Tyburnia.] THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE. for years after other suburbs had been built upon; and it was not until comparatively a recent date that the tea-gardens, and other similar low haunts of debauchery, gave way to the elegant and stately buildings with which it is now covered." It is impossible not to recognise these places of amusement in the portrait which Charles Dickens gives us, in his "Sketches by Boz," of the typical London tea-gardens, with their snug boxes and alcoves; the men and women, boys and girls, sweethearts and married folk, babies in arms and children in chaises, the pipes and the shrimps, the cigars and the periwinkles, the tea and tobacco, are each and all described with a skill almost equal to that of a photographer. To the particular "Sketch" entitled "London Recreations" we must refer our readers for all further details. As we have shown in the preceding chapter, the last of the tea-gardens-covering what is now Lancaster Gate-did not disappear until about 1855. At Connaught House, Connaught Place, close by the Edgware Road, the unfortunate Caroline, Princess of Wales, took up her residence when banished from the Palace; and hither came the Princess Charlotte in a hackney-coach, when she quarrelled with her father and left Warwick House, as we have stated in our account of that place. The young princess, as she advanced towards womanhood, became more and more intractable and wilful. In the end, the Regent and his Ministers thought the best step would be to find her a husband; and the youthful Prince of Orange was suggested as the most eligible. He was by birth a Protestant; he had been educated at Oxford, and had served in Spain with credit; but the self-willed young lady refused him—in a word, "turned up her nose" at him. Every opportunity was given to him to make himself agreeable to the future heiress of the English throne; but either his capacities and acquirements were of a low order, or the princess had proposed to herself quite another standard of excellence as her beau ideal. She simply said "she did not like Oranges in any shape;" and though her royal papa stormed, and bishops reasoned with her, her resolution remained unshaken. The public admired her pluck and firmness, and her refusal to be sold into matrimony like a common chattel. She was a princess, but she was also a true-hearted woman, and she felt that she must really love the man whom she should • See Vol. IV., p. 82. 203 wed, if she would escape the unhappiness which had darkened the married life of her parents. The fortunate individual who pleased her taste was not long in appearing; and her marriage with Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg was solemnised, ere long, with her father's consent, and with the hearty good wishes of the people. The Prince himself, then a humble cadet of a petty German house, was travelling in England; he met the Princess Charlotte at one of the many mansions of the aristocracy, and he soon obtained an interest in her affections, and also the consent of the Prince Regent, who was probably glad enough to get his intractable daughter off his hands at any price. Leopold at that time was one of the noblestlooking young princes in Europe. Tall and princely in his bearing, and fascinating in his manners, a brave soldier, and an accomplished courtier, he was worthy to win such a prize. They were married on May 2nd, 1816. Alas! within a little more than a year the great bell of St. Paul's was tolled to announce to a sorrowing people the death of the princess in giving birth to a dead infant! The sale of the effects of the Princess of Wales, at Connaught House, took place in October, 1814. The name of the mansion was at a later date changed to Arklow House; the latter, like the former, being one of the titles inherent in the royal family. The late Duke of Sussex was also Baron of Arklow. Sir Augustus D'Este, son of the Duke of Sussex, lived here for some time subsequently. It is now the town residence of Mr. A. Beresford-Hope. At No. 13 in Hyde Park Square, lived that specimen of a fine old English gentleman, Mr. T. Assheton-Smith, whose name is so well known among Masters of Hounds. A glass apartment on the roof of this house, after his death, was magnified, by the fears of the servant-girls in the neighbourhood, into the abode of a ghost; and the ghost-or, at all events, the alarm-was only suppressed by editors "writing it down" in the London newspapers. In concluding this chapter, we may remark that the whole neighbourhood is of too recent a growth to have many historical reminiscences. Haydon, the painter, it is true, lived for some time in Burwood Place, close by Connaught Square, and there he died by his own hand in 1846. We shall have more to say about him when we come to Paddington. "And the Bishop's lands, too, what of them? I'll warrant you'll not find better acres anywhere than those which once belonged to his lordship."