bands, on two of which, composed, however, of cement, appeared in relief the initials _a^l_i and the date 1646. The projecting sills or cornices, and the deep keystones of the first-floor windows, gave a striking character to the house. It was also memorable as an early specimen of brickwork in London, and as dating from a period before the formal conclusion of the Civil War, when building operations were almost at a standstill. No. 9 had, in a room on the first-floor, a wooden seventeenth-century mantelpiece,[92] behind which, on its removal, were found traces of an older mantelpiece of marble, and evidence of the former existence of a large open fireplace.

There was a beautiful staircase, quite Elizabethan in style; a blocked-up window with wooden transoms for casements was also discovered; so it seems likely that some years after the building of the house considerable alterations took place. The faÇade has often been attributed to Inigo Jones,[93] but it had not his classic symmetry, and looked like the work of a less-instructed native genius. Besides, Inigo Jones, a Royalist and Roman Catholic, was taken prisoner in October, 1645, at the storming of Basing House, having been there during the siege, which had lasted since August, 1643. He was apparently not free to return to his profession until July 2, 1646, when, after payment of a heavy fine, his estate, which had been sequestrated, was restored to him, and he received pardon by an ordinance of the House of Commons, to which the Lords gave their assent. It is difficult to believe that, whilst he was passing through such a crisis, or in the few months succeeding it, he should have been superintending a work in the Puritan City. At the time of his release the great architect was seventy-four years of age, and, as far as we know, he hardly practised his profession afterwards. Aubrey tells us that in 1648, the south side of Wilton House having been destroyed, it was restored by his advice, ‘but he being then very old could not be there in person, but left it to Mr. Webb,’ his pupil and executor.

The division of Nos. 8 and 9, Great St. Helen’s into two took place in the course of last century, probably about 1750, to judge from the style of the fanlights and projecting hoods to the front-doors, and from the staircase of No. 8, the upper part of which, however, was much more archaic, and may have served as part of the back-staircase to the original house. At the time of these later alterations a new brick front was put to the top story, the windows being protected by high iron railings, which showed that these upper rooms were used as nurseries. Before this there was, I should imagine, a high-pitched roof, perhaps hipped, with dormer windows. There must also have been an appropriate cornice and frieze, which would have balanced the heavy projecting window-sills below. That the house always had a fourth story is proved by the fact that both the old staircases extended to the top. The accompanying illustration of part of the front is from a beautiful measured drawing by Mr. H. O. Tarbolton, who studied the house very carefully just before its demolition.

In Allen’s ‘History of London,’ vol. iii., p. 157, I find a statement that this brick mansion (identified by mention of its initials and date) was ‘formerly the residence of Sir J. Lawrence, Lord Mayor in 1665.’ This appears to be the origin of the idea that the house was built for him, and that he kept his mayoralty there, which has of late been usually accepted as a fact. There is no doubt that Nos. 8 and 9, Great St. Helen’s was his property in 1665, but he was living in a house of totally different appearance—an illustration of which, by T. Prattent, published in 1796, forms the frontispiece to vol. xxix. of the European Magazine. As there shown, it had elaborate plaster decorations in front, with the City arms and the arms of Lawrence, and last, though not least, the inscription s^r jl—k & a. 1662. Sir John Lawrence’s residence is marked by name in the map of Bishopsgate Street Ward accompanying Strype’s Stow, where a slight sketch of it is also given; the present Jewish synagogue in Great St. Helen’s is a little bit west of the site.

