OLD CITY TREES.
It might seem to many, at first sight, almost ludicrous to be directed to search for poetry in that most prosaic of all places, the Old City of London. The busy cry of ‘commerce,’ which all day long deafens the ear and deadens the finer senses, excludes all thoughts beyond those which tend to the discovery of the state of the various markets—the price of stocks, the rate of exchange at Paris, Berlin, or St Petersburg—the condition, in fact, of all the monetary and mercantile affairs in the world. Yet if these ‘toilers’ had a moment to spare, and would look around them and reflect, they would find that there are spots in the City which have inspired many a poet.
Starting for a ‘walk down Fleet Street,’ and entering at the Middle Temple gate, we come upon a scene which has been immortalised by Shakspeare—the scene of the original factions of York and Lancaster. In this garden, Plantagenet says:
‘Since you are tongue-tied, and so loath to speak,
In dumb significance proclaim your thoughts:
Let him that is a true-born gentleman,
And stands upon the honour of his birth,
If he suppose that I have pleaded truth,
From off this brier pluck a white rose with me.’
To which Somerset replies:
‘Let him that is no coward, nor no flatterer,
But dare maintain the party of the truth,
Pluck a red rose from off this thorn with me.’
In the background of this garden, with its fine trees and flowers, where the great dramatist placed, in his imagination, this historical incident, may be seen the old walls and buttresses of the Middle Temple Hall. The descent into the garden is after the Italian fashion, from a court, in the centre of which stands that celebrated fountain of which nearly every noted author has spoken. Who does not remember Ruth Pinch—that devoted sister of Tom’s, in Martin Chuzzlewit, walking under the trees in Fountain Court, and meeting there—by the merest accident, of course—her lover? ‘Merrily the fountain leaped and danced, and merrily the smiling dimples twinkled and expanded more and more, until they broke into a laugh against the basin’s rim, and vanished.’ There is a graceful poem by L. E. L. (Miss Landon) on this much admired and petted fountain in the Temple Gardens:
The fountain’s low singing is heard on the wind,
Like a melody bringing sweet fancies to mind:
Some to grieve, some to gladden; around them they cast
The hopes of the morrow, the dreams of the past.
Away in the distance is heard the vast sound
From the streets of the city that compass it round,
Like the echo of fountain’s or ocean’s deep call;
Yet the fountain’s low singing is heard over all.
There is no place, one can see from reading Charles Lamb, which he loved more than the Temple to wander in. ‘What a transition for a country-man visiting London for the first time,’ he remarks in his Essays, ‘the passing from the crowded Strand or Fleet Street by unexpected avenues, into its magnificent, ample squares, its classic green recesses!... What a collegiate aspect has that fine Elizabethan hall, where the fountain plays, which I had made to rise and fall, how many times!’ Among the Temple trees there was formerly a colony of rooks, brought there by Sir Edward Northey, a well-known lawyer in the time of Queen Anne, from his house at Epsom. The thought had in it a touch of humour. The rook, both in his plumage as well as in his habits, is a legal bird: he is strongly addicted to discussions, lives in communities, and has altogether the grave appearance of a ‘learned brother.’ But these rooks have ceased to assemble in the Temple Gardens for many years.
For a long time, also, a favourite residence of rooks was that beautiful tree which still stands at the left-hand corner of Wood Street, on turning out of Cheapside. As late as 1845, two new nests were built there; and a trace of them is still visible. The spot where the tree stands marks the site of the church of St Peter-in-Cheap, a church destroyed by the Great Fire. The terms of the lease of the low houses at this west corner, with their frontage in Cheapside, forbid the erection of another story, it is said, or the removal of this tree. Is it possible that Wordsworth, passing one summer day down Cheapside, observed the tree, and gained the inspiration which led to the Reverie of Poor Susan?
At the corner of Wood Street, when daylight appears,
Hangs a thrush that sings loud—it has sung for three years;
Poor Susan has passed by the spot, and has heard
In the silence of morning the song of the bird.
’Tis a note of enchantment. What ails her? She sees
A mountain ascending, a vision of trees;
Bright volumes of vapour through Lothbury glide,
And a river flows on through the vale of Cheapside.
Within one of the inner courts of the Bank of England there is a garden tastefully planted with trees and shrubs, some of considerable age; and in the centre there springs forth a large fountain, mushroom-shaped, which plays during the office hours for the benefit of the clerks who inhabit that portion of the building, and for the ‘toilers’ who pass in and out with their bills of exchange and their bags of gold. The sparrows which congregate here flutter from branch to branch, twittering, ‘as though they called to one another,’ as Charles Dickens describes it, ‘Let us play at country;’ a place where ‘a few feet of garden,’ he says in Edwin Drood, ‘enable them to do that refreshing violence to their tiny understandings.’ This green spot, like many others still to be seen in the City of London, was once a churchyard; it belonged to the church of St Christopher in Threadneedle Street.
