SECTION OF THE THAMES EMBANKMENT, 1867. (See page 232.) Showing (1) The Subway. (2) The Low-Level Sewer. (3) The Metropolitan District Railway. (4) The Pneumatic Railway. As we learn from Mr. Haywood's Report, to by one of these telegraphs between the House which we are indebted for much of the information of Commons and his printing-office near Fleet here given, it is some years since subways were Street. The different docks are put en rapport first constructed in various parts of London and with each other, and it will be especially applicable elsewhere, and pipes of various character have to all large manufacturing establishments requiring been laid in one or other of them; but the Viaduct central offices in the City. Thus, the Isle of Dogs. subways were the first in which gas, water, and and Bow Common, the grand centres of manutelegraph pipes, with all the appliances necessary facturing energy, are practically brought next door to a complete system, were placed in one and to offices in the centre of the City." About the the same subway. The subways of the Viaduct year 1864, the business of the Electric Telegraph have been on several occasions lighted up with Company was taken in hand by the Government, gas and exhibited to the public; workmen have and transferred to the Post Office; since the erecexecuted repairs, and performed their ordinary tion of the new General Post Office, this departwork in them; and no special precautions have ment has had its head-quarters in St. Martin'sbeen found necessary as regards the use of lights le-Grand, as we have already stated when deor fires, no explosions have taken place, nor has scribing that locality.* such contraction or expansion of pipes resulted from the variations of temperature, as materially to affect either the gas or water supply; and the system may be said to be successful. Another important feature of "Underground London" which we have not mentioned is the Electric Telegraph. The old Electric Telegraph Company, which for many years carried out the entire system of telegraphy in England, formerly had its head-quarters in Lothbury, in the heart of the City, and, as such, became the originators of that particular portion in the works of "Underground London" to which we have already incidentally referred. The company was incorporated by Act of Parliament in 1846, and immediately on its incorporation became the possessor, by purchase, of all the patents previously granted to Sir W. Fothergill Cooke and Sir Charles Wheatstone, the inventors or the introducers of the electric system of telegraphy into England. "As these patents gave the company an exclusive right to the use of those essential principles on which all electric telegraphs are based, we may attribute much of the subsequent success of the undertaking to the possession of this important right." In an interesting article in Once a Week, in the year 1861, entitled "The Nervous System of the Metropolis," by the late Dr. Wynter, we read that—“It is anticipated that for a considerable time the new telegraph will be principally confined to the use of public offices and places of business. Thus the principal public offices are already connected by its wires; and, if we might be permitted the ugly comparison, the Chief Commissioner of Police at Scotland Yard, spider-like, sits in the centre of a web co-extensive with the metropolis, and is made instantly sensible of any disturbance that may take place at any point. The Queen's Printer, again, has for years sent his messages Whilst we are on the subject of Underground London, it may be desirable here to place on record the fact of the establishment of a Pneumatic Despatch Company about the year 1868. Its headquarters were in High Holborn, near the Little Turnstile, and its object was the rapid transmission of letters, newspapers, and small packages of goods, by tubes laid under the street, and worked by pneumatic agency. These tubes were laid between the office and the Euston Square Station, and also between Holborn and the General Post Office; but the scheme was "in advance of the age,” and it failed to answer; there was not enough demand for its services to make it "pay" commercially; and so, after about eighteen months of trial, it was abandoned. The traffic in the tube was worked by alternate atmospheric pressure and suction, the carriers, containing mails and parcels, being by turns propelled to and drawn from Euston Square by the pneumatic apparatus at the Holborn station of the company. The same process was, of course, followed with regard to the length of tube between Holborn and the General Post Office. Taking advantage of the proximity of the tube to the tunnel of the Metropolitan Railway in the vicinity of Gower Street, and of the fact that air had to be drawn into the tube after every carrier that was sucked-so to speak— from Euston to Holborn, it was determined to open a communication between tube and tunnel, and to utilise the exhausting power of the