Having looked up the history of the Lawrence family, and its connection with this parish, I think I can show that the initials on the pilaster of Nos. 8 and 9, Great St. Helen’s were not those of Sir John Lawrence and his wife Abigail, but of his uncle Adam and his uncle’s wife. The Lawrences, like many other eminent mercantile families, were originally Dutch or Flemish. The name was spelt in various ways, as Laurens, Laureijns, Laurents, etc., until, when its possessors became thoroughly anglicized, it took the English form. Le Neve, the herald, says that a Marcus Lawrence, from Flanders, who had married Gertrude Huesen, came and settled in London. He had, among other children, a son Abraham and a son Adam. The latter was baptized at the Dutch Church, Austin Friars, September 8, 1584;[94] and one may fairly assume that it was he who there married, May 28, 1610, Judith Van den Brugghe, of Norwich, where there was then a strong settlement of people from the Low Countries. He was appointed deacon of the Dutch Church in 1628, and became an elder in 1632. Eleven years later he had taken up his residence in Great St. Helen’s, as we learn from an entry in the parish register,[95] which suggests the forlorn condition of the homeless poor in those days. On the 23rd of April, 1643, ‘a female infant, found dead at the dore of Mr. Adam Lawrence, merchant, was buried in the churchyard’ there. What house he was then living in I am not able to determine; but in the year 1646 the house just now destroyed was doubtless either built or altered for his own residence, and on it was placed an inscription, according to the custom of the country whence he sprang.

I have previously pointed out that in inscriptions of this kind the initial of the husband’s Christian name is almost invariably on the left, the wife’s on the right, and that of the surname above. The letters in question would therefore have stood for ‘Adam and Judith Lawrence.’ In 1650 came the inevitable ending to their long married life. On the 9th of April it is recorded that Judith ‘Laurents’[96] was buried in the church of Great St. Helen’s. Adam died in October, 1657. His will describes him as a merchant, and he seems to have been a very prosperous one. He desires to be buried near his wife, in Great St. Helen’s, and leaves £100 to the poor of the Dutch congregation in Austin Friars, and £100 towards the maintenance of the ministry there; also similar legacies for the parish of Great St. Helen’s, and £100 to the poor children of Christ’s Hospital. Amongst numerous nephews, he singles out for special favour John, who seems to have been a son of his brother Abraham. To him he leaves several houses and gardens in the parish, amongst others his ‘now dwelling-house, with the yards, garden edifices, appurtenances, and hereditaments whatsoever thereunto belonging.’ This, no doubt, was Nos. 8 and 9, Great St. Helen’s, unless after his wife’s death he had shifted into another residence. Adam also left to his nephew John his share in the ‘sister’s thread trade,’ whatever that may mean, which he had in partnership with Abraham Cullen,[97] the elder, and Philip Van Cassole; and £1,500 to Abigail, his nephew’s wife, who died in 1681, and whose monument still exists in Great St. Helen’s Church, where it is recorded that she was ‘the tender mother of ten children. The nine first, being all daughters, she suckled at her own breasts; they all lived to be of age. Her last, a son, died an infant. Shee lived a married wife 39 years, 23 whereof she was an exemplary matron of this Cittie,[98] dying in the 59th year of her age.’ This lady was eldest daughter of Abraham Cullen, who appears to have been nearly related to the Lawrence family. One paragraph of Adam’s will is worth quoting, because it seems to indicate that pretentious public funerals were then not uncommon in the City, and that he, at any rate, was free from a taste for vulgar display. He says: ‘Lastly, my desire is that my funerall be decently performed without anie pompe or ceremonie of mourners, and that my corps be carried from my own dwelling house, not troubling any publique hall.’

John Lawrence, the nephew, seems to have been a pattern City merchant. He had begun life as a Bluecoat boy, hence, perhaps, his uncle’s legacy. In 1658 he served the office of Sheriff. On June 16, 1660, he was knighted by Charles II., when that monarch, accompanied by his brothers, the Dukes of York and Gloucester, and some of the nobility, was entertained at supper by the Lord Mayor, Sir Thomas Alleyne. In 1662 Sir John Lawrence appears to have built a new house for himself, the one before alluded to, which was drawn by Prattent, not unlikely on a ‘garden plot’ mentioned in his uncle’s will. In 1664 he was elected Lord Mayor, and Evelyn speaks of a ‘most magnificent triumph by water and land’ on that occasion. Evelyn also attended the Lord Mayor’s banquet, and tells us that it was said to have cost £1,000. He dined at the upper table with the Lord Chancellor, the Dukes of Albermarle, Ormonde and Buckingham, the French Ambassador and other great personages. The Lord Mayor twice came up to them, ‘first drinking in the golden goblet his Majesty’s health, then the French King’s as a compliment to the Ambassador’; they ‘returned my Lord Mayor’s health, the trumpets and drums sounding. The cheer was not to be imagined for the plenty and rarity, with an infinite number of persons at the tables in that ample hall.’ Sir John Lawrence showed both courage and liberality whilst the Great Plague was raging in the following year. He stuck to his post, ‘enforced the wisest regulations then known,’ and, when multitudes of servants were dismissed through fear of contagion, he is said to have ‘supported them all, as well as the needy who were sick; at first by expending his own fortune, till subscriptions could be solicited and received from all parts of the nation.’ Dr. Erasmus Darwin, in his ‘Loves of the Plants,’ canto ii., devotes a few lines to ‘London’s generous Mayor.’ Five deaths only are recorded in Great St. Helen’s during the year 1665, which suggests that those connected with the Church showed less courage than the chief parishioner, and that the register was neglected.

