The Albany.—The Albany consists of a series of chambers, or suites of apartments, intended for ‘West-end bachelors.’ No person carrying on a trade or commercial occupation is allowed to live within its limits. There are two entrances, one in Piccadilly and one in Burlington Gardens. The chambers are placed in eleven groups, denoted by letters of the alphabet, A to L. There are about 60 suites of apartments, many of which are occupied by peers, members of parliament, honourables and right honourables, and naval and military officers. Canning, Byron, and Macaulay, are named amongst those who have lived in this singular place.
Hotels and Inns.—It has been conjectured (though probably in excess of the truth) that at all times there are 150,000 strangers residing for a few days only in the metropolis; and to accommodate this numerous transient population, there is a vast number of lodging and boarding-houses, hotels, and other places of accommodation. There are upwards of 500 better-class hotels, inns, and taverns. There are about 120 private hotels not licensed, and therefore do not keep exciseable liquors for sale. There are about 5,200 public-houses licensed to sell wines, spirits, and malt liquors. There are more than 1,964 beer-shops, where malt liquors only are sold.
The fashionable hotels are situated west of Charing Cross—as, for instance, Claridge’s, Brook Street, Grosvenor Square; Fenton’s, St. James’s Street; Limmer’s, George Street, Hanover Square; the Clarendon, in New Bond Street; the Burlington, in Old Burlington Street; Grillon’s, in Albemarle Street; Long’s, in Bond Street; the Palace, Pimlico; Wright’s, Dover Street; Morley’s, Trafalgar Square; Hatchett’s, Dover Street; Maurigy’s, Regent Street; Marshall Thompson’s, Cavendish Square; the Albemarle, Albemarle Street; the Hyde Park, near the Marble Arch; the Alexandra, Hyde Park Corner; &c. In and about Covent Garden there are several good hotels for single gentlemen; among others, the Cavendish, the Bedford, the New and Old Hummums, and the Tavistock. One or two others, in Bridge Street, Blackfriars, are excellent hotels. Foreign hotels of a medium class are numerous in and about Leicester Square. Another class of hotels or inns are those from which stage-coaches at one time ran, and which were resorted to by commercial and other gentlemen; for example, the Golden Cross, (now renovated and extended,) near Charing Cross; the White Horse Cellar, Piccadilly; the Bell and Crown, Holborn; the Castle and Falcon, Aldersgate Street; and the Bull-in-Mouth, (now called the Queen’s,) opposite the General Post Office, in St. Martin’s-le-Grand. These have all become comfortable middle-class hotels, with railway booking-offices attached; but the fall of the stage-coach trade has lessened their importance to a great extent. To these we may add certain large inn and tavern establishments at other parts of the town—such as the Bridge House Hotel, at London Bridge; the Angel, at Islington; and the Elephant and Castle, Newington Causeway.
The almost universal defect of the older class of hotels in London is, that they are too often private dwellings extemporized for purposes of public accommodation—not buildings erected with the distinct object for which they are used. Hence the London hotels, generally, are confined and awkward in their arrangements—a huddle of apartments on different levels, narrow passages, and the offensive odour of cookery being common. Rarely is there anything to parallel the larger hotels of New York, or the Hotel du Louvre at Paris. The nearest approach to these foreign establishments is found in certain hotels adjoining the railway termini, of recent construction. These are the Euston and Victoria Hotels, near Euston terminus; the Great Northern Hotel, adjoining the King’s Cross terminus; the Great Western Hotel, at the Paddington terminus; the Grosvenor Hotel, at the Pimlico terminus; the London Bridge Terminus Hotel, adjoining the Brighton Railway terminus; the fine South-Eastern Railway Hotel, Cannon Street; the Westminster Palace Hotel, Victoria Street, Westminster; the Midland, at St. Pancras; and the Charing Cross Railway Hotel. At these new and extensive hotels the accommodation is on a better footing than in the older and generally small houses. But notwithstanding these additions, it is indisputable that the amount of hotel accommodation is still meagre and defective. The want of large good hotels in central situations, to give accommodation at moderate charges, remains one of the conspicuous deficiencies of the metropolis. The Langham, however, in Portland Place, is an excellent hotel. So is the Salisbury Hotel, Salisbury Square, Fleet Street. The idea of building a large hotel in the Strand, near St. Mary’s Church, was, by-the-by, abandoned in favour of the new Globe Theatre; while that handsome building, the Inns of Court Hotel, in Holborn and Lincoln’s Inn Fields, has never yet been properly finished, and is now (1873) a failure.