pneumatic machinery for ventilating this portion of the Metropolitan Railway, and, as we have stated above, this was ultimately accomplished. The tubes are still in situ, and the system, which has not fallen into absolute disuse, has, no doubt, a future before it. * See Vol. II., pp. 215-16. Rural Aspect of Kilburn in Foriner Times-Maida Vale-Derivation of the Name of Kilburn-The Old Road to Kilburn-Godwin, the Hermit of Kilburn-The Priory-Extracts from the Inventory of the Priory-The Sisterhood of St. Peter's-St. Augustine's Church-Kilburn Wells and Tea-gardens-The "Bell" Tavern-A Legend of Kilburn-The Roman Catholic Chapel-George Brummell's liking for Plum Cake-Oliver Goldsmith's Suburban Quarters-Lausanne Cottage-St. John's Wood-Babington the Conspirator-Sir Edwin Landseer-Thomas Landseer -George Osbaldiston and other Residents in St. John's Wood-Lord's Cricket Ground-The "Eyre Arms" Tavern-Charitable Institutions -Roman Catholic Chapel of Our Lady-St. Mark's Church-St. John's Wood Chapel and Burial-ground-Richard Brothers and Joanna Southcott. SUCH has been the growth of London in this north-westerly direction, within the last half-century, as we have shown in our chapter on Paddington, and such the progress of bricks and mortar in swallowing up all that was once green and sylvan in this quiet suburb of the metropolis, that the "village of Kilburn," which within the last fifty years was still famous for its tea-gardens and its mineral spring, has become almost completely absorbed into that vast and "still increasing City, and in a very short space of time all its old landmarks will have been swept away. Kilburn, or Kilbourne, as the name was sometimes written, is said to be "a hamlet in the parish of Hampstead, and Holborn division of the hundred of Ossulston." This, however, is not quite correct, as only one side of the hamlet is in the parish of Hampstead, the remaining part (or that to the south-west of the Edgware Road) lying in the parish of Willesden. In old books on the suburbs, the place is spoken of as being "about two miles from London, on the road to Edgware." Time was, probably in the reign of "bluff King Hal," when the little rural village numbered only some twenty or so of houses, all nestling round a small chapel and priory, the memory of which is still kept up in " Abbey Road" and "Priory Road." Now, however, the block of houses known collectively as Kilburn has invaded no less than four parishes-Hampstead and Willesden, to which, as we have shown, it legitimately belongs, and also Marylebone and Paddington. The district, including the locality now known as St. John's Wood, lies upon both sides of the Harrow Road, and stretches away from Kensal Green to Regent's Park and Primrose Hill, and may be said to be divided into two parts by the broad thoroughfare of Maida Vale, as that part of the Edgware Road is called which passes through it. Maida Vale, we may add, is so called after the battle of Maida, which was fought in the year 1806. Like Tybourne and Mary-le-Bourne, so Kilbourne also took its name from the little "bourne," or brook, of which we have already spoken as rising on the southern slope of the Hampstead uplands. It found its way from the slope of West End, Hampstead, towards Bayswater, and thence passing under the Uxbridge Road, fed the Serpentine in Hyde Park. The brook, however, has long since disappeared from view, having been arched over, and made to do duty as a sewer. The road to Kilburn in the days of the Regency, writes the Rev. J. Richardson in his "Recollections," was "such a road as now is to be seen only twenty miles out of town." Anyone going a mile northward from the end of Oxford Street found himself among fields, farm-houses, and such-like rural scenes. It would seem that the land here, as part of "Padyngton," appertained to the manor of Knightsbridge, which, as we have seen, in its turn was subject to the Abbey at Westminster. We read, therefore, that it was not without the consent of the " chapter and council" that one Godwin, or Goodwyne, a hermit at Kilburn, gave his hermitage to three nuns-"the holy virgins of St. John the Baptist, at Kilburn, to pray for the repose of King Edward, the founder of the Abbey, and for the souls of all their brethren and benefactors." On this occasion the Abbot of Westminster not only confirmed the grant, but augmented it with lands at "Cnightbriga," or " Knyghtsbrigg" (Knightsbridge), and a rent of thirty shillings. The exact spot on which the priory stood is now known only by tradition. Lambert, in his "History and Survey of London and its Environs," in 1805, remarks :— "There are now no remains of this building; but the site of it is very distinguishable in the Abbey Field, near the tea-drinking house called Kilburn Wells." This, it would appear, must have been as nearly as possible at the top of what is now St. George's Terrace, close to the station of the London and North-Western Railway, on its northern side; for when the railway