In 1684 the house of late numbered 8 and 9, Great St. Helen’s was in the occupation of one William Moses. That year Sir John Lawrence, who so far had not handed over his uncle’s legacy for the poor of the parish, agreed to discharge his obligation by payment of £250, and to give £100 in addition for leave to make a family vault in the church. In 1690 Sir John was living in Putney, as appears from the churchwardens’ accounts.[99] He died January, 1691-2, and was buried on the 29th of that month, in the family vault which had been constructed for him under the church of Great St. Helen’s, but no monument to his memory exists. The Rev. J. E. Cox, D.D., in his ‘Annals of St. Helen’s’ tells us that at the church restoration of 1865-8 ‘a quaint piece of carved work, which had been set up to sustain the Lord Mayor’s sword and mace, was removed to the pillar dividing the choir from the Chapel of the Holy Ghost.’ The following is a description of it taken almost verbatim from Allen: ‘It consists of two twisted Corinthian columns, supporting an entablature highly enriched, and an attic panel. The shafts of the columns are set off with a wreath of foliage running round them. On the frieze are the arms of Sir John Lawrence, in the attic are the City arms, and the whole structure is crowned with the arms of Charles II., supported by two gilt angels, and surmounted with the royal crown.’ I hope that this interesting memento of a great City worthy, though not ‘Gothic’ in style, will be carefully preserved during the far more wholesale restoration which is now in progress.

Sir John Lawrence’s arms were: argent, a cross raguly gules, a canton ermine.[100] Peter le Neve says that they were granted to him September 18, 1664, and to his brothers James and Abraham, sons of Abraham Lawrence deceased; but it must have been earlier, as they appear on his house associated with the date 1662. Faulkner, in his ‘History of Chelsea,’ no doubt deceived by the fact that their arms were identical, assumes that Sir John Lawrence belonged to the ancient English family of the same name, whose memory is perpetuated by various monuments at the end of the north aisle of Chelsea old church. Both he and Dr. Cox[101] go so far as to say that Sir John was buried there; but his namesake, ‘Sir John Lawrence, Knight and Baronet,’ to whose memory a tablet was placed against the east wall of Chelsea Church, belonged to Iver, in the county of Bucks, and died in 1638, aged fifty years, as appears by the inscription. For several generations the descendants of the famous Lord Mayor continued to own the house which became Nos. 8 and 9, Great St. Helen’s. It afterwards passed into the hands of the Guise family, from whom it was inherited by an ancestor of the last possessor, Mr. John Cosens Stevens. Peace be to its memory!

The passage from Great St. Helen’s into Bishopsgate Street passes under old gabled buildings which date from before the time of the Great Fire. On the left is the northern front of Crosby Hall, part of a Gothic mansion unrivalled in its day, though little of the original structure remains. This side was almost entirely rebuilt more than fifty years ago. The oriel window, weathered by London atmosphere, has a very picturesque effect; it is surmounted by the arms of Sir John Crosby, the eminent citizen who built and first possessed the mansion, and who lies buried in the adjoining church, where there is a rich altar-tomb to his memory, with the recumbent figures of him and his first wife, Anneys. On this tomb also are the Crosby arms, namely: sable, a chevron ermine between three rams trippant argent, armed and hoofed or. Sir John, a keen supporter of the House of York, was knighted by Edward IV. in the year 1471; he served as Sheriff of London in 1470, and held the important post of Mayor of the Staple of Calais.

