Bridget, one of Oliver Cromwell's children; and from Dalston to Stamford Hill. It was evidently the education of her son was entrusted to the once a rural lane, and was probably used more learned and pious Dr. Watts, of whom we shall by farmers' wagons than by gentlemen's carriages. have more to say presently. The Rev. Dr. It is fringed, however, on both sides with a long Stoughton, in his "Shades and Echoes of Old series of private dwelling-houses, most of them redLondon," says:-" Dame Hartopp has been some- bricked mansions of the date of Queen Anne and times regarded as the offspring of Bridget, and con- George I., with projecting summits to the doorways, sequently as the Protector's granddaughter; and if and screened from the street by iron railings of that view of her lineage were correct, then the varied and handsome designs, not unlike those youth to whom Watts became tutor would be no still to be seen in the older parts of Kensington, other than a great-grandson of the strong-willed Chelsea, Hampstead, and Highgate. One of the man who, without a crown, swayed a sceptre over first houses on the northern side of the way, now a three old kingdoms." But Noble, in his "Memoirs ladies' school, was the home of Mr. Isaac D'Israeli, of the Protectoral House," shows, as we think the author of the "Curiosities of Literature," satisfactorily, that Elizabeth, who was married to Sir before he settled down in Bloomsbury Square. A John Hartopp, was a daughter of Fleetwood by his large white house near it was the scene of the first wife, Frances Smith. Still, as the Hartopps school-days of the eccentric and gifted poet, Edgar would be intimately connected with the Crom- Allan Poe, who in his writings ascribes much of the wells, the family traditions of the latter would be romantic element in his character to the fact of familiar to the former, and stories of Oliver and having been sent as a boy to a place so abounding his son-in-law would often be told in the dining- in old associations. Edgar Poe (born at Baltimore hall and the gardens of Sir John at Newington. in January, 1811) was adopted as a child by a Mr. Allan, a rich gentleman who had no children of his own. Mr. Allan brought him to England, and placed the spoiled child, then a witty, and beautiful, and precocious boy, at school in Church. Street. He remained here five years, but returned to the United States in 1822. Near the old church, on the northern side of it, is a walk between trees, still called Queen Elizabeth's Walk; and as some justification of the name, it may be added that Newington was the abode of her Majesty's favourites, Dudley Earl of Leicester and Vere Earl of Oxford. The parish now has no less than six churches. On the south side of the road, between the two churches, stood formerly a picturesque old rectoryhouse, mostly built of wood, with a curious gable projecting into the street (see p. 530). The south and west sides of the house and its garden were bounded by a moat, which is now filled up, the present rectory being built upon its site. The ribs and back-bone of the old rectory-house were evidently part and parcel of large forest trees; and where oak was not used in its construction, its place was supplied by other hard and vigorous timber, equally heavy and durable. A tall red house on the same side of the way, now embodied in Church Row, was the house where John Howard lodged when he married the widow lady who kept it, as we have mentioned in our account of Lower Clapton.* Here he studied his first essays in philanthropy. "The delicate state of his health required better and more attentive nursing than he found where he first lodged, so he removed into apartments under the roof of one Mrs. Sarah Lowne, a widow possessed of a little property, residing in Church Street, who devoted her time to the care and comfort of the young invalid, who was only twenty-five, while she was fifty-two. From being his nurse, she became his wife. She died in 1755, and lies buried in St. Mary's, Whitechapel." It is on record that Mr. Howard was a constant worshipper in the old Independent chapel here. After the death of the nurse whom he thus strangely endeavoured to reward, Mr. Howard married into a respectable family of Cambridgeshire. His second wife, however, died soon after she had given birth to a son. In the course of a voyage to Lisbon Mr. Howard had the misfortune to be captured, and was lodged The sufferings On the western side of the parish there is a large but rather winding road, running northwards, popularly known as the "Green Lanes," and leading, by way of Wood Green and Winchmore Hill, to Enfield. This is rather a sporting neighbourhood, and the road is largely used for trotting matches by farmers, butchers, and other tradesfolk, a fact which does not contribute to the quiet or comfort of the residents. The Green Lanes dispute with Stoke Newington Road the claim to be considered the old Saxon Ermine Street mentioned above. At this point commences a narrow and slightly-winding in France as a prisoner of war. thoroughfare, called Church Street, which, passing eastward, leads us into the straight and wide road * See ante, p. 521. Stoke Newington.