Hampstead and Marylebone

by G. E. Mitton

A neatly built Roman Catholic church with high-pitched roof stands at the corner of Homer Row. This was built about 1860, and is called the Church of Our Lady of the Rosary. The northern side of the Marylebone Road, for the distance traversed, consists of huge red brick flats in the most modern style.

Standing back a little from the road, again on the south side, near Harcourt Street, is Paddington Chapel, for Congregationalists.

Queen Charlotte's Lying-in Hospital and Midwifery Training School comes soon after. This was founded in 1752, and was the third of its kind to be established in London. It was at first situated in Bayswater, and moved to the present site in 1813. In 1809 the Duke of Sussex was elected president for life, and it was he who induced Queen Charlotte to give the hospital her patronage, and to allow it to be called by her name. The Duke was the guiding spirit of the institution until his death in 1843. In 1857 the present building was erected on the site of the older one.

No. 183 is the Yorkshire Stingo public-house, which preserves the name of a celebrated tavern and place of entertainment. From here the first pair of omnibuses in the Metropolis were started on July 4, 1829. They ran to the Bank and back, and were drawn by three horses abreast. The return fare was a shilling, which included the use of a newspaper. A fair was held at the Yorkshire Stingo on May 1 for many years. Close by are the St. Marylebone Public Baths and Wash-houses, which claim the honour of having been the first of the kind in the Metropolis.

The St. Marylebone County Court adjoins. This was erected in 1874-75, when the need for further accommodation than that afforded by the old Court House was felt.

Seymour Street was cut through a nest of slums about 1872-73; it partly replaced the old Stingo Lane, which extended from Marylebone Road to Crawford Street, and was a most disreputable thoroughfare. The Samaritan Free Hospital, for diseases peculiar to women, occupies the place of ten numbers, 161 to 171. This is a fine modern building with fluted pilasters running up the frontage to an ornamental pediment. The memorial stone was laid on July 24, 1889, by the King, then Prince of Wales. The hospital was first established by Dr. Savage in Orchard Street in 1847. The celebrated engineer James Nasmyth, after whom a ward is named, left a bequest of £18,000. There is a well staircase in the building which separates the hospital into two parts, one devoted to medical, the other to surgical cases. The benefits of the hospital are extended free to patients from all parts of the world, not even a subscriber's letter being required. The only requisites are that the applicant must be poor and respectable and a suitable case, then she is taken in directly a vacancy occurs.

Almost opposite the hospital is the Great Central Hotel, and behind it the railway-station, in an elaborate style that forms a contrast to some of the dismal termini in London. The Western Ophthalmic Hospital, a gloomy-looking stuccoed building, is near at hand. This was founded in 1856.

The small streets leading from the Marylebone Road into York and Crawford Streets are poor in character. In the north of Seymour Place is a small Primitive Methodist chapel, erected in 1875. York Street, in spite of being a little wider, is not much better than its neighbours. In Wyndham Place is the Church of St. Mary's, Bryanston Square, in the style of Grecian architecture so much affected in this parish. The architect was R. Smirke. Dibdin, the bibliographer, was the first incumbent of this church, and the poetess L. E. Landon was married here June 7, 1838.

Bryanston and Montagu Squares are almost duplicates. They are built on ground known as Ward's Field, where there was formerly a large pond, which was the cause of many fatal accidents. Near this spot was a little cluster of cottages called Apple Village. The squares were built about the beginning of the present century. They are lined by large houses in a uniform style, and are as fashionable now as in 1833. The Turkish Embassy is at No. 1, Bryanston Square, at the south-east corner.

Horace Street was once known as Cato Street, and was the scene of the infamous conspiracy which originated with Thistlewood in 1820. The conspiracy was to murder the Cabinet Ministers, burst open the prisons, set fire to the Metropolis, and organize a revolution. Thistlewood and his fellow-conspirators were caught in a hay-loft in this street, where they used to hold their meetings, and the five of them, including the ringleader, suffered the extreme penalty of the law, while the rest were transported. It is now a poor and squalid thoroughfare, occupied by general shops, and reached only by a covered entry at each end.