Opposite to Crosby Hall, on the northern side of Great St. Helen’s Passage, there stood till September, 1892, a structure which, though unpretentious, had an air of quaintness, with its iron railings in front and broad white window-frames. The inscription on a tablet above the door of this building ran as follows: ‘These alms-houses were founded by Sir Andrew Judd, Kt., Citizen & Skinner and Lord Mayor of London, Anno Dom. 1551. For six poor men of y^e said Company. Rebuilt by y^e said Company Anno Dom. 1729.’ The original alms-houses are supposed to have been further east.

Sir Andrew Judd was a native of Tunbridge in Kent, near which town he inherited considerable estates. Having entered commercial life, he made a large fortune by trading in furs, and, as Stow tells us, he kept his mayoralty in a ‘fair house’ in Bishopsgate Street, which had been before used for a similar purpose by Sir William Holles, the ancestor of the Earls of Clare. It was during Judd’s mayoralty, in 1550, that the City of London obtained from the King by charter lands in Southwark, forming now so important a property, and to which I alluded in my account of the Dog and Duck, St. George’s Fields. Sir Andrew was also buried in the church of Great St. Helen’s, which has been a sort of Westminster Abbey for great citizens. A quaint Elizabethan monument marks his resting-place. The inscription gives quite a little biography of him; as was remarked by one of our Transatlantic cousins, ‘it states all the facts, and rhymes in some places.’ In the ‘Historical Collections of the Noble Families of Cavendish, Holles, Vere, Harley and Ogle,’ ed. Lond. 1752, compiled by Arthur Collins, it is asserted that, in building the alms-houses, Judd was only acting as executor to his cousin ‘Elizabeth, widow of Sir William Holles of St. Helen’s, Alderman,’ and this seems to be shown by her will, which was proved March 28, 1544. Stow, however, does not mention her name in connection with the charity. It was augmented by Sir Andrew Judd’s daughter, Alice Smyth, of Westenhanger, Kent. Sir Andrew had also been executor to the Holles family. His original alms-houses were nearer the church than those the site of which the Skinners’ Company has now, I believe, disposed of. He also founded and endowed Tunbridge Grammar School.

Great St. Helen’s is being so rapidly ‘improved’ that it will soon become quite commonplace and uninteresting. A piece was shorn off the churchyard some years ago, no one exactly knew why, and several picturesque plastered houses, immediately west of Nos. 8 and 9, have been pulled down within my memory. At the corner, opposite to the pretty south porch of the church, attributed by the Rev. Thomas Hugo to Inigo Jones, a quaint and very old building still remains, which actually touched the house of the Lawrences. No. 10 is constructed of wood and plaster, with projecting upper stories and massive timbering; it dates from long before the Great Fire; the inside, however, has been modernized. Tradition boldly asserts that Anne Boleyn’s father, Sir Thomas, afterwards Viscount Rochford and Earl of Wiltshire, at one time lived here. It is an undoubted fact that one of the name was intimately connected with St. Helen’s, for ‘on the 24th December, 26th Hen. VIII., 1534, the Prioress and Convent appointed Sir James Bolleyne, knt., to be steward of their lands and tenements in London and elsewhere, the duties to be performed either by himself or a sufficient deputy, during the life of the said James, at a stipend of forty shillings a year, payable at Christmas. If in arrear for six weeks the said James might enter and distrain.’ Query: was this Sir Thomas Boleyn’s elder brother? There was a right of way hereabout from very early times, for Dugdale tells us that in the Hundred Roll of 3rd Edward I. several entries occur relating to an attempt which the nuns made to stop up the lane or passage through the court of their nunnery from Bishopsgate Street to St. Mary Axe, sometimes called St. Helen’s Lane. If, as is possible, the house dates from before the Dissolution of the Monasteries, when it first saw the light there must have been few buildings near the even then venerable Church of St. Helen and the adjoining priory. Crosby Place, indeed, stood hard by, on land leased from the nuns for a term of ninety-nine years, but much open space yet remained. Even as late as the end of last century there was a considerable field or garden immediately to the east of the church, as shown in a view by Malcolm dated 1799.

