CAMDEN TOWN, FROM THE HAMPSTEAD ROAD, MARYLEBONE, 1780. (See page 305.)

CHAPTER XXIII.

EUSTON ROAD, HAMPSTEAD ROAD, AND THE ADJACENT NEIGHBOURHOOD.

"Not many weeks ago it was not so,

But Pleasures had their passage to and fro,
Which way soever from our Gates I went,
I lately did behold with much content,

The Fields bestrew'd with people all about;

Some paceing homeward and some passing out;

Some by the Bancks of Thame their pleasure taking,
Some Sulli-bibs among the milk-maids making;

With musique some upon the waters rowing;

Some to the adjoining Hamlets going,

And Hogsdone, Islington, and Tothnam (sic) Court,

For Cakes and Cream had then no small resort."-Britain's Remembrancer.

Pastoral Character of the Locality in the Last Century-The Euston Road-Statuary-yards-The "Adam and Eve" Tavern-Its Tea-gardens and its Cakes and Creams-A "Strange and Wonderful Fruit "-Hogarth's Picture of the "March of the Guards to Finchley"-The "Paddington Drag"-A Miniature Menagerie-A Spring-water Bath-Eden Street-Hampstead Road-The "Sol's Arms" TavernDavid Wilkie's Residence-Granby Street-Mornington Crescent-Charles Dickens' School-days-Clarkson Stanfield-George CruikshankThe "Old King's Head" Tavern-Tolmer's Square-Drummond Street-St. James's Church-St. Pancras Female Charity School-The Original Distillery of "Old Tom "-Bedford New Town-Ampthill Square-The "Infant Roscius "-Harrington Square.

THERE was, till the reign of William IV., a rustic worse" in his "Book of Days: "-" Readers of our character which invested the outskirts of London old dramatic literature may be amused with the rustic between King's Cross and St. John's Wood. But, character which invests the (then) residents of the thanks to the progress of the demon of bricks and outskirts of Old London comprehended between mortar, the once rural tea-gardens have been made King's Cross and St. John's Wood, as they are in every suburb of London to give way to the modern depicted by Swift in the Tale of a Tub. The gin-palace with its flaring gas and its other attrac- action of the drama takes place in St. Pancras tions. Chambers draws out this "change for the Fields, the country near Kentish Town, Tottenham

Court, and Marylebone. The dramatis persona," palaces round about you-Southampton House continues Mr. Chambers, "seem as innocent of and Montagu House.' 'Where you wretches go London as if they were inhabitants of Berkshire, and fight duels,' cries Mrs. Steele." and talk a broad country dialect. This northern side of London preserved its pastoral character until a comparatively recent time, it not being very long since some of the marks used by the Finsbury archers of the days of Charles II. remained in the Shepherd and Shepherdess Fields between the Regent's Canal and Islington. . The prætorium of a Roman camp was visible where now stands Barnsbury Terrace; the remains of another, as described by Stukely, were situated opposite old St. Pancras Church, and herds of cows grazed near where now stands the Euston Square Terminus of our North-Western Railway, but which then was Rhode's Farm. At the commencement of the present century the country was open from the back of the British Museum to Kentish Town; the New Road from Battle Bridge to Tottenham (Court Road) was considered unsafe after dark; and parties used to collect at stated points to take the chance of the escort of the watchman in his half-hourly round." In 1707 there were no streets west of Tottenham Court Road; and one cluster of houses only, besides the "Spring Water House" nearly half a century later, at which time what is now the Euston Road was part of an expanse of verdant fields.