} QUEEN ELIZABETH'S WALK. which he was now compelled to witness are supposed to have operated with such force on his mind as to lead to those indefatigable exertions for the redress of abuses in prisons which speedily produced such important effects throughout the greater part of Europe. Mr. Howard died, in the year 1790, at one of the Russian settlements on the Black Sea, the victim of a malignant fever, which he had caught in visiting some prisoners. A monument to his memory was erected in 1876 at Kherson. On the south side of the street, a similar house, with lofty windows and a handsome entrance doorway, was the home of the eccentric Thomas Day, the author of "Sandford and Merton." It is now styled Sandford House. A few yards farther to the east, on the same side of the way, we come to Defoe Street. This was formed in 1875, by the demolition of the house in which Defoe resided, and in which he is reputed to have written "Robinson Crusoe." It | is said to have been remarkable for the number of its doors, and for the massive locks and bolts with which they were secured. The house itself was a gloomy and irregular pile of red brick, apparently of the reign of Queen Anne. It had thick walls and deep window seats, with curious panelling and cupboards in the recesses. Here, besides writing that matchless story with which his name is associated, Defoe plotted as a politician; and here he set in order the materials on which were founded the union between England and Scotland. Hence he was carried a prisoner to Newgate in 1713. A native of Cripplegate, he had been educated at an academy on Newington Green, kept by Charles Morton. "Robinson Crusoe" was published in April, 1719, in which year the rolls of the manor of Stoke Newington mention Defoe as a resident in Church Street. 537 Street, is a dwelling called, though incorrectly, the Manor House, in the grounds of which is a curious archway of brick, which must formerly have been the entrance to a large and important residence. It is probably of the fifteenth or sixteenth century. It is now filled up with modern bricks; but the hinges on which its huge doors once swung are still to be seen in situ. Little or nothing appears to be known about its history. Mr. Lewis, in his "Dictionary" quoted above, says that "the ancient manor-house is particularly worthy of notice; but," curiously enough, he adds, "a brick gateway, with a pointed arch on the northern side of Church Street, is the only part now standing of the buildings belonging to the old manor-house." The same ancient tradition which connects Henry VIII. with the southern portion of Stoke Newington, tells us that Queen Elizabeth visited. the manor-house in Church Street; and a pleasant grove of elms, close by the old church, as mentioned above, once the "mall" of the parish, still retains the name of "Queen Elizabeth's Walk.” But when did the "maiden" queen make Stoke Newington her abode? Was it in her childhood, her girlhood, or her early womanhood? We know that a branch of the Dudleys, Earls of Essex, lived here after Elizabeth had come to the throne, but there is no proof of their having been here at an earlier date. Mr. Jackson tells us that the story current in the village in the last century was that, some time in Mary's reign, "probably when the house of the French Ambassador Noailles was the rendezvous of the discontented of every description, and when the princess herself was the hope of the Protestants, exasperated by persecution, she was brought by her friends to the secluded manorhouse, embosomed in trees, as to a secure asylum, where she might communicate with her friends, and be ready for any political emergency. They tell us that an ancient brick tower stood in the early part of the last century near the mansion, and that a staircase was remembered leading to the identical spot where the princess was concealed." But even Mr. Jackson, with all his poetic antiquarianism, is unable to confirm the tradition. Church Row, we may add, stands on the site of the old manor-house and grounds. Close by, and on the same side of the street, stands a portion, though only a fragment, of the mansion of the old Earls of Essex, dating perhaps from the reign of Elizabeth. On the same side of the street, but considerably more to the east, stood a house which at the beginning of the last century was a large hotel or tavern, with gardens and pleasure-grounds, which formed a favourite resort for newly-married couples to spend their honeymoon, in the days when there were no railways to whirl them off on the wings of steam to Brighton, Hastings, or the Isle of Wight. It was afterwards About a hundred yards farther to the east we converted into two private houses, one of which come to some handsome and lofty iron gates, contained a spacious apartment that had formerly behind which are some fine cedars of Lebanon been the assembly-room of the tavern. and other tall evergreens. These were the front On the opposite, or northern, side of Church entrance of Sir Thomas Abney's mansion, of which Fleetwood Road, a little to the east of this, still commemorates the residence of Fleetwood, the Parliamentarian general. we shall have more to say presently, as well as of make her a fit object for a painter. Her conversaits owners. tion is lively, her remarks judicious and always pertinent." The old "Rose and Crown" tavern stood at the corner of a road leading out of Church Street in a southward direction. The old tavern retained its ancient appearance until early in the present century, when it was pulled down, and a new house erected on its site, which was enlarged and brought forward in a line with the adjoining houses; previous to which the old house stood back some feet from the footpath. Robinson, in his history of the parish, gives an illustration of the tavern as it appeared in 1806. Upon the sign-post is shown a pair of horns, similar to those which we have described in our account of Highgate.