In and about London, we may mention, are sundry extensive and highly-respectable taverns, which, though principally designed for accommodating large dining and other festive gatherings, lodge gentlemen with every comfort. Among these may be mentioned the London Tavern; the Albion, in Aldersgate Street; several in Fleet Street, near Blackfriars Bridge; the Freemasons’ Tavern, Great Queen Street, Lincoln’s Inn Fields; and so forth. There is, besides, a class of taverns whose chief business is supplying dinners and slight refreshments, also the accommodation of newspapers, and which are resorted to chiefly by commercial men. Each of these has a distinct character. Garraway’s and Lloyd’s, at the Royal Exchange, were once coffee-houses, but now are associated with marine intelligence, stock-trading, and auctions; and in Cornhill, opposite, the North and South American Coffee-house supplies American newspapers; and here also are to be seen the captains of vessels who are preparing to sail to different ports in the western continent and islands. At the Jerusalem and East India Coffee-house, Cowper’s Court, Cornhill, information relating to East India shipping and captains may be obtained. Peele’s Coffee-house, in Fleet Street, is celebrated for keeping files of newspapers, which may be consulted; this accommodation, as respects London papers, may also be had at some other places. Other economical Reading-Rooms are noticed in the Appendix.
Chop-houses, Coffee-shops, and Dining-rooms.—The next class of houses of this nature comprises Chop-houses, but also doing the business of taverns, and resorted to chiefly by business-men—as the Chapter, in Paternoster Row; the Mitre, the Cock, the Cheshire Cheese, and the Rainbow, in Fleet Street. Many such houses are to be met with near the Bank of England, in Cheapside, Bucklersbury, Threadneedle Street, Bishopsgate Street, and the alleys turning out of Cornhill. The Ship and Turtle, in Leadenhall Street, was a famous turtle-house; and others are noted for some specialty.
London contains a very numerous class of Coffee-shops, of a much more humble, though perhaps more useful nature, at which coffee, cocoa, tea, bread and butter, toast, chops and steaks, bacon and eggs, and cold meat, may be obtained at very moderate prices; a few pence will purchase a morning or evening meal at such places; and many working-men dine there also. There are about 1,500 houses of this class in London. There is another class of Eating-houses or Dining-rooms, resorted to for dinners by large numbers of persons. Lake’s, His Lordship’s Larder, and one or two others, in Cheapside; Izant’s, and several others in and near Bucklersbury; the Chancery Dining-rooms, in Chancery Lane; the Fish Ordinary at the Three Tuns in Billingsgate, and at Simpson’s in Cheapside; and several dining-rooms in and near the Haymarket and Rupert Street—may be reckoned among the number. A good but simple dinner may be had at these houses for from 1s. 6d. to 2s. 6d. At the St. James’s Hall Restaurant, in Regent Street; Blanchard’s, Regent Street, corner of Burlington Street; the Albion, Russell Street, near Drury Lane Theatre; the London, Fleet Street, nearly opposite the Inner Temple gate; Simpson’s, in the Strand, opposite Exeter Hall; and last, but by no means least, at Speirs and Pond’s Restaurant, at Ludgate Station of the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway; a very fair dinner may be had, at prices varying from, say, a minimum of half-a-crown up to a greater cost, according to the state of the diner’s tastes and finances. At the Gaiety Restaurant, adjoining the Gaiety Theatre, a good dinner may be had. At Cremorne Gardens, too, there used to be a good table d’hôte for 2s. 6d.
Temperance Hotels.—There are several good houses of this character. Among others may be named The Waverley, King Street, Cheapside; Angus’s, Bridge Street, Blackfriars; Anderson’s, Theobald Road; and Ling’s, South Street, Finsbury.
THEATRES, CONCERTS, AND OTHER PLACES OF AMUSEMENT.
