near the Hospital, he asked if I knew any of the officers, and as I mentioned several of them by name that he knew; he told me he was a retired army surgeon. I was allowed to go into the scullery to have a wash and brush the mud off, and it was suggested by the potman that I had better stop until it was dark for fear I should be known, and as I had no cap he went off to his mistress and begged an old one belonging to one of her boys, who had just gone back to school. As soon as it was dark I was let up the area steps and started home and went to bed saying nothing about it, but felt awfully sore and bad.
In speaking of the King’s Road I forgot to mention a very famous pump which stood opposite the “Six Bells,” close to the old burial ground, and that had the reputation of giving the most transparent and sparkling water that was to be obtained, which was fetched from far and near. The boys used to play some trick by placing a large stone up the curved nozzle, so that when the servants came with their jugs and began to pump it would send out the stone and through the bottoms of the jugs. It got complained of, and the parish put a grating which stopped that little game. The reputation of the water went on till some wag asserted that a human tooth had been pumped up and found its
way to the water bottle on the dressing table. It then began to dawn on the authorities that it might not be so wholesome as reported, and the handle of the old pump was chained up, and soon after the road was widened by taking a part of the burial ground, and the old pump was done away with.
CHAPTER 14.—Knightsbridge.
At Knightsbridge there used to be a toll collector, but I do not recollect any toll gate. A man used to come out of a gate in the fence to collect it, about where the Bank now stands, beside it the Cannon Brewery, a large building with a cannon at the top, with the back overlooking the park. That and White’s menagerie, adjoining the Fox and Bull tavern, were pulled down, and one of the first National Exhibitions was built on the ground. It was for a collection formed by a doctor who had travelled in China. It was a collection of all sorts of curios, illustrative of the habits, idol worship and life and industry of the Chinese, with native workmen and women carrying on their various trades and domestic apparatus, as they did at home with their temples, and performances in idol worship. It was first exhibited at the back of the Alexandra Hotel in a large room in the old barrack yard, and it was such a success that in the following year the large brick building was built on the site of the Cannon Brewery. There were a lot of immense
stuffed dragons and winged snakes and flying fish and many-headed monsters and curious reptiles that had never been seen in Europe before, and several Chinese ladies sitting on pedestals exhibiting their deformed feet, which looked like hoofs with a row of small lumps of flesh underneath with nails that represented the toes. There was a large number of visitors, and it kept open for about two years, having had some waxworks added to its attractions.
A little beyond the Alexandra Hotel stood a dairy that was noted for its asses’ milk, which at that time was considered a cure for consumption. There would be as many as forty donkeys there of a morning and they would be driven in pairs by boys round to the customers and milked at their doors twice a day, which was a very large and profitable business.
On the Knightsbridge Road, opposite Gore House, stood an old tavern in the middle of the road with some old stables and sheds, a great place for the market carts and country wagons to stop at of a morning. Gore House became the residence of the Countess of Blessington, her daughter and Count D’Orsay, a very handsome and fashionable Frenchman. There were large grounds attached to the house and they used to give very grand garden parties both public and private, many of them for
charities. I recollect going to one given for the benefit of the Caledonian School. It was a very grand and fashionable Fancy Fair with the guards and the Caledonian School band, and Athletic Sports, trials of strength, sword dances and the Highland fling, putting the stone and flinging the hammer, the bag-pipes, and many other Scotch pastimes. The grounds were very beautiful. The property was bought by the commissioners of the ’51 Exhibition from their surplus funds, and the Albert Hall now stands on the site.
The “Admiral Kepple” tavern at the top of College Street stood by itself, with tea garden at the back, and at the west side in the Fulham Road was the old parish pond, and a little farther west at the back of about where the “Stag” tavern now stands was a large pond from which Pond Place took its name. The present road in front of Chelsea Hospital was only a footpath that was closed every Holy Thursday; and the parish authorities beat the bounds, which they did on Holy Thursdays with the two beadles in uniform, the churchwardens, overseers, and parish constable, and the way-warden; and a great number of school children with willow wands would perambulate the parish to beat the bounds, and would knock down the obstruction and pass through the district called Jews’ Row at that