But one of the greenest spots in the City, although only a corner of it remains, is perhaps Drapers’ Hall Gardens. It is shut in on all sides by newly constructed mansions, and only those who have business to transact among the stockbrokers, who have their offices in these buildings behind Throgmorton Street, have any suspicion of its existence. It may be reached by wandering through courts and alleys; it has almost a park-like appearance, if you are fortunate enough to gain a glimpse of it from an elevated and slightly distant point of view. Here there is also a fountain visible among the trees. But how different this garden once was! In the sixteenth century it was an estate, the property of Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex. It was purchased from him, in the reign of Henry VIII., by the Drapers’ Company. The gardens then extended northwards as far as London Wall, and commanded a fine view of Highgate and the adjoining heights. In Ward’s London Spy, it is spoken of as a fashionable promenade an hour before dinner-time.
In the neighbourhood of the Monument and of Thames Street, these gardens may be met with at nearly every turning by those who care to wander into nooks and corners in search of them. By walking up St Mary-at-Hill out of Thames Street, and entering through a narrow iron gateway with bars like a prison, above which may be seen in stone a grinning skull and crossbones, one comes upon some fine trees with their branches extending overhead in the passage-way. Or, again, when descending St Dunstan’s Hill, hard by, what is more beautiful in the City than the trees in the churchyard of St Dunstan, with the gray and black masonry of the church, against the green leaves, with its four lofty towers rising above?
To the account of the trees and gardens mentioned above may be added a short statement of many others existing in out-of-the-way nooks and corners within the boundary of the city of London. Many of the small open patches where these trees are found were once undoubtedly burial-grounds of churches, or the sites of churches long since taken down. After the beautiful grounds of the Temple, the only other large open spaces within the boundaries of the City are Finsbury Square, Finsbury Circus, Charterhouse Square, and Trinity Square. All these are well laid out with grass, shrubs, trees, and flowers, and are used as promenading places by the inhabitants. It should be here mentioned that the trees referred to in this notice are all young, or at most middle-aged, and that no such thing as a really ‘old’ tree exists anywhere within the City of London.
We will now continue our ramble, or tour of inspection; and starting from Temple Bar, we proceed eastward down Fleet Street. Here the first trees we notice are two or three small and sickly specimens growing in the churchyard of St Bride, Fleet Street; they are not very ornamental, or much to look at. Passing on up Ludgate Hill, St Paul’s Cathedral is reached. The grounds round the church are prettily laid out, and contain many trees, but all young, small, and weedy. Just to the east of St Paul’s, in Watling Street, is a little inclosure very neatly planted with shrubs only, and having in its midst a large square altar-tomb of some departed City worthy. This spot was once a burying-ground, or the site of a church long since removed. Proceeding eastward, and turning down Queen Street, just out of Cannon Street, two tall and rather fine plane-trees are observed growing in the front of a grand old mansion, once, of course, the residence of a City magnate, but now cut up and let out as offices. These planes are worthy of remark as affording one of the few instances now occurring of trees found in private grounds inside the City.
We now pass up Queen Street into Cheapside, and thence into Aldersgate Street. Here we find the ground, once the churchyard of St Botolph, Aldersgate, has been beautifully laid out as a garden, planted with trees, flowers, and shrubs, and furnished with numerous seats, and affording a delightful promenade or resting-place in summer-time, and is much enjoyed by the immediate neighbourhood. Another plot of ground, lying on the west, but belonging to Christ Church, Newgate Street, has also been planted and laid out; but, because it belongs to another parish, it is separated from the St Botolph’s garden by a low wall and railing, although the two grounds actually adjoin.
Continuing our walk northward, we arrive at Charterhouse, once celebrated for its high-class school, which has now been removed into the country. Adjoining, is Charterhouse Square, laid out with trees, shrubs, and grass like an ordinary London square, and surrounded by private dwellings. Returning south, and then going east, we reach St Alban’s, Wood Street, which has a little ground round it, decorated with four trees and shrubs. Close by is St Mary-the-Virgin, Aldermanbury, with four trees round it. Just beyond is a small churchyard that once belonged to St Mary, Staining, containing two trees and shrubs; and a little farther is St Olave, Jewry, with six trees and shrubs, all weedy and sickly.