Theatres.—There are altogether in London a large number. Of these the following are the principal:—Her Majesty’s Theatre, on the western side of the Haymarket, is the original of the two Italian Opera Houses in London; it was built in 1790, on the site of an older theatre, burnt down in 1867, and re-built in 1869. It is occasionally unoccupied. The freehold of some of the boxes has been sold for as much as £8,000 each. The Opera Season is generally from March to August; but the main attractions and the largest audiences are from May to July. The Royal Italian Opera House, occupying the site of the former Covent Garden Theatre, was built in 1858, on the ruins of one destroyed by fire. The building is very remarkable, both within and without. Under the lesseeship of Mr. Gye, and the conductorship of Mr. (now Sir Michael) Costa, operas have been produced here with a completeness scarcely paralleled in Europe. When not required for Italian Operas, the building is occupied usually by an English Opera Company, or occasionally for miscellaneous concerts. The Floral Hall, adjoining this theatre, is occasionally engaged for concerts. Drury Lane Theatre, the fourth on the same site, was built in 1812; its glories live in the past, for the legitimate drama now alternates there with entertainments of a more spectacular and melodramatic character. The Haymarket Theatre, exactly opposite Her Majesty’s, was built in 1821; under Mr. Buckstone’s management, comedy and farce are chiefly performed. The Adelphi Theatre, in the Strand, near Southampton Street, was rebuilt in 1858; it has for forty years been celebrated for melodramas, and for the attractiveness of its comic actors. The present lessee, Mr. Webster, has the merit of having introduced many improvements for the comfort of the audience. The Lyceum Theatre, or English Opera House, at the corner of Wellington Street, Strand, was built in 1834; it was intended as an English Opera House, but its fortunes have been fluctuating, and the performances are not of a definite kind. The Princess’s Theatre, on the north side of Oxford Street, was built in 1830; after a few years of opera and miscellaneous dramas, it became the scene of Mr. Charles Kean’s Shakspearian revivals, and now resembles most of the other theatres. St. James’s Theatre, in King Street, St. James’s, was built for Braham, the celebrated singer; it was a losing speculation to him; and although a really beautiful theatre inside, its managerial arrangements have been very changeable of late years. The Olympic Theatre, in Wych Street, Drury Lane, is small, but well conducted and successful. The Strand Theatre, near the Olympic, has been remarkable for its burlesque extravaganzes. The New Globe Theatre, Newcastle Street, Strand, and the Gaiety, 345 Strand, and lastly the Vaudeville, (for comedy, farce, and burlesque,) near the Adelphi, are all of comparatively recent erection; so are the Court Theatre, near Sloane Square; the Charing Cross Theatre, King William Street; the Queen’s Theatre, Long Acre, late St. Martin’s Hall; and the Holborn Theatre. The New Royalty, or Soho Theatre, in Dean Street, Soho, was once a private theatre, belonging to Miss Kelly, the celebrated actress. The Prince of Wales’s Theatre, in Tottenham Street, is the old Tottenham Theatre in a renovated and greatly improved condition. Some of Mr. T. W. Robertson’s best comedies have been produced here within the last few years. Sadler’s Wells, near the New River Head, was at one time remarkable for the ‘real water’ displayed in melodramas. The Marylebone Theatre, between Regent’s Park and the Edgeware Road; the Grecian, in the City Road; the Britannia, at Hoxton; the City of London, in Norton Folgate; the Standard, in Shoreditch; and the Pavilion, in Whitechapel, are Theatres noticeable for the large numbers of persons accommodated, and the lowness of the prices of admission. On the Surrey side of the Thames are Astley’s Amphitheatre, in the Westminster Road, (the Circus is now removed;) the Victoria Theatre, in the Waterloo Road; and the Surrey Theatre, in Blackfriars Road. The performances at these several theatres commence at an hour varying from half-past six (some of the minors) to half-past eight (two Opera houses) in the evening, but the most usual hour is seven; and, as a general rule, there is half-price at a later hour in the evening. During the run of the Christmas pantomimes there are a few additional performances at two in the afternoon. It has recently been estimated that 4,000 persons are employed at the London theatres, earning daily food for probably 12,000; and that the public spend about £350,000 at those places annually.