Nooks and Corners of Old London

by Charles Hemstreet; Marie Mumford Meinell Hemstreet

Under the north walls of Westminster Abbey is the church of St. Margaret built during the reign of Edward I. on the site of an earlier church. William Caxton was buried in St. Margaret's in 1491. The fact that there was a chapel in the old Almonry where his printing press had stood led to the union branches of the printing trades being called "Chapels" even to this day. Sir Walter Raleigh is also buried here. The interest of St. Margaret's centres in a stained glass window made in Holland for Henry VII., setting forth the Crucifixion, which many times narrowly escaped destruction and was finally in 1758 purchased by the churchwardens and given its present resting place.

The open space between Westminster Abbey and Westminster Hospital is the Broad Sanctuary so called because here in the 15th and 16th centuries was a sacred place of refuge for criminals who took advantage of the ancient protection of the Church. The Sanctuary was a square Norman tower containing two chapels. Elizabeth Woodville, widow of Edward IV., was seeking refuge here when her two children were taken from her and afterwards killed in the Tower by order of the Duke of Gloucester.

Westminster Hall, now connected with the Houses of Parliament, was begun in 1097 by William Rufus, the Conquerer's son, and it was the scene of the first English parliaments. Richard II. enlarged the building and was here himself deposed. English kings up to the time of George IV. held their coronation festivals here. Charles I. was condemned to death in this Hall, and a tablet set in the floor marks the spot where he listened to his sentence of death. Cromwell was here hailed as Lord Protector, and here a few years later his head was exposed for the satisfaction of his enemies. Guy Fawkes of Gunpowder Plot fame, William Wallace, Sir Thomas More, Somerset, Essex, Strafford and a host of other folk, were tried and sentenced to death in Westminster Hall. It was in this old Hall, in our own days, that the body of King Edward VII. lay in state.

Between the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey is an open space called Old Palace Yard, where in 1618 Sir Walter Raleigh was executed, and where the conspirators of the Gunpowder Plot met death opposite the very house through which they carried the powder into cellars under the House of Lords.

In Smith Square just beyond Westminster Abbey is the church of St. John the Evangelist with its four queer looking towers, one at each corner. It has been here since 1721. The story is told that it was ordered built by a lady of wealth who objected to the plans originally drawn, and, angry with the architect when he explained them to her, she kicked over a footstool. As it lay upside down she pointed to it and cried out—"Build it like that." The architect followed her instructions to the letter, hence the odd appearing towers.

Church Street extending eastward from Smith Square towards the river is identified with two of the books of Dickens. On the south side midway of the block lived Jenny Wren, the dolls' dressmaker of "Our Mutual Friend," whose back was bad and whose legs were queer; and down this street, Martha, in "David Copperfield," fled to the river bent on suicide, with Peggoty and Copperfield close at her heels.

What is now St. James's Park was once a marshy tract connected with the leper hospital afterwards St. James's Palace. It remained uncultivated until enclosed by Henry VIII., but was not actually laid out as a park until the time of Charles II. It was this king who had the Mall for the palle malle game removed from beside St. James's Palace to the long straight walk that marks the northern boundary of the park. Here the fashionable game continued to be played by the cavaliers of the court. For many a year, the Mall was the most fashionable and exclusive of London's promenades, and it was along it that Charles I. walked to his execution in 1648. Beau Brummell spent much time on the Mall, whether he went to show to admiring friends the latest fashions in clothes at the court of his friend and patron the Prince of Wales afterward George IV.

Birdcage Walk by St. James's Park takes its name from an aviary which has been here from the time of James I. A continuous line of cages lined the walk when Charles II. was king, and the "Keeper of the King's Birds" was an important official.