* Near the middle of Church Street are two houses, nearly opposite to one another, which have had some distinguished residents; that on the north side was Dr. John Aikin's; his sister, Mrs. Barbauld, lived on the south, in a small private residence, now converted into a jeweller's shop. In Dr. Aikin's house the "Winter Evening Conversations were written. Dr. Aikin died in December, 1822. Crabb Robinson writes of him that "he had for some years sunk into imbecility after a youth and middle age of great activity. was in his better days a man of talent of the highest personal worth-in fact, one of the salt of the earth.'" Mrs. Barbauld was a resident here both before and after her living at Hampstead. is frequently mentioned in H. Crabb Robinson's "Diary," from which we cull the following characteristic entries : He She "1816-11th Feb.-I walked to Newington, and dined with Mrs. Barbauld. As usual, we were very comfortable. Mrs. Barbauld can keep up a lively argumentative conversation as well as any one I know; and at her advanced age (she is turned of seventy), she is certainly the best specimen of female Presbyterian society in the country. N.B. Anthony Robinson requested me to inquire whether she thought the doctrine of Universal Restoration scriptural. She said she thought we must bring to the interpretation of the Scriptures a very liberal notion of the beneficence of the Deity to find the doctrine there." About four years subsequently Robinson writes: 1824-4th Nov.-Walked to Newington. Mrs. Barbauld was going out, but she stayed a short time with me. The old lady is much shrunk in appearance, and is declining in strength. She is but the shade of her former self, but a venerable shade. She is eighty-one years of age, but she retains her cheerfulness, and seems not afraid of death. She has a serene hope and quiet faith— delightful qualities at all times, and in old age peculiarly enviable." Four months afterwards, on the 9th of March, 1825, she died, after a few days' serious illness. At the end of the same year we find Robinson making this entry:-" 27th Dec.-At Royston. This morning I read to the young folks Mrs. Barbauld's 'Legacy.' This delightful book has in it some of the sweetest things I ever read. 'The King in his Castle' and 'True Magicians' are perfect allegories, in her best style. Some didactic pieces are also delightful.” Among other distinguished residents and personages connected with Stoke Newington, whose names we have not already mentioned, were Adam Anderson, author of the "History of Commerce," and Archbishop Tillotson. The "Three Crowns," at the junction of Church Street and the main road, commemorates the spot where James I.-in whom the three crowns were first united-stayed to bait his horses, after meeting the Lord Mayor and aldermen at the top of Stamford Hill. The western side of the High Road, as far as Stamford Hill, formed, till recently, part of the original parish of Hackney; but the latter has been sub-divided, and West Hackney and Stamford Hill have been made independent ecclesiastical districts. The latter was formerly a private and proprietary chapel of ease, but it was purchased by a subscription among the residents, enlarged, and consecrated. About half a mile to the north, between Stoke Newington and the Seven Sisters' Road, at the entrance of the Green Lanes, are the large reservoirs in which the New River Company filter their water before it is brought into London. We have already sketched the history of this river in our account of Islington,+ but for the following particulars, which ought to have a place here, we are indebted to the "Life of Sir Hugh Middleton," in Mr. Charles ↑ See Vol. II., pp. 266, 267. Stoke Newington.] THE NEW RIVER RESERVOIR. Knight's Penny Cyclopædia:-"The fall of the New River is three feet per mile, which gives a velocity of about two miles an hour. The average width is about twenty-one feet, and the average depth about four feet in the centre; so that, taking it at about half that depth, there is a section of forty-two square feet of water flowing into London at the rate of two miles an hour. At the sluice, near Highbury, the river is dammed back to the height of twenty inches, and at Enfield to two feet four inches; and there are three or four more such interruptions for the purpose of checking the current. The New River is occasionally rendered dirty, especially in winter, by drainage from the land and villages along its course; and the company has been at a great expense in order to purify the water before it is