“Let Hogsdon’s scrapers on their base,
Sound fum—fum—fum—from tattered case,
Nor Mean nor Treble now take place,
But Tenor.A Counter-Tenor is that note.
Tho’ easy—’tis ne’er sung by rote,
But got with wetting well your throat
With claret.Or stout March beer, or Windsor ale,
Or Labour-in-Vain (so seldom stale),
Or Pimlico, whose too great sale
Did mar it.”The Counter Rat, 1670.
This Ben Pimlico, and the ale named after him, are both spoken of with equal laudation by the dramatists—by Ben Jonson more especially, who lived in the neighbourhood, and doubtless was familiar with both. But in his play of “The Alchemist,” the allusion, I think, points to a bygone place:—
“Lovewit: The neighbours tell me all here that the doors
Have still been open—Face: How, sir!
Lovewit: Gallants, men and women,
And of all sorts, tag-rag, been seen to flock here
In threwes, these ten weeks, as to a second Hogsdon
In days of Pimlico and Eyebright.”
This evidence of Jonson I think conclusive that the original Ben Pimlico’s had gone. The question is where; and my reply is, to Ebury. The reasons are—
1st. We had in this locality a pathway known as the Willow Walk, and there is such yet remaining at Hoxton.
2nd. The movement of places of amusement to the western suburbs commenced in the time of James I. At this time the Exchange, Islington, and Hoxton began to lose their charms, and pleasure-folk went to Spring Garden, the Mulberry Garden, &c.
Though this argument, if such it can be called, is wholly inferential, I do not think there is anything to oppose to it, unless the number of places called Pimlico [248] tells against the view taken. But here, again, the probability is that they borrowed their names from the one at Hoxton, because of its popularity; and the coincidence of the Willow Walk is moreover wanting: what I argue for is, that on the decay, for some reason or other, of Ben Pimlico’s establishment at Hoxton, he, or some one belonging to it, came to Ebury, formed his Willow Walk leading to the house, and his popularity being so great, the village became gradually to be called after him, and its ancient appellation imperceptibly lost.
That part of Pimlico now in St. Paul’s district was, in the last century, a complete moral wilderness. As is apparent to the present day, the dwellings were of the meanest character; and it was only the infamous who long lived here. Jerry Abershaw lived in a house along the Willow Walk; and Maclean the highwayman, whom the ladies went to see (according to Horace Walpole), also lived on this spot. Its secure condition for persons of this description may be imagined, when it is recollected that there was, previous to 1768, no direct road to this part. The only way was from Chelsea; the road through Belgrave Place was not fit for carriages till this time. It was then completed and carried on to the Stonebridge, a bridge over the Westbourne, by the end of Wilderness Row. Parties going to Ranelagh by coach went along the King’s Road, a roadway to the left leading to the Grove; but in that day the silent highway of the Thames was much used, and as the ballad tells, the “fine city ladies” delighted in a voyage to Ranelagh or Vauxhall.
The Grosvenor Canal, which forms the boundary of our district on one side, was formed in 1823; its head had been the property of the Chelsea Waterworks Company, who in that year removed their works to their late position at Ranelagh. The canal enters the Thames a few yards eastward of the new Pimlico Bridge, the story of which is too recent, and too much one of “discord dire” to obtain further notice in these pages.
At the foot, where the Pimlico Bridge now stands, was the “White House,” a lonely habitation by the river side, used once by anglers; opposite to which, on the Surrey side, stood the “Red House,” a still more noted place of resort. Fifty yards westward of this spot, according to Maitland, Cæsar crossed the Thames, on his second expedition into Britain; but the opinion of Maitland is not generally shared in by antiquaries, who, notwithstanding the arguments advanced by different writers, in favour of spots they themselves have fixed on, yet in general adhere to the opinion of the father of English antiquaries, and agree with Camden, that this passage of the Thames was at Coway Stakes. Nevertheless it must be borne in mind, that many relics of this period have been found in the bed of the Thames at and about this spot; and during the progress of the bridge, coins and relics of a later time, many of which were Roman, were also discovered.