But it is time for us to be again on our perambulation. Leaving Trinity Church, we now make our way eastward along the Euston Road, as far as the junction of the Tottenham Court and the Hampstead Roads. The Euston Road-formerly called the New Road-was at the time of its formation, about the middle of the last century, the boundaryline for limiting the "ruinous rage for building" on the north side of the town. It was made by virtue of an Act of Parliament passed in the reign of George II. (1756), after a most violent contest with the Duke of Bedford, who opposed its construction on the ground of its approaching too near to Bedford House, the duke's town mansion. The Duke of Grafton, on the other hand, strenuously supported it, and after a fierce legal battle it was ultimately decided that the road should be formed. In the Gentleman's Magazine for 1755 there is a "ground plan" of the New Road, from Islington to Edgware Road, showing the then state of the ground (and the names of the proprietors thereof) between Oxford Street and the New Road. The Act of Parliament for the formation of this great thoroughfare, as we have already had occasion to observe, directs that no building should be erected "within fifty feet of the New Road." In Gwynn's In the reign of George IV., as Mr. Samuel "London Improved," published about the beginPalmer writes in his " History of St. Pancras," ning of this century, it is stated that "the present "the rural lanes, hedgeside roads, and lovely fields mean appearance of the backs of the houses and made Camden Town the constant resort of those hovels have rendered this approach to the capital who, busily engaged during the day in the bustle a scene of confusion and deformity, extremely unof . . . London, sought its quietude and fresh becoming the character of a great and opulent air to re-invigorate their spirits. Then the old city." Down to a comparatively recent date, Mr. 'Mother Red Cap' was the evening resort of Gwynn's remarks would have applied very aptly to worn-out Londoners, and many a happy evening that quarter of a mile of the New Road which was spent in the green fields round about the old lies between Gower Street North, where the old wayside house by the children of the poorer classes. Westgate Turnpike formerly stood, and the eastern At that time the Dairy, at the junction of the entrance to the Regent's Park. Here the road was Hampstead and Kentish Town Roads, was a rural narrow, and perpetually obstructed by wagons, &c., cottage, furnished with forms and benches for the that might be unloading at the various timber and pedestrians to rest upon the road-side, whilst its stone yards, which occupied the ground that an Act master and mistress served out milk fresh from the of Parliament had ordered should be "used only cow to all who came." In fact, as we have for gardens." "The intention of this judicious already noticed in our account of Bloomsbury clause," says the author of a work on London Square and other places, down to the close of the about half a century ago, "was, no doubt, to last or even the beginning of the present century, preserve light, air, and cheerfulness, so highly all this neighbourhood was open country; so that, necessary to a great leading thoroughfare. Such after all, Thackeray was not far wide of the mark it has hitherto been, and with increasing respecwhen he put these words into the mouth of Mr. tability, excepting at the point I am about to St. John in "Esmond: "-"Why, Bloomsbury is mention-many great improvements have taken the very height of the mode! 'Tis rus in urbe; place, such as the Regent's Park and Crescent, you have gardens all the way to Hampstead, and the new Pancras Church and Euston Square, &c.

Euston Road.}

THE "ADAM AND EVE" TAVERN.

303

With these useful and even splendid works upon of thoroughfares. It is just possible, however, the same line of road, it becomes a matter of sur-that more lions' and stags' heads, and other heraldic prise that the distance between Westgate Turn- devices for decorating the park-gates of noble pike, at the crossing of Gower Street North, up lords and "county families" in the country, have to the Regent's Park, should not only remain proceeded of late years from the various statuarywithout any reformation, but that buildings, work- yards which adorn the southern side of the Euston men's huts, sheds, smoky chimneys, and all manner Road than from all the rest of the metropolis of nuisances, should be allowed not only to con- put together. These statuary-yards are really the tinue, but to increase daily close to the road. backs of houses in Warren Street, which we have "In proceeding from the City westward," con- already described in a previous volume.* It may tinues the writer, "a fine line of road, and noble be added here that the houses in Euston Road, footpaths on each side, are found until, on arriving opposite the sculptors' yards, were til recently near Tottenham Court Road, both appear to termi-known as Quickset Row," thus preserving some trace of the former rurality of the place.

66

As we have stated in a previous chapter, the Metropolitan Railway Company have laid their railway entirely under the Euston Road from end to end. To carry out that great undertaking, the road was, at great expense, torn completely up. After constructing the railway at a considerable depth, the company re-made the roadway, and now it is one of the finest roads in London.