Passing on into Cannon Street, we turn down Lawrence Poultney Hill, where we discover a disused burial-ground, with a public passage-way passing through the midst of it. The plot is planted with eighteen sickly-looking, weedy trees, large and small, as well as some stunted shrubs. Passing over King William Street, we reach the top of Lombard Street, where one little sickly-looking tree is seen in front of the church of St Mary Woolnoth. Continuing down Lombard Street, and turning to the right, we come upon the disused burial-ground of St Nicholas Acon, situated in Nicholas Lane. This little plot is very neatly laid out with shrubs, and planted with three small trees. Passing on into King William Street, we ultimately reach London Bridge, where, close by in Thames Street, we find the large church of St Magnus-the-Martyr, with its tall and peculiar tower and spire, near the Monument. It has no churchyard, but a small inclosed space round it contains a dozen unhealthy-looking young trees. A little beyond this, close to the church of St Mary-at-Hill, three trees are observed growing in what is apparently the private ground or garden in the rear of a dwelling-house. A few minutes farther east, we come to the fine church of St Dunstan-in-the-East, standing in the midst of a well-kept churchyard, and having ten goodly young trees, of fair height and girth, which always have a very agreeable appearance in the summer-time. Still farther on east, we come to St Olave, Hart Street, with its little churchyard, planted with ten small trees; and close by we see the church of Allhallows (Barking), Tower Street. This fine old church is one of the few which escaped the great fire of 1666. It stands in a roomy churchyard, decorated with twenty-four trees, and having somewhat the appearance of a village church and churchyard.
We now emerge into one of the most interesting spots in all London, interesting not only in an historical sense, but peculiarly so from the terrible tragedies of which it was so constantly the theatre—namely, Tower Hill. This vast space, extending from the Tower gates northward to the Trinity House, was once entirely open; but now a small portion of its northern extremity is inclosed and neatly planted with grass, shrubs, and trees. As the Tower itself is situated outside the City boundaries, we must not include its trees and plantations in this notice, which strictly applies to trees in the City only. We therefore turn our steps westward; and in a little court, leading from Mark Lane to Fenchurch Street, called Star Alley, we come on a curious relic of the past, a gray medieval church tower, square in shape, with its stair turret at one corner, which once belonged to the church of Allhallows (Staining), Mark Lane. The nave of the church has long since been removed, and the small plot of ground round the old tower is now prettily laid out with six young trees, many shrubs, yuccas, and other ornamental plants.
Threading our way to Bishopsgate Street, we find the churchyard of St Botolph, through which a public footway leads to a neighbouring street. The ground, right and left, is tastefully laid out as a garden with pretty shrubs and trees, the effect being pleasing and agreeable, especially in summer. Nearly opposite is the ancient church of St Ethelburga, hidden behind the houses, with a small confined space at the back, in which are fine trees. Two or three more trees are found in a small inclosure in the vicinity at the back of this church. Close by is also the curious and interesting church of St Helen, Bishopsgate, and in the ground round it are four ill-looking, scraggy trees.
Returning southward, and reaching Cornhill, we find a little burial-ground in the rear of the fine church of St Michael, Cornhill, neatly laid out, and planted with three small trees. Close by is another large church, St Peter-upon-Cornhill, with its small confined churchyard, also neatly laid out, and planted with two small unhealthy-looking trees.
Taking our way westward, we pass Christ’s Hospital in Newgate Street. The boys’ playground is a large open paved courtyard, destitute of grass, trees, or shrubs; but in the private gardens in the rear, trees, shrubs, and flowers are to be found, having a pleasant appearance. A little way beyond, we find St Andrew’s, Holborn, and in the open churchyard surrounding the church are many trees, but not much cultivation. Passing through the quaint old gateway, we find ourselves in the interior of Staple Inn, Holborn, with its Hall and gardens. The latter are neatly laid out with grass, shrubs, and trees, and carefully kept, affording a quiet retreat from the noise and racket of Holborn during the bright days of summer.
In conclusion, it may perhaps be worthy of remark that nearly all the places referred to are very small indeed, mere ‘garden nooks;’ some are churchyards surrounding churches; and for these reasons, apparently, none of them are open for the use of the public as places of recreation, except the cultivated churchyards of St Paul’s Cathedral, and St Botolph, Aldersgate, close by; and the squares of Finsbury, Trinity, and Charterhouse, which are open to the immediate residents. St Botolph, Bishopsgate, has, as already stated, a footway through its prettily laid out churchyard.
It is at least remarkable how trees will suddenly appear in the City in the most out-of-the-way corners, where a green leaf would be about the last thing looked for; yet such is the case, as it has already been shown. There are two sickly, scraggy, young trees in a little court, up a narrow dirty lane, on the south side of St Paul’s Cathedral, and at Stationers’ Hall, where no one would dream of looking for vegetation; and two or three more in Barnard’s Inn, Holborn, an inn devoted to law and lawyers. The peculiar character of ‘City trees,’ in nearly all cases, is that they are lanky, thin, and generally poor and unhealthy looking. It is rare, indeed, to find a tall, well-grown tree in any of these odd nooks and corners of the old City; perhaps the three finest in size and height are two plane-trees in front of a private house—now used as offices—in Queen Street, Cheapside; and the well-known single tree at the corner of Wood Street, Cheapside; but these instances are few and far between.