It might be thought that in these more peaceful times highwaymen had long been extinct in the West End of London, but such is not the case, for within the last twenty years they reappeared in modern guise in the very centre of Mayfair. One winter’s night in 1889, the French naval attaché, who was going home from his club, was set upon in Curzon Street by four men who, after violently assaulting and robbing him, left him senseless upon the ground, where he was discovered by the police a short time afterwards. The assailants in this case were never, I believe, arrested, though the whole affair created a great sensation, occurring as it did in the very centre of a quarter generally considered to be about the safest in London.
Peaceful as Berkeley Square is to-day, it came near being a scene of carnage at the time of Lord Liverpool’s ministry, when artillerymen stood there, lighted match in hand, by the side of loaded field-pieces which they were quite prepared to fire. Mount Street also has had a military day, owing its very existence indeed to rumours of battle, for on its site stood a bastion or mount—part of the line of fortifications hastily thrown up to defend the western suburbs of London in 1643, when the Parliament was expecting an attack from the forces of King Charles I. In the centre of Berkeley Square stood, up to comparatively recent times, an equestrian statue of George III. as Marcus Aurelius. This had been erected by the Princess Amelia; it had no particular artistic merit, and was perched upon a very clumsy pedestal.
BERKELEY SQUARE
Berkeley Chapel, at the other end of Charles Street, has been but recently demolished; it may not be generally known that at one time the celebrated Sydney Smith was its minister. In after-years this celebrated divine took up his abode in Charles Street, at No. 33. At No. 42 in this old street lived the celebrated and unfortunate dandy “Beau Brummell”—this was about the year 1792; whilst a more intellectual occupant of one of its houses was Bulwer Lytton, in whose house was a room fitted up in exact facsimile of an apartment at Pompeii—everything being in keeping. Charles Street, in all probability, did not derive its name from the Merry Monarch, but from Charles, Earl of Falmouth, brother of the first Lord Berkeley of Stratton. Berkeley Square, though begun about 1698, was not finished till the time when Sir Robert Walpole was Prime Minister; he, indeed, made a note of the last houses being built there. Many distinguished people have lived in this old square—Lord Clive amongst others. It was at a house in Berkeley Square that a butler murdered a certain nobleman, his master—a crime which called forth from George Selwyn the remark: “Good God! What an idea that butler will give the convicts of us when he is sent to Newgate!”
In these days houses change owners very quickly, and people, I think, rather like the amusement of taking new houses and redecorating them; but in the past this was not at all the case. There is yet one house in Charles Street, “No. 41,” which has been in the possession of the same family for over one hundred and fifty years. Lord Powis’s house in Berkeley Square is another instance of a long continuity of tenure.
Another old-world square is St. James’s. Passing through it the other day my thoughts strayed back to the memory of a great lady of old days, Lady Cowper, who used to live there. She was the mother of the late earl, and has long been dead. Well do I remember the ballroom, and especially some magnificent silver chandeliers, which made a great impression upon my girlish mind.
Lady Cowper was an amusing woman, and used to say shrewd things at times. She once told me, “To make a ball successful, three men should be always asked to every lady—one to dance, one to eat, and one to stare—that makes everything go off well”—and her entertainments certainly did.
The beautiful drawing-room in this house is, I believe, reproduced at No. 9 Grosvenor Square, the residence of Lord and Lady Haversham, who are endowed with a quite unusual share of artistic taste, as is exemplified in their delightful country residence, Southill Park, in Berkshire.
There still remain in Charles Street, as well as in Berkeley Square, several specimens of the old iron extinguishers which were formerly used by the linkboys in the days when torches served to light people home and no regular system of street lighting existed. For this reason the neighbourhood of Mayfair was at one time none too pleasant at night, abounding, as it did, in riotous characters.
MAYFAIR