The buildings and grounds of Crosby Place seem to have extended at first almost to Leadenhall Street. The houses[102] in Crosby Square are said to have been built about the year 1678, on the site of some of the offices which had been destroyed by fire. I cannot say how it happened that in the early part of the seventeenth century a house of considerable size had already been erected on part of Crosby Place, or could it have been just outside the precincts? This was latterly known as No. 25, Bishopsgate Street Within, or Crosby Hall Chambers. It succumbed to the pickaxe of the builder as nearly as possible at the same time as Adam Lawrence’s old residence in Great St. Helen’s. The part facing Bishopsgate Street had no sign of antiquity except two carved festoons of flowers, much blocked up with paint, between the first-floor windows. Up a passage,[103] however, one could see something of the north side or front, which showed architectural features of merit. It rested on round arches composed of rustic work, and above were pilasters furnished with capitals. On the first-floor, looking out on this passage, there was a room adorned by a very beautiful chimney-piece, with the initials g b and the date 1633 in the centre panel. The lower part is of stone, the over-mantel of oak, in very fine condition, all the delicacy of the carving having been preserved by thick layers of paint, which have just been removed. On the ceiling of the same room there was also a fragment of original plaster decoration, which has been presented to the South Kensington Museum. The site of Crosby Hall Chambers will be occupied by the Bank of Scotland. It is proposed to put up the chimney-piece in their new premises.

In 1857 the Rev. Thomas Hugo, F.S.A., wrote an interesting itinerary of the Ward of Bishopsgate for the journal of the London and Middlesex ArchÆological Society. His paper was republished in book form five years later; it contains valuable illustrations of Nos. 8 and 9, Great St. Helen’s and of Crosby Hall Chambers, besides other houses which have passed away. The letterpress is inspired by a fine enthusiasm; but his architectural judgment is, I think, not altogether to be relied on. He considers that both the above-named buildings were designed by Inigo Jones.

Austin Friars, another region in the heart of the City perhaps as interesting as that which I have just described, is, like it, rapidly being transformed. Not long ago it still maintained a distinctive character. Something of monastic calm seemed to linger about the old home and grounds of the begging friars, crowned by part of their church, which since Edward VI.’s time has been handed over to the Dutch congregation of London. Outside, in Broad Street, there was the roar and confusion of a mighty traffic; within the sacred precinct there was peace: wheeled vehicles seldom entered the very foot passengers, I have thought, used to slacken their pace, and relax for a moment the grim, determined look which, as a rule, characterizes the man whose mind is bent on business.

Passing round what remains of the old church, one may still see a house—No. 10—which is an excellent example of the real Queen Anne style; to judge from the date on a rainpipe, it was probably completed in the year 1704. The porch has a flight of steps; ascending this, one finds before one a spacious staircase panelled throughout, and especially noticeable on account of its fine painted ceiling, one of the last to be met with in a City mansion. No. 11 forms part of the same block of buildings.