At the corner of the Euston Road and the Hampstead Road stands a public-house which perpetuates the sign of an older tavern of some repute, called "The Adam and Eve," which was once noted for its tea-gardens. Of this house we have already given an illustration.†

nate abruptly, and the road is faced and its regularity destroyed by the projection of a range of low buildings and hovels, converted, or now converting, into small houses, close to the highway, which, strange to say, is much narrowed, at a point where, from the increased traffic caused by the crossing of the road to Hampstead, a considerable increase of width is doubly requisite. But here the houses project about ten feet, and nearly close up the footpath; and this being one of the stations for the Paddington coaches to stop at, it becomes a service of no small danger to drive through the very small opening that is left for the public to pass through. A few yards farther, on both sides of the road, are ranges of stone-yards, with the incessant music of sawing, chipping, and hacking Hone, in his " Year Book," identifies this tavern stone, grinding chisels, and sharpening of saws; with the site of the old Manor of Toten Hall, a cow-yards, picturesque stacks of timber, building lordship belonging to the deans of St. Paul's as materials, and dead walls. Another angle turned, far back as the time of the Norman Conquest. and the traveller emerges again from the region of Under the earlier Stuarts it passed into the hands smoke, stone-dust, and mud, and traversing some of the Crown, and was leased to the Fitzroys, hazardous passages, pounces at once into the Lords Southampton, in the early part of the reign magnificent Crescent of Regent's Park, wondering of George III. Near it was another ancient at the utter lack of public taste, which could allow | house called King John's Palace. such a combination of nuisances to exist, and even increase, in the immediate neighbourhood of this great public improvement, and along the only road leading to it from the city of London." In course of time, the desired improvement was effected, and that part of the road to which we have specially referred was widened by the removal of some of the obtruding houses, and the thoroughfare made as nearly as possible of one uniform width all along, with the exception of the hundred yards immediately to the west and east of the "Adam and Eve," where the Euston Road is crossed by the junction of the Hampstead and Tottenham Court Roads. Just as Piccadilly was a hundred years ago, so the 200 or 250 yards of roadway lying between Park Crescent and the Hampstead Road is, or was down to a comparatively recent date, one of the dullest and dreariest

"Whether that

monarch ever really resided there," remarks Mr. Palmer, in his "History of St. Pancras," "it is now impossible to ascertain, but tradition states that it was known as the Palace, and the houses on the site being called 'Palace Row' supports the tradition." Opposite to it, nearly on the site of what now is Tolmer's Square, was a reservoir of the New River Company, surrounded with a grove of trees; this was not removed till about 1860. The "Adam and Eve," even as late as 1832, was quite a rural inn, only one storey in height; and Mr. Hone tells us that he remembered it when it stood quite alone, "with spacious gardens at the side and in the rear, a fore-court with large timber trees, and tables and benches for out-door customers. In the gardens were fruit-trees," he adds,

• See Vol. IV., p. 476.

+ See Vol. IV., p. 475.

"and bowers and arbours for tea-drinking parties. has represented the "Adam and Eve" in his wellIn the rear there were no houses at all; now there known picture of "The March of the Guards to is a town." At that time the "Adam and Eve" Finchley." Upon the sign-board of the house is tea-gardens were resorted to by thousands, as the inscribed "Tottenham Court Nursery," in allusion end of a short walk into the country; and the to Broughton's Amphitheatre for Boxing erected in trees were allowed to grow and expand naturally, this place. The pugilistic encounters were carried unrestricted by art or fashion. Richardson, in out upon an uncovered stage in a yard open to 1819, said that the place had long been celebrated the high road. The great professor's advertiseas a tea-garden; there was an organ in the long-ment, announcing the attractions of his "Nursery,” room, and the company was generally respectable, is somewhat amusing:

Hampstead Road.]

*

CHARLES DICKENS'S SCHOOL-DAYS.