was widened, about the year 1850, the labourers came here upon its foundations, and discovered, not only coins, but tessellated tiles, several curious keys of a Gothic pattern, and the clapper of a bell, together with human bones, denoting the presence of a small cemetery. This priory was the successor of the hermitage founded here by Godwin. The spot which he chose for his hermitage or cell was on the banks of the little "bourne" already mentioned, and it came to be called indifferently Keeleburne, or Coldburne, or Caleburn, in an age when few could spell or read, and fewer still could write. To this little cell might perhaps have been applied the lines of Spenser's "Faery Queen: " "A little lowly hermitage it was, Down in a dale, hard by a forest side; His holy things, each morne and eventyde; Thereby a christall streame did gently play, Which from a sacred fountaine welled forth alway." Godwin, in course of time, it appears, gave over and granted his hermitage and the adjoining fields to the abbot and monks of Westminster, "as an alms for the redemption of the entire convent of the brethren," under the same terms and conditions as those under which one of the Saxon kings had long before granted the manor of "Hamstede to the same church. The little cell at Kilburn, however, was destined to undergo another transfer in the lifetime of Godwin, and, indeed, at his request; for we next read that, with the consent of Gilbert, the then Bishop of London, the brethren of St. Peter's, at Westminster, made it over to a sisterhood of three nuns, named Christina, Gunilde, and Emma, all of them, as the story goes, ex-maids of honour to Queen Matilda, or Maud, consort of Henry I. The hermitage, therefore, was changed into a convent of the order of St. Benedict, Godwin himself undertaking the performance of the duties of chaplain and warden. Soon after the death of Godwin a dispute arose between the Abbot of Westminster and the Bishop of London as to the spiritual jurisdiction over the convent; the difference, however, was at length adjusted in favour of the former, on consideration that from its foundation the "Cell of Keleburn" belonged to their church. Notwithstanding that the dispute was so adjusted, the litigation was subsequently revived by Bishop Roger Nigel, and continued by his successor, who at last agreed to a compromise, under which the abbot "presented" the warden, and the bishop "admitted" him to his office. But little is known of the history of the convent from this time to the dissolution of religious houses under Henry VIII., except that, during the reign of Edward III., the good nuns were specially exempted from the payment of taxes to the Crown, on account of the dilapidated state of their little house, and of the necessity under which they lay of relieving the wants of many poor wayfarers, and especially of pilgrims bound for St. Alban's shrine. As soon as the fiat of "bluff King Hal" had gone forth for the dissolution of all the lesser religious houses in 1536, we find that the "Nonnerie of Kilnborne" was surrendered to the commissioners, when, doubtless, its gentle sisters were thrown out upon the world to beg their bread, instead of doling it out to the poor and suffering. At that time the priory was returned as of the value of £74 7s. 11d., and it passed into the hands of the rapacious king, who exchanged its lands with the Prior of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, at Clerkenwell, for his manor of Paris Garden, which lay across the Thames, in Southwark. But ten years later, the greater monasteries shared the fate of the lesser houses, and along with the Priory of St. John, that of Kilburn was transferred to the hands of a favoured courtier, the Earl of Warwick. From his family the estate passed, through an intermediate owner, to the Earl of Devonshire, and in the early part of the present century to one of the Howards; from them it came to the Uptons, its present owners, by one of whom the Church of St. Mary, at Kilburn, has been erected on a site adjoining the ancient chapel. It is said that the Abbey Farm comprised about forty-five acres, including the land covered by the priory out-buildings. In Park's "History of Hampstead" there is a view of the old priory, which never could have been of very imposing appearance. The edifice, it may be added, was dedicated jointly to "The Blessed Virgin Mary and St. John the Baptist," the latter of whom is depicted on the conventual seal as clothed in his garment of camels' hair. From an "inventory" taken on the 11th day of May, in the year of the surrender of the house to the king, it appears that the buildings of the priory consisted of "the hall, the chamber next the church, the middle chamber between that and the prioress's chamber, the prioress's chamber, the buttery, pantry, and cellar, inner chamber to the prioress's chamber, the chamber between the latter and the hall, the kitchen, the larder-house, the brewhouse and bakehouse, the three