Retracing our steps, we see standing back somewhat from the main roadway, to the right of a new passage just opened into what is called, in mockery, Drapers’ Gardens, a tall new structure occupying the site of another old brick mansion the associations of which were very remarkable. The house in question, No. 21, Austin Friars, had been built during the latter part of the seventeenth century, possibly even before the Great Fire, which did not extend so far north; it seems to be marked in Ogilby’s map of 1677. About the early possessors, Richard Young and others, nothing is known of any special interest. In the year 1705 it came into the hands of Herman Olmius, merchant, whose name occurs in the ‘Little London Directory’ for 1677, where he is described as of Angel Alley, Bishopsgate Street Without. He was descended from an ancient family of Arlon, in the duchy of Luxemburg, and was naturalized by Act of Parliament, 29th Charles II. Here he lived and carried on his business, and here, having made and inherited a large fortune, he died in the year 1718. His will shows that he was a member, not of the Dutch congregation of the neighbouring church in Austin Friars, but of the French Church in Threadneedle Street, to which he left £150 for the benefit of the poor. At the time of his death he possessed four other houses in Austin Friars, ‘with yards, gardens, and appurtenances,’ a shop called the Crane in the Poultry, and another with the sign of the Plough in Bucklersbury. He also had much real property in Essex and elsewhere. Herman was the son of Johannes Ludovicus or John Lewis Olmius, and of his wife Margareta Gerverdine. He married Judith, daughter and heiress of John Drigue, who also appears to have been living in Angel Court or Alley in 1677, and who had also married an heiress, the daughter of John Billers. Herman Olmius and his wife Judith had no less than ten children, but only two of them left offspring. These were his younger daughter Margaret, wife of Adrian Lernoult, who had predeceased him, and to whose descendants the City property was bequeathed; and John Olmius,[104] born in 1670. This gentleman became High Sheriff of Essex in 1707, a justice of the peace, and Deputy-Lieutenant of the county. He died December 20, 1731, being then Deputy-Governor of the Bank of England. His wife was Elizabeth, daughter and sole heiress of Thomas Clarke, a descendant of the Clarkes of St. Ives, Huntingdon, and probably her husband’s cousin. Their son, also named John, was many years member of Parliament, and received an Irish peerage under the title of Lord Waltham. He married Anne, daughter of Sir William Billers, Lord Mayor in 1733, and left a son and a daughter. The former died without issue in 1787, when the family became extinct in the male line; the latter having married John Luttrell, who was brother of the Duchess of Cumberland,[105] and who became third Earl of Carhampton, had a daughter, Frances Maria, from whom is descended Sir Simeon Henry Stuart, Bart. The Olmius family possessed much land in Essex, and a large country seat at Boreham, now used as a convent. At the Saracen’s Head Hotel, Chelmsford, their fleeting dignity is still represented by two fine hall-chairs emblazoned with the Olmius crest, namely a demi-Moor in armour between laurel branches, surmounted by a baron’s coronet. My friend Mr. Francis Galton would doubtless tell us that the failure of the family in the male line resulted naturally from marriage with heiresses and from intermarriage. Its rapid rise had also, no doubt, been in part owing to the former cause.

The house in Austin Friars continued for several generations to belong to the descendants of the younger daughter of Herman Olmius. In 1783 Hughes Minet came to live here, and in 1802 he bought a sixth share from three brothers named Clarke, great-grandsons of Margaret Lernoult. He was a merchant and banker, of Huguenot descent, and his family had long carried on a prosperous business at Dover. His descendant, Mr. William Minet, has just written a very interesting account of them. The Minets lived in Austin Friars for many years, though they never owned more than a sixth of the property. In 1838 Mr. Isaac Minet, the then representative of the family, sold his share of the freehold, and we find Messrs. Thomas, Son, and Lefevre established here, the last-named being a brother of the late Lord Eversley. The final owner was Mr. John Fleming, by whose courtesy I had the privilege of visiting the house on almost the last day that it remained intact.

In point of fact, No. 21, Austin Friars was by no means a striking specimen of architecture, but having remained from the beginning practically unchanged, there were points about it worthy of record. Externally it was a plain four-storied brick structure, the only piece of decoration being a carved hood to the doorway which formed the chief entrance from Austin Friars. Passing through this, the visitor found himself in a hall, looking up a broad winding staircase with twisted balusters. To the right was the counting-house, panelled throughout with South Carolina pine. It had an old Purbeck marble mantelpiece, on the upper line of which appeared in white marble the Olmius arms,[106] quartered with those of the foreign families of Gerverdine, CapprÉ, Drigue, and Reynstein. The double panes above was worthy of remark as characteristic of the time of Wren. Under an arch at the end of the counting-house was a strong-room lined throughout with Dutch tiles. Mounting the staircase, one came upon the dining-room, with its ingeniously contrived cupboard, and the drawing-room, which looked out on what was, till within the last few years, the pleasant and ample garden of the Drapers’ Company, now covered, all but a fragment, with bricks and mortar. A view of this garden is given in Cassell’s ‘Old and New London,’ vol. i., p. 517, with No. 21, Austin Friars showing itself beyond the trees in the middle distance; but no reference to it is made in the letterpress. On the first-floor also, above the chief office, was a small warehouse or sample-room, an indispensable adjunct to the old merchant’s dwelling,[107] Above were capital bedrooms, while a narrow staircase gave access to the tiled roof, surrounded by a stone parapet. Retracing one’s steps to the hall, one found, flanking a passage on the side opposite to the counting-house, a lofty kitchen still furnished with smoke-jack, spit-racks, and iron caldron-holders, and adjoining the range an oven lined with blue and white Dutch tiles, no doubt a legacy of the Olmius family. Formerly, also, most of the chimneypieces in the house were fitted up with Dutch tiles, blue and white or red and white; but these in course of time had disappeared. In the basement were cellars, and close to them an old surface well, which still contained water, analyzed at the time of its destruction and found to be little better than sewage. A door in the passage was prettily carved. Through this one passed to the outer offices, a brewery, wash-house, coach-house and stables; and thence again there was access by the side-entrance into the garden,[108] a quiet spot some half acre in extent, which no doubt had originally formed part of the friars’ grounds. It was connected by steps with a narrow terrace running along the back of the house. Here in the summer of 1888 I saw fig-trees still flourishing while the work of destruction had already begun.

