It remains uncertain whether those protective railings were erected for the sake of the suicides, or for that of the increased number of persons who used the Archway Road when tolls were abolished, some of whom might have been injured by those too anxious to shuffle off their mortal coil, to first ascertain whether or not the road was clear. Certain, however, it is that it mattered very much to the local authorities from which side the suicides came down: the territory of the Islington Vestry having been on one side and that of the Hornsey Local Board on the other. It is even related that one authority proposing to the other that railings should be erected, and meeting with a refusal to share the cost, fenced in its own side and thus left the self-murderers no choice. The expense and trouble of the necessary inquests falling on the other authority speedily brought about the railing-in of that side also.
VIII
The roadway of Highgate Archway is on a level with the cross upon the dome of St. Paul’s. From what the perfervid preachers of our own time—the Solomon Eagles of our day—call that “sink of iniquity,” the voice of London, inarticulate, like the growl of a fierce beast, rises continually, save for some sleepy hours between midnight and the dawn. Frank Osbaldistone, in Rob Roy, journeying north, heard the hum of London die away on his ear when he reached Highgate, the distant peal of her steeples sounding their admonitory “turn again,” just as they did to Whittington. Looking back from the Hill upon the dusky magnificence of the Metropolis, he felt as if he were leaving behind comfort, opulence, the charms of society, and all pleasures of cultivated life. The modern wayfarer is not so easily rid of the Great City, whose low-pitched roar not only follows him to these northern heights, but pursues him, clamant, onwards through Finchley, and whose rising tide of houses now laps the crest of Highgate Hill and spills over the brim, in driblets of new suburban streets, like a brick and mortar Deluge.
Just half a mile past the Archway, which of old was the ultima thule, the Hercules Pillars of London in this direction, still stands the “Woodman” inn, pictured in the coaching print of the thirties, shown over page. It is the original building that still stands here, but carved and cut about and greatly altered, and stands converted into an ordinary public-house. The curious little summer-house, or look-out, remains, little changed, but no visitors ascend to it to admire the view with telescopes, as we see them doing in the picture; for the spreading hill and dale towards London are covered with houses—objects not so rare in the neighbourhood of London that one needs to seek them with a spy-glass.
THE “WOODMAN,” FINCHLEY, 1834: COVENTRY AND BIRMINGHAM COACH PASSING.
From a Print after J. Pollard.
Southwood Lane, opposite this old inn, leads across from this branch of the high road to Highgate village, which should be noticed before the modern spirit seizes upon and transforms it.
“When Highgate Archway and the Archway Road were completed, in 1813, and traffic, notwithstanding the heavy tolls, began to come and go this way, Highgate village was ruined. Few cared to painfully toil up Highgate Hill and go through the once busy village down the corresponding descent of North Hill. Ever since then, while the suburbs round about have grown, Highgate village has gradually decayed. Little alteration has been made here in the broad street—empty now, that was once so busy—and Highgate remains preserved like a fly in amber, testifying to the old-world appearance of a typical coaching village near London. True it is that its fine old houses are a thought shabby, while the “Red Lion,” though still standing, has long been closed, and its elaborate sign-post innocent these many years of its swinging sign. The “Gatehouse Tavern,” too, was rebuilt in 1896; but, for the rest, Highgate is the Highgate of old.
“Established over five hundred years” was the legend displayed by the old “Gatehouse Tavern” pictured here. Many old clubs held high revel in it—literary clubs and others making their several ostensible objects the excuse for holding high revel. Punch itself was founded in a pot-house. Among the clubs that foregathered here were the “Ash Sticks,” the “Aged Pilgrims,” and the “Ben Jonson”; while in the old low-ceilinged rooms the Sunday ordinary that was long a favourite institution, combined with some deservedly renowned port, attracted George Cruickshank (before he found grace and became a total abstainer) and his brother Robert; Archibald Hemming, Punch’s first cartoonist; and many an Early Victorian.
The steep descent of North Hill brings the explorer from old Highgate to East Finchley, where a modern suburb struggles bravely, but with indifferent success, to live down the depressing circumstance of being set in midst of some half-dozen huge cemeteries, and on a road along which every day and all day a continual stream of funeral processions passes dismally along. The chief gainer from this traffic appears to be the “Old White Lion,” where the mourners halt and refresh on their return. Mourning should seem, judging from the assemblage outside the “Old White Lion” (which should surely, in complimentary mourning, be the “Old Black Lion”), to be a thirsty business.