-Boz. Rustic Appearance of Paddington at the Commencement of this Century-Intellectual Condition of the Inhabitants-Gradual Increase of the Population-The Manor of Paddington-The Feast of Abbot Walter, of Westminster-The Prior of St. Bartholomew's and his BrethrenDr. Sheldon's Claim of the Manor-The Old Parish Church-Hogarth's Marriage-Building of the New Parish Church-A Curious Custom -Poorness of the Living-The Burial-ground-Noted Persons buried here-Life of Haydon, the Painter-Dr. Geddes-The New Church of St. James-Holy Trinity Church-All Saints' Church-The House of the Notorious Richard Brothers-Old Public-houses-Old Paddington Green-The Vestry Hall-The Residences of Thomas Uwins, R.A., and Wyatt, the Sculptor-Eminent Residents-The Princess Charlotte and her Governess-Paddington House-" Jack-in-the-Green "--Westbourne Place-Westbourne Green-Desborough Place-Westbourne Farm, the Residence of Mrs. Siddons-The Lock Hospital and Asylum-St. Mary's Hospital-Paddington Provident Dispensary-The DudleyStuart Home-"The Boatman's Chapel "-Queen's Park-Old Almshouses-Grand Junction Canal--The Western Water-Works-Imperial Gas Company-Kensal Green Cemetery-Eminent Persons buried here-Great Western Railway Terminus. PADDINGTON, or Padynton, as the name of the Edgware Road, about a mile from London. place is often spelled in old documents, down to our way thither we passed the Lying-in Hospital at the end of the last century was a pleasant little Bayswater, patronised by the queen." The place rural spot, scarcely a mile to the north-west of the is described by Lambert, in his "History and Tyburn turnpike, upon the Harrow Road. In- Survey of London and its Environs," at the comdeed, it would seem to have preserved its rustic mencement of the present century, as "a village character even to a later date; for it is amusing to situated upon the Edgware Road, about a mile read without a smile the grave expressions in which from London"-a description which, perhaps, was Priscilla Wakefield describes, in 1814, a visit to this not wholly untrue even at the accession of Queen then remote and rustic village-a journey which Victoria; in fact, until its selection as the terminus now occupies about three minutes by the Under- of the Great Western Railway caused it to be fairly ground Railway :-" From Kensington we journeyed absorbed into the great metropolis. northward to Paddington, a village situated on the The parish, being so rural, and so very thinly Paddington.] RURAL CONDITION OF THE PLACE. 205 populated, was, doubtless, far behind its "courtly" schoolmaster" was not "abroad," and if the educa sister suburb of Kensington in mental and intel- tion given in the parish church and other public lectual progress; so that, perhaps, there may be buildings was deficient, it is a consolation to learn, little or no exaggeration in the remarks of Mr. from the same authority, that the defect was supRobins, in his “History of Paddington," when he plied, in some measure, at least, by the ale-houses. remarks:-" Although the people of Paddington in which debating clubs were established. A from the Subsidy Rolls. Probably, in the reign of metropolis this suburb was in the middle of the Henry VIII., the entire population did not exceed a hundred, and at the accession of James II. it had risen, according to the same calculation, to only a little over three hundred. Even as lately as the year 1795 the hamlet appears to have contained only 341 houses, which, allowing five souls to a house, would give a population of about 1,700. Indeed, so small and insignificant did the village continue down to our own times, that George Canning instituted a witty comparison between a great and a small premier, when he uttered the mot: "As London to Paddington So is Pitt to Addington." The old stone indicating the first mile from Tyburn turnpike towards Harrow still remains in the road. In 1798, when Cary published his "Road Book," there were ten "stages" running every day from London to Paddington. William Robins, in his work on Paddington, already quoted, which was published in the year 1853, says :-" A city of palaces has sprung up here within twenty years. A road of iron, with steeds of steam, brings into the