St. George’s Hospital, which stands close by, owes its existence to some dissension in the government of the Westminster Infirmary—and the seceders, in 1733, took Lanesborough House, on the site of the present hospital. The house being found too small, wings were added, and, even then, want of space compelled the governors to pull it down and erect a new one, which was finished in 1834—since when it has been much enlarged.
Knightsbridge is a very old hamlet—adjacent to Hyde Park Corner and thence running westward, bounded on the north by the Park. It is supposed to have taken its name from a bridge over the Westbourne, which ran across the road previous to its falling into the Thames at Chelsea. In Ellis’s Introduction to Norden’s Essex, p. XV., he says that Norden, describing in 1593 the bridges of most use in Middlesex, “enumerates ‘Kinges bridge, commonly called Stone bridge, nere Hyde parke corner, wher I wish noe true man to walke too late without good garde, unless he can make his partie good, as dyd Sir H. Knyvet, Knight, who valiantlye defended himselfe, ther being assaulted, and slew the master theefe with his owne hands.’ ”
This bridge was as near as possible where Albert Gate now stands—one of the mansions there being once occupied by George Hudson, the Railway King, who bought it for £15,000. From being a small draper at York, with his own savings and a legacy of £30,000, he amassed a large fortune by promoting Railway Companies. When the Railway mania collapsed he became very poor, but a few friends having subscribed £4800, they bought him an annuity with it, on which he lived until his death, in 1871.
The Barracks for the Household Cavalry are also in Knightsbridge, and not many years ago they were condemned as being unsanitary, and the present magnificent block built in their stead. From them to Kensington Gardens, there is nothing particular to note.
LONDON:
PRINTED BY GILBERT AND RIVINGTON, LD.,
ST. JOHN’S HOUSE, CLERKENWELL, E.C.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Ancestor of the family of Mandeville, Earls of Essex.
[2] A hide was 100 or 120 acres—as much land as one plough could cultivate in a year.