The boundary at the end of this garden was formed by another interesting house, No. 23, Great Winchester Street, which has also lately been improved out of existence. It occupied a good deal of ground, being approached through a paved yard with a lodge on each side of the entrance. Externally its chief characteristics were a somewhat high-pitched roof and wings projecting forward. Inside the chief reception-room was finely proportioned, with capital mouldings and cornices, and there was an old kitchen range of portentous size.

Close to this house, and also adjoining Drapers’ Garden, was formerly the garden attached to the Carpenters’ Hall, so that a few years ago this neighbourhood was a paradise of open spaces. At the dissolution the house and gardens of the Augustine Friars had been bestowed by Henry VIII. on William Paulet, first Marquis of Winchester, who there built his town residence, traces of which existed as late as the year 1844: after this mansion Winchester Street was named. From a date carved on a grotesque bracket formerly to be seen at the north-east corner, it appears that the street was constructed, partly at least, in the year 1656, during Cromwell’s government. Strype says that here was ‘a great messuage called the Spanish Ambassador’s House, of late inhabited by Sir James Houblon, Knight and Alderman, and other fair houses.’ Even down to our time it was a remarkably picturesque specimen of a London street. Now nothing but the name is left, to mark its connection with antiquity.

It may here be noted that even till comparatively recent times almost every house in the City had a garden, or at any rate some open space, belonging to it, as may be proved by reference to old maps and views. Horwood’s map, published in 1799, shows how much garden ground still remained at the end of last century. Besides this, before the days of lifts, high pressure of water, and gas or electric light laid on, the inconvenience of very high houses prevented their being built to any great extent. The comparative sparseness of the population should undoubtedly have given our ancestors a great advantage over us with regard to health, but it was more than counterbalanced by drawbacks resulting from ignorance—for example, the use of impure water, and the inability to grapple with diseases which are now comparatively innocuous.

The disappearance of these open spaces, and the erection of enormously high buildings on every available spot, is, I believe, a great evil, not only from the picturesque, but from the sanitary point of view. Writers on sanitary subjects are agreed that, of dangers to health, overcrowding is one of the greatest, and that, other things being equal, the death-rate regularly increases in proportion to the density of the population. Dr. G. V. Poore[109] has recently pointed out that every new set of offices adds its quota to the sewage in the river; while ‘the absence of green plants entails a great loss of nascent oxygen or ozone which gives to air its peculiar quality of freshness.’ In his opinion, it is hardly conceivable that a high level of health can be maintained in a spot where vegetable life languishes, animal and vegetable life being complementary to each other.

Some will no doubt console themselves with the notion that, the City being now to a great extent merely a place of business, those who spend the day there (considerably more than a million, according to the last calculation) can throw off the ill effects while they are away. To this I reply that, if one includes the outlying parts, many thousands still make it their home, and that, in any case, to spend a quarter of one’s existence under most unhealthy conditions must tend to cause illness and to shorten life. In these times of popular government, the great City Guilds are more or less on their probation. If I am right, the Drapers’ Company, whatever the temptation may have been, committed a fatal mistake when they covered their garden with huge blocks of offices, a mistake which can never be atoned for by any amount of charitable donation. Their example has been quickly followed, and soon, I fear, hardly one breathing-space will remain in the City except the ground about St. Paul’s and the Tower, and here and there a bit of a disused graveyard hemmed in by lofty offices and warehouses.