centre of this city, and takes from it in one year, a greater number of living beings than could be found in all England a few years ago; while the whole of London can be traversed in half the time it took to reach Holborn Bars at the beginning of this century, when the road was in the hands of Mr. Miles, his pair-horse coach, and his redoubtable boy," long the only appointed agents of communication between Paddington and the City. The fares were 2s. and 3s.; the journey, we are told, took more than three hours; and to beguile the time at resting-places, "Miles's Boy" told tales and played upon the fiddle. Charles Knight also tells us that "at the beginning of the present century only one stage-coach ran from the then suburban village of Paddington to the City, and that it was never filled!" last century may be inferred from the silence of "honest" John Stow, and even of Strype, who, in treating of London, make no mention of Paddington. Indeed, though they devote a chapter of "The Circuit Walk," which concludes the "Survey of London," to Kensington, Hammersmith, Fulham, and Marylebone, we do not find any mention of the names of Paddington or Bayswater; the only hint in that direction being an entry of “Lisham” (i.e. Lisson) "Grove" in the index as "near Paddington." The whole neighbourhood, indeed, is passed entirely sub silentio by Evelyn and Pepys ; it is not mentioned by name by Horace Walpole; and, though so near to Tyburn, it is apparently ignored by Dr. Johnson and Boswell. It may be inferred that even Mrs. Montagu scarcely ever drove so far out into the western wilds. Charles Dickens and George A. Sala, too, say but little about it. It is clear, then, that we must go to other sources for any antiquarian notes on this neighbourhood, or for anecdotes about its inhabitants. Paddington is not mentioned in the "Domesday Book ;" and it is probable that in the Conqueror's time the whole site was part of the great forest of Middlesex, of which small portions only appear to have been at any time the property of the Crown. The district, nevertheless, was, in remote times, a part of the extensive parish of St. Margaret's, Westminster, as appears from the fact that its church was for a century or two, if not longer, a sort of chapel of ease, subject to the Rector or Vicar of St. Margaret's, as, indeed, it continued to be down to the dissolution of monasteries, under Henry VIII., when the manor of Paddington was given to the newly-founded see of Westminster. The manor of Paddington was given in 1191, by the Abbot Walter, to the Convent of St. Peter's, Westminster; and from the close of the thirteenth century the whole of the temporalities of the district, such as the "rent of land and the young of animals," were devoted to charity. We read that, in 1439, a "head of water at Paddyngton" was granted to the Lord Mayor and citizens of London, and to their successors, by the Abbot of Westminster. On the abolition of the see of Westminster, shortly after its establishment, Edward VI. gave this manor to Ridley, Bishop of London, and his successors. will be observed that the names of many of the streets around Paddington, especially to the north, perpetuate the names of several successive Bishops of London, such as Randolph, Howley, Blomfield, and Porteus. "Crescents and Colonnades," writes How little known to the inhabitants of the great Hone in his "Table-Book," in 1827, "are planned A map of London, published so lately as 1823, exhibits Paddington as quite distinct from the metropolis, which has the Edgware Road as its western boundary. A rivulet is marked as running from north to south through Westbourne Green, parallel with Craven Place; and Westbourne House is marked with the name of its resident owner, Mr. Cockerell, just like a country manor house fifty miles from London; while half a mile further are two isolated farms, named Portobello and Notting Barns respectively. The present parish includes in its area a portion of Kensington Gardens. It by the architect to the Bishop of London on the ground belonging to the see near Bayswater." The above-mentioned abbot of Westminster, Walter, appears to have purchased the interest in the soil here from two brothers, who were called respectively Richard and William de Padinton; and on his death the manor of Paddington was assigned to the almoner for the celebration of his anniversary, when a solemn feast was to be held. The almoner for the time being was directed to find for the convent "fine manchets, cakes, crumpets, cracknells, and wafers, and a gallon of wine for each friar, with three good pittances, or doles, with good ale in abundance at every table, and in the presence of the whole brotherhood; in the same Inanner as upon other occasions the cellarer is bound to find beer at the usual feasts or anniversaries, in the great tankard of five quarts." 