305

In the year 1800 the road from Whitefield's traversed by tramways, and has altogether a busiChapel hither was lined on either side with the ness-like aspect. hawthorn hedge, and then the "Adam and Eve" tea-gardens were the constant resort of thousands of Londoners; particularly at the time of Tottenham Fair, of which we have spoken in a previous volume; and when, after its suppression, it was followed by a more innocent one called "Gooseberry Fair." At that period there was only one conveyance between Paddington and the City, which was called the "Paddington Drag," and which stopped at this tavern door as it passed to take up passengers. It performed the journey, as the notice-paper said, "in two hours and a half quick time." The same distance is now accomplished under this road by the Metropolitan Railway in about a quarter of an hour.

At one time (long before the establishment of the Zoological Gardens), the "Adam and Eve" owned a sort of miniature menagerie, "when it could boast of a monkey, a heron, some wild fowl, some parrots, with a small pond for gold-fish." As late as July, 1796, the general Court-Baron of the Lord of the Manor of Tatenhall was held at this tavern by order of William Birch, who was at that time steward, dating his notice from Dean Street, Soho. There were also near to this tavern some celebrated baths, of which we find in an old paper of 1785 the following advertisement :

"Cold Bath, in the New Road, Tottenham Court Road, near the 'Adam and Eve' Tea Gardens, is now in fine order for the reception of ladies and gentlemen. This bath is supplied from as fine a spring as any in the kingdom, which runs continually through it, and is replete with every accommodation for bathing, situate in the midst of a pleasant garden. This water hath been remarkably serviceable to people subject to lowness of spirits and nervous disorders. For purity of air and water, with an agreeable walk to it, an exercise so much recommended by the faculty, this Bath is second to none."

It is worth noticing, perhaps, as an appendage to the "Adam and Eve," that the first street to the north of that tavern, in the Hampstead Road, is called Eden Street, though it bears at presentwhatever it may have done heretofore-few signs or marks of Paradise.

The Hampstead Road is a broad thoroughfare, which runs hence northwards in a direct line with Tottenham Court Road, connecting it with High Street, Camden Town, and so with both Hampstead and Kentish Town and Highgate. The road is

* See Vol. IV., p. 477.

The streets on the west side (with the exception of the first-Eden Street-which occupies part of the site of the old "Adam and Eve" tea-gardens) are mostly named after Christian names in the family of the owner of the land, such as Henry, Charles, Frederick, William, Robert, and Edward Streets. At the corner of Charles Street (formerly Sol's Row) is the "Sol's Arms," which is immortalised by Dickens in "Bleak House." It derives its name from the Sol's Society, an institution which was conducted somewhat upon the principles of freemasonry. They used to hold their meetings at the "Queen of Bohemia's Head," in Drury Lane ; but on the pulling down of that house the society was dissolved. In Sol's Row, David Wilkie, the artist, resided for some time, and there painted his "Blind Fiddler." We found him afterwards in the more fashionable suburb of Kensington.† Each of the above-mentioned streets crosses at right angles a broader and more important thoroughfare, called Stanhope Street, which runs parallel with the Hampstead Road.

The remaining streets on this side of the Hampstead Road bear more ambitious designations: one is called Rutland Street, the next is Granby Street, and the thoroughfare is terminated by Mornington Crescent, which connects the road with High Street, Camden Town. Granby Street commemorates the most popular of English generals, the 'Marquis" of that name; and the name Mornington, no doubt, was given to the crescent out of compliment to the Earl of Mornington, GovernorGeneral of India, the brother of the Duke of Wellington, and afterwards better known as the Marquis Wellesley. At the corner of Granby Street is a Congregational Chapel, which, however, does not require further notice.

We are told by Mr. J. Forster, in his "Life of Charles Dickens," that after his release from the drudgery of the blacking warehouse at Hungerford Stairs, when about twelve years old, the boy who became afterwards "Boz" was sent to a school, kept by a Welshman named Jones, in the Hampstead Road, close to the corner of Mornington Place and Granby Street; but the schoolroom has long since disappeared, having been "sliced off" at a later date to make room for the London and Birmingham Railway. It was ambitiously styled Wellington House Academy, and there are many allusions to it to be found in Dickens's minor writings; and there is a paper among his pieces,

+ See ante, p. 134