It is difficult to understand the cool audacity of some of the attacks on this road. The Gentleman’s Magazine, April, 1740, records that “the Bristol mail from London was robbed a little beyond Knightsbridge by a man on foot, who took the Bath and Bristol bags, and, mounting the post-boy’s horse, rode off toward London.” On the 1st of July, 1774, William Hawke was executed for a highway robbery here, and two men were executed on the 30th of the ensuing November for a similar offence. [27a] Even so late as 1799, it was necessary to order a party of light horse to patrol every night from Hyde Park Corner to Kensington; [27b] and it is within the memory of many when pedestrians walked to and from Kensington in bands sufficient to ensure mutual protection, starting at known intervals, of which a bell gave due warning.
Respecting the innkeepers, the well-known Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, in his Memoirs, tells the following curious story:—“I was informed that the Earl of Rochester, the wit, had said something of me which, according to his custom, was very malicious; I therefore sent Colonel Aston, a very mettled friend of mine, to call him to account for it. He denied the words, and, indeed, I was soon convinced he had never said them; but the mere report, though I found it to be false, obliged me (as I then foolishly thought) to go on with the quarrel; and the next day was appointed for us to fight on horseback, a way in England a little unusual, but it was his part to choose. Accordingly I and my second lay the night before at Knightsbridge privately, to avoid the being secured at London upon any suspicion; which yet we found ourselves more in danger of there, because we had all the appearance of highwaymen, that had a mind to be skulking in an old inn for one night; but this, I suppose, the people of the house were used to, and so took no notice of us, but liked us the better.” And in the “Rehearsal,” written in ridicule of Dryden, we also have an allusion to the innkeepers’ habits and characters:—“Smith: But pray, Mr. Bayes, is not this a little difficult, that you were saying e’en now, to keep an army thus conceal’d in Knights-Bridge?—Bayes: In Knights-Bridge? Stay.—Johnson: No, not if the inn-keepers be his friends.”
Until the age of railways set in, these inns did a brisk trade with the numerous travellers from the western parts. One of the occurrences of the day was to watch the mails set off for their destinations; there were above twenty at one time, besides stage-coaches. Now there is but one of the latter kind, which still, every other day, goes to Brighton. Moore mentions in his Diary waiting at Knightsbridge for his Bessie, coming to town by the Bath coach. All now is altered—highwaymen, patrols, and mails are all gone—and the road is the best entrance into the capital. An Act, passed June 19th, 1829, placed the Great Western Road, from Knightsbridge to Brentford Bridge, under the charge of the Commissioners of Metropolitan Roads.
It was a long time before our hamlet became part and parcel of the metropolis. A letter in my possession, written by an intelligent mechanic, fresh from Gloucester, and dated August, 1783, describes it as “quite out of London, for which,” says he, “I like it the better.” And so it was; the stream then ran open, the streets were unpaved and unlighted, and a maypole was still on the village green. It is not ten years since the hawthorn hedge has entirely disappeared at the Gore, and the blackbird and starling might still be heard. We have seen the references to game in Elizabeth’s time, but few persons imagine, perhaps, that within the recollection of some who have not passed long from us, snipe and woodcocks might occasionally be lowered; now, however, we are limited to our saucy friend the sparrow, for even the very swallows have quitted us.
Forty years since, there was neither draper’s nor butcher’s shop between Hyde Park Corner and Sloane Street, and only one in the whole locality where a newspaper could be had, or writing paper purchased. There was no conveyance to London but by a kind of stagecoach; the roads were dimly lighted by oil, [30] and the modern paving only to be seen along Knightsbridge Terrace.
Till about 1835, a watch-house and pound remained at the east end of Middle Row; and the stocks were to be seen at the end of Park-side, almost opposite the Conduit, as late as 1805. A magistrate sat once a week at the Fox and Bull, and a market was held every Thursday.
The water supply was anciently by means of springs and wells, which were very pure, numerous, and valuable. In the beginning of the eighteenth century, Park-side was leased from the Dean and Chapter of Westminster by the Birkheads, and the few houses then there were supplied by a conduit they were permitted by the Crown to use, within Hyde Park. There was a row of conduits in the fields each side of Rotten Row, whose waters were received by the one at the end of Park-side, known as St. James’s, or the Receiving Conduit; and which supplied the royal residences and the Abbey with water. [31] There were several excellent springs also in the hamlet, one of which appears to have been public property, from a story told by Malcolm, to the effect that in 1727, there being an excessive drought, the supply of water was rendered very precarious, and disputes arose between the inhabitants of Knightsbridge as to whom it belonged. The women appear to have taken an unusual share in this quarrel, which was so fiercely carried on, that requisition was had to a magistrate to hinder the tongue giving way to the hands and nails. The magistrate decided that the water belonged to the St. Margaret’s part of the hamlet.
CHAPTER II.
HISTORICAL ASSOCIATIONS.
—“Thus I entertain
The antiquarian humour, and am pleased
To skim along the surfaces of things,
Beguiling harmlessly the listless hours.”Wordsworth.
So small a place as our hamlet formerly was, it could not have many historical associations of which to boast, and this chapter must, therefore, be brief. Too small and unimportant to be the scene of great contests, or of political intrigues, few notices of it in connection with history occur, but those few are far from being uninteresting.