207 dington, wth ye appurten'ces," was sold to one Thomas Browne, for the sum of three thousand nine hundred and fifty-eight pounds, seventeen shillings, and four pence; but when Dr. Sheldon was appointed to the bishopric of London, after the Restoration, he claimed the manor and also the rectory. Sheldon's relatives, it is stated, received the profits of the manor and rectory for nearly eighty years. "In the middle of the last century," says John Timbs, in his "Curiosities of London," "nearly the whole of Paddington had become grazing-land, upwards of 1,100 acres; and the occupiers of the bishop's estate kept here hundreds of cows." Robins, in his work on this parish, writes:"The fact of Paddington, in Surrey, or 'Padendene,' as it was called, being mentioned in the Conqueror's survey, while Paddington, in Middlesex, was not noticed, inclines me to believe the dene or den, in Surrey, was the original mark of the Poedings; and that the smaller enclosure in Middlesex was at first peopled and cultivated by a migration of a portion of that family from the den, when it had become inconveniently full. At what period this migration happened," he adds, "it is impossible to say; but there is very little doubt that the first settlement was made near the bourn, or brook, which ran through the forest." This brook, of which we have already had occasion to speak in a previous chapter, was, at the beginning of this century, a favourite resort for anglers. Maitland, in his "History of London," tells us that, in 1439, “the Abbot of Westminster granted to Robert Large, the mayor, and citizens of London, and their successors, one head of water, containing twenty-six perches in length and one in breadth, together with all its springs in the manor of Paddington; in consideration of which grant the City is for ever to pay to the said abbot and his successors, at the feast of St. Peter, two peppercorns. But if the intended work should happen to draw the water from the ancient wells in the manor of Hida, then the aforesaid grant to cease and become entirely void." Mr. Robins, in his "Paddington, Past and Present," remarks that, "although the There is extant a curious etching of the old abbots at length, and by slow degrees, acquired to parish church of Paddington, dated 1750. It stood themselves and their house, either with or without about eighty yards to the north of the present the sanction of the Crown, both spiritual and tem- edifice, and its site may still be seen among the poral dominion over these places, we must not tombs, which were ranged inside and outside of it. imagine that all the tenements in Westbourn and It was a plain, neat building, of one aisle, consisting Paddington had been by this time transferred by of only a nave, and with a bell-turret and spire at the devout and the timid to their safe keeping; for the west end, not unlike the type of the country besides the few small holders, who obstinately pre-churches of Sussex, and its picturesqueness was ferred their hereditary rights to works of charity or heightened by the dark foliage of an ancient yewdevotion, there is good reason to believe that the ancient family of De Veres held a considerable tract of land in this parish down to 1461." The high road at Paddington must have presented an amusing spectacle in the year 1523, when the Prior of St. Bartholomew's and all his brethren, with the lay brethren, and an array of wagons and boats upon trucks, went along through Paddington towards Harrow, where they had resolved to remain for two months, till the fatal day should have passed on which it was foretold that the Thames should suddenly rise and wash away half London ! tree. This church was built by Sir Joseph Sheldon and Daniel Sheldon, to whom the manor was leased by Sheldon, Bishop of London, and afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, in the reign of Charles II., and it replaced a more ancient church, which had become "old and ruinous," and which was taken down about the year 1678. In this second church, which was dedicated to St. James, were married, on the 23rd of March, 1729, Hogarth and Jane Thornhill, the daughter of Sir James Thornhill; the marriage, it is said, was a runaway match, carried out much against the will During the Commonwealth "the manor of Pad- of the bride's father. |