The Skirts of the Great City

by N. D'Anvers

During the reign of George II. Barn Elms was the scene of many a merry entertainment, in which the great musician Handel sometimes took part, for it was tenanted by the famous Master of Revels at the English court, Count Heidegger, who was noted for his skill in improvising startling effects. He was succeeded on his death by the wealthy banker Sir Richard Hoare, and in the early nineteenth century it was the home of the editor of the Weekly Political Register, William Cobbett, who was aptly called the Ishmael of politics, for his hand was often against every other member of his own party. Somewhat later Barn Elms was rented by Sir Lancelot Shadwell, Vice-Chancellor of England, who was a noted swimmer and keenly interested in river sports. At his hospitable table were several times entertained the crews of the Oxford and Cambridge boats on the evenings of the annual race, that was rowed for the first time from Putney to Mortlake in 1848, the earlier contests having taken place on another course.

The historic Barn Elms house has long since ceased to be, but the smaller residence attached to it, which was known in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as Queen Elizabeth's Dairy, is still standing. In it lived for many years, and died in 1735, the eminent bookseller Jacob Tonson, founder of the famous Kit Cat Club, to which belonged all the chief literary men of the day, including Sir Robert Walpole, Congreve, Dryden, Steele, and Addison, for whose accommodation Tonson added a gallery to his house which was hung with their portraits, painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller, who was then court painter. On the death of the owner the gallery was pulled down, and the portraits were removed to the seat of his family at Bayfordbury, but the surroundings of the meeting-place of the Club are even now much what they were in the eighteenth century.

Barnes

The river at Barnes, that here makes a sudden bend to the north, is spanned by several bridges, and its banks are lined with good houses, some of which are associated with famous names. In one of those on the Terrace, for instance, resided the French political refugees the Count and Countess d'Antraigues, who were assassinated in 1812 by an Italian in their service; and in the mansion known as St. Anne's lived the famous eighteenth-century beauty Lady Archer. In an old house overlooking the common Henry Fielding wrote some of his novels, Monk Lewis composed his Crazy Jane in a cottage not far off that cannot now be identified; and amongst the rectors of the parish were the Latin scholar Dr. Hare, the eloquent preacher Henry Melvill, and the well-known hymn-writer, the Rev. John Ellerton. At Barnes, too, in a house now destroyed, lived and died the brother-in-law of Sir Francis Walsingham, Robert Beale, who was perhaps introduced to Queen Elizabeth at Barn Elms, and who was chosen by her for the painful mission of taking to Mary, Queen of Scots, the warrant for her execution, and in the same river-side village the zealous anabaptist Abrezer Coppe took refuge on his release from Newgate in 1651, where he had been imprisoned for a year for issuing his extraordinary pamphlet The Fiery Flying Roll. Disguised as a doctor, and calling himself Hiam, he divided his time between preaching and prescribing for patients, and managed to escape further persecution, dying a natural death in 1692, when he was buried under his assumed name in Barnes churchyard.

CHAPTER IX

WIMBLEDON, MERTON, MITCHAM, AND THEIR MEMORIES

Wimbledon

Scarcely less interesting than the charming riverside districts of Surrey described above is the neighbouring parish of Wimbledon, that stretches southwards from Wandsworth, Putney, Roehampton and Barnes to Merton and Cheam, and westwards to Kingston, the river Wandle dividing it from Mitcham on the east. Long before the Conquest, Wimbledon Common, that was then but a small portion of vast unenclosed wild lands, was the scene of events that had their share in determining the fate of southern England, and since that epoch-making event it has again and again been associated with typical incidents of the national life. The remains of very extensive entrenchments on its south-western side, locally known as Bensbury, that were unfortunately almost destroyed in 1880 by the owner of the property, prove that it was at a very early date the scene of important military operations, but whether these entrenchments were the work of British, Roman, or Saxon hands there is no evidence to prove. Popular opinion, however, long since decided that Cæsar was the first occupier of the Rounds, as the earthworks were called, and the few still existing relics will probably always be associated with his name. Possibly, indeed, he may have halted on the common during the campaign of B.C. 54, and even have drank from the spring of pure water about a quarter of a mile from his supposed camp, that is preserved from defilement by a stone casing provided at the expense of Sir Henry Peek, who was for some time owner of the mansion known as Wimbledon House. It is as difficult to determine the origin of the word Wimbledon as it is to decide who was the maker of the so-called Cæsar's Camp. It is very differently spelt by various chroniclers, and the probability is that the two first syllables preserve the name of an early Saxon owner of the manor, and that the last simply means hill. In the Saxon Chronicle reference is made to a battle that took place at Wibbandune, possibly near the much-discussed camp, between Ceawlin, King of Wessex, and Æthelbricht, King of Kent, in which the latter was defeated, but Wimbledon is not mentioned in Doomsday Book, it having been one of many submanors belonging to Mortlake. It was separated from the latter by Henry VIII., to be bestowed upon Thomas Cromwell, who was then at the very zenith of his prosperity, for he had fulfilled his promise that he would make his master the richest monarch who had ever ruled over England. He was raised to the peerage as Baron of Okeham, and almost immediately afterwards created Earl of Essex. It was, however, but for one brief year that he was allowed to enjoy his new dignities and possessions, and it had scarcely ended before the fickle Henry turned against him. The once highly favoured minister was accused of treason, and eight weeks after he became an earl he was beheaded on Tower Hill. The manor of Wimbledon reverted to the Crown, and later it was given by the king to Catherine Parr for her life. On the death of her stepmother in 1547, Queen Mary bestowed it on Cardinal Pole, then only a deacon, with whom it was popularly believed she was in love before her marriage with Philip II. of Spain. Pole, however, never resided at Wimbledon, and the property was taken from him before his death, which took place the day after that of the queen, whose evil genius he had been. Queen Elizabeth granted the manor in 1576 to Sir Christopher Hatton, from whom it passed by purchase to Sir Thomas Cecil, son of the great statesman Sir William Cecil, better known as Lord Burghley. The new owner pulled down the old manor-house and replaced it by a magnificent structure, that until its demolition early in the eighteenth century by Sir Theodore Jansen was considered the finest private residence near London. It was designed by John Thorpe, whose architectural drawing for it, bearing the inscription, 'Wymbledon, an house standing on the edge of a hie hill,' is preserved in the Soane Museum. Queen Elizabeth was often the guest of Lord Burghley in the house he inherited from his father, the approaches to which appear to have been but little in keeping with its grandeur, as proved by an entry in the Kingston Churchwarden's book for 1599 recording the payment of twenty pence for mending the ways when the queen went from Wimbledon to Nonsuch.