delivered to the inhabitants of London. For this purpose two large settling reservoirs were formed in 1832 at Stoke Newington, under the direction of Mr. Mylne, the company's engineer. The water here covers an area of thirty-eight acres, more than twenty feet deep in some parts, and twelve feet on an average throughout. The water of the New River can be turned into the upper reservoir, where it settles, and it is then drawn off by a steamengine, and poured into the lower reservoir, where another settlement takes place, and the water is then turned again once more into the channel of the river. Bathing in the New River is entirely prohibited; and men called 'walksmen' mow the bed of the river every week in order to keep 539 down the growth of weeds, which are stopped by gratings placed at intervals, where the weeds are regularly removed." We may conclude this chapter with an apt quotation from the Rev. T. Jackson's "Lecture on Stoke Newington :"-" It is said that in North America the line of civilisation stretches farther and farther into the west at the rate of about fifteen miles a year. The modest backwoodsman who now stands on the frontier of civilised life, finds himself a twelvemonth hence within its boundary. The progress of London-the Babylon and Nineveh of modern times-is scarcely less remarkable, if less rapid. There are persons yet living (1855) who remember the erection of Finsbury Square, upon what was then the northern limit of the great town. Others have heard their fathers speak of the wall in front of Old Bedlam, and of the cherry-trees that grew in Broad Street and London Wall. Now the south of Stoke Newington may be regarded as within the capital. The meadows and cornfields of Kingsland are no more; they are covered with lines of busy and well-inhabited streets. The tide of population is scarcely arrested by the uplands of Highbury Hill, once the seat of a Roman summer camp, and threatens to invade the quiet hill-top of Crouch End. When will our green fields be finally absorbed? when will Lordship Road be covered with villas, to be, as time rolls on, gradually deteriorated, till they are joined by intervening houses and broken into shops?" CHAPTER XLIV. STOKE NEWINGTON (continued), AND STAMFORD HILL. "Si monumenta quæris, circumspice." Abney House--Sir Thomas and Lady Abney-The Visit of Dr. Isaac Watts to Abney-House-His Library and Study-The Death of Dr. WattsSale of Abney Park, and the Formation of the Cemetery-Abney House converted into a School-Monument of Isaac Watts-The Mound and Grotto in the Cemetery-Distinguished Personages buried here-Stamford Hill-Meeting of King James and the Lord Mayor at Stamford Hill-The River Lea-Izaak Walton and the "Complete Angler." In the foregoing chapter we have briefly referred to the mansion of Sir Thomas Abney, the entrance to which was on the north side of Church Street. It was a large square substantial red-brick building with stone quoins, and dated its erection from the close of the seventeenth century. The roof was flat, with a balustrade around it; and it had a central turret, which commanded an extensive prospect of the surrounding country. The iron entrance-gates, which still remain, are richly ornamented with carved work of fruit and flowers. The principal rooms of the house were all large and stately, and the walls were lined with oak wainscoting. On the first floor an apartment termed the "painted chamber" was finished in a costly manner, and might be considered an interesting specimen of the taste of the age in which it was arranged. The mouldings were gilt, and the whole of the panels on the sides were painted with subjects taken from the works of Ovid. On the window-shutters were some pictorial decorations-strangely contrasting with the above The building, with its "old brick front, its old brick wall, and its old iron gate, all redolent of the times of William III. and Queen Anne," was commenced about the year 1690, by a Mr. Gunston, who at that time had purchased considerable property at Stoke Newington. He died, however, before the house was completely finished; an event which drew forth a funeral poem from the pen of Dr. Watts, in which, not content with the calling on "the buildings to weep," he writes "Mourn, ye young gardens, ye unfinished gates!" The mansion now became the property and residence of Sir Thomas and Lady Abney, who, with their family, of which Dr. Watts may be considered a member, took up their abode here. Sir Thomas Abney was a member of the Fish head of the rebel Wat Tyler being carried on a pole before him." "Sir Thomas," as John Timbs informs us, "was not more distinguished by his hospitality than by his personal piety. Neither business nor pleasure ever interrupted his observance of public and private domestic worship. Upon the evening of the day that he entered on the office of Lord Mayor, without any notice he withdrew from the public assembly at Guildhall after supper, went back to his house, there performed his devotions, and then returned back to his company." Isaac Watts began to preach at the age of twentythree, while living under the roof of Sir John and Lady Hartopp at Stoke Newington, where, as we have seen in the preceding chapter, he was engaged |