This old brick tower dates from the fourteenth century, and belonged to the canons of the gloomy Church of St. Bartholomew, another fine but fast-decaying monument. It belongs to “the Marquis”—that is, to the Marquis of Northampton—of whose provident care and attention this fine old relic is well worthy. If such relief be much longer delayed it will come too late. A few hundred pounds would do much in the way of restoration. It would make a museum, or even, as a show-place, would benefit the district, drawing visitors. There is an ominous rumour that it is intended to pull it down, as cumbering the earth, and to sell the ground for building.
The West-end Londoner who has never explored the quarter that leads to the northern heights will be agreeably surprised by the antique, original flavour of “Merrie Islington.” At night or evening the bustle, glare of lights, jingling of bells, and converging of tramcars, the enormous crowds waiting or passing, the fine clear air, the steep hilly streets, the glimpse of the open country, and the general animation make up quite a foreign scene. There is even a half-rural air, with the stunted or “pollarded” trees, the terraces and mouldering gardens in front, and the little superannuated houses; carriers’ carts are waiting loaded and ready to set off for villages and towns a few miles away. Here converge half a dozen streets, two or three steep hills, and innumerable lines of tramways and omnibuses. Every instant the cars and ’busses are arriving and departing, enormous crowds are waiting to get in and go their way, and the jingling of the bells, the metallic sound of the wheels, the chatter of voices, supply a sort of music of an original kind. The most picturesque effect arises from the trains of cars perpetually coming up the hills from the town below, and arriving as it were, unexpectedly—arriving from round the corners, and crossing each other in bewildering confusion. When all is lighted up the spectacle for bustle and animation and crowd quite suggests a busy foreign city, from the glare of innumerable lights, to which Islington seems highly partial. The Islingtonians, it may be noted, are healthy-looking folk, for the place is high and the air inspiring, as any jaded Londoner journeying from the west will find. Close beside us are two well-known places of amusement, the “Grand Theatre,” some fifteen years an obscure music hall, suddenly becoming celebrated, owing to Geneviève de Brabant and Miss Emily Soldene; to say nothing of the two “John-Darms,” as the French comic soldiers were invariably known at Islington, one of them performed in broken English by a droll Frenchman. Before us is the Agricultural Hall, where the Mohawk Minstrels, highly appreciated, perform.
Old Sadler’s Wells Theatre introduces us at once to the New River, officially constituted and recognized by a large reservoir and offices, where it “pulls itself together,” as it were, after its long forty miles’ journey from Amwell in Hertfordshire, before beginning its work in London. The old theatre, brimful of curious associations, still struggles on, and presents itself as a very quaint, old-fashioned pile. In prints of old Sadler’s Wells—and very pretty they are—we are shown this rