Claude Duval the highwayman celebrated in song and story was captured in "The Hole in the Wall," a well-patronized tavern of the 17th century. It stood in Chandos Street, the second house from Bedford on the north side of the road.
Adelphi Terrace
High above Victoria Embankment, Adelphi Terrace, with Cleopatra's Needle just below by the riverside, shows a line of fine old derelict houses whose windows command a view of the Thames, Waterloo and Charing Cross bridges, and the picturesque confusion of shipping on the Surrey side so often muffled in fog. In the house No. 5, Garrick the actor died, and on a tablet are the words:
David
Garrick
Actor
Lived Here
B 1716
D 1779
The neighbourhood is known as The Adelphi. In 1760, four brothers, Scotch architects named Adam, began laying out the roads, and their names were given to William, Adam, John and Robert streets. At No. 2 Robert Street lived Thomas Hood, and here he wrote the "Song of the Shirt."
Near Buckingham Street once stood the palace of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, given him by King James I. Before that, in the time of the Reformation, it had belonged to the Archbishop of York and was on the south, or river, side of the Strand. The street is dreary and desolate appearing now. In a house at one end near the old Water Gate Dickens had Betsy Trotwood engage a room for David Copperfield in the book of that name. Across the way at the southwest corner overlooking the river Samuel Pepys lived for many years, and Jean Jacques Rosseau and David Hume lived together in this street in 1765.
In the public gardens beyond Buckingham Street is the Water Gate of York House, a substantial relic in the middle of green lawns. It was built by the Duke of Buckingham as the first stage in the rebuilding of York Palace but the task was never completed.