chambers for the chaplain and the hinds or husbandmen, the confessor's chamber, and the church." A few extracts from the above-mentioned inventory will serve to show that, in spite of all the changes worked in our domestic arrangements, in those faroff days, on the whole, the chamber furniture did not differ very materially from that of our own. Thus we read in the middle chamber : "It'm: 2 bedsteddes of bordes, viijd. It'm: 1 fetherbedd, vs., 2 matteres, xvd., 2 old cov'lettes, xxd., 3 wollen blankettes, viijd. It'm: a syller of old steyned worke, iiijd. It'm: 2 peces of old hangings, paynted, xd." The following is the list of books-not very numerous, it must be owned—of which his Majesty was not ashamed to rob his defenceless female subjects: "It'm: 2 bookes of Legenda Aurea, the one in prynt, and other written, both Englishe, viijd. It'm: 2 mas bookes, one old writen, and the oder prynt, xxd. It'm: 4 p'cessions, in p'chement, iijs., and paper, xd. It'm: 2 chestes wt div'se bookes p'teinynge to the chirche, bokes of no value. It'm: 2 legendes, viijd; the one in p'chment, and thoder on paper." With regard to church furniture and vestments the nuns would seem to have been better off; for besides altar-cloths, curtains, hangings, copes, chalices, &c., we find the following articles mentioned in the inventory : "It'm: a relique of the holy crosse, closed in silver, and guilt, sett wt counterfeyte stones and perls, worth iijs. iiijd. It'm: a cross wt certain other reliques plated wt silver gilded, ijs. iiijd. It'm: a case to kepe in reliques, plated and gilt, vd. It'm: a clocke, vs." It may be added that the orchard and cemetery were valued at xxs. by the yere," and "one horse of the coller of black," at 5s. Anne Browne, the last prioress, was probably a member of the noble house of Lord Montagu. Mr. Wood, in his "Ecclesiastical Antiquities of London," mentions a tradition, which may or may not be true, that the nuns of Kilburn enjoyed the privilege of having seats in the triforium in Westminster Abbey. Not far from the site of the old priory, a "Home" has been established, called the "Sisterhood of St. Peter's." It was founded by a Mr. and Mrs. Lancaster, to carry out by united effort the work of missionaries and nurses amongst the poor. The establishment, which was formerly at Brompton, consists of a lady superior, four sisters, and a 245 limited number of serving-sisters. Besides the more spiritual object of the sisterhood, it undertakes the special care of a large number of sick people, who are received from the hospitals, and nursed until restored to health. In Kilburn Park Road, near Edgware Road Station, is the Church of St. Augustine, one of the finest ecclesiastical structures in London, and, with the exception of St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey, by far the largest. The church, which has sittings for about 1,800 worshippers, is in the Early English style, and was commenced in 1871 from the designs of Mr. Pearson. The sisterhood of St. Peter assist in the district in nursing the sick and in mission work; then there are "Sisters of the Church" for the education of the poor, and also a "Guild" with several branches. In 1876 the foundation-stone of the nave of this church was laid; and the interior decoration of the fabric is still in progress. The After the Reformation the reminiscences of Kilburn are secular rather than religious, leading us in the direction of suburban pleasure-grounds and "the gardens," and mineral waters. In fact, before the end of the sixteenth century, and even perhaps earlier, near a mineral spring which bubbled up not far from the spot where the nuns had knelt in prayer, and had relieved the beggars and the poor out of their slender store, there arose a rural house, known to the holiday folks of London as the "Kilburn Wells." The well is still to be seen adjoining a cottage at the corner of the Station Road, on some premises belonging to the London and North-Western Railway. The water rises about twelve feet below the surface, and is enclosed in a brick reservoir of about five feet in diameter, surmounted by a cupola. The key-stone of the arch over the doorway bears the date 1714. water collected in this reservoir is usually about five or six feet in depth, though in a dry summer it is shallower; and it is said that its purgative qualities are increased as its bulk diminishes. These wells, in fact, were once famous for their saline and purgative waters. A writer in the Kilburn Almanack observes :-" Upon a recent visit we found about five feet six inches of water in the well, and the water very clear and bright, with little or no sediment at the bottom; probably the water has been as high as it now is ever since the roadway parted it from the 'Bell' Tea Gardens, not having been so much used lately as of old." "Is it not strange," asks Mr. W. Harrison Ainsworth, "that, in these water-drinking times, the wells of Hampstead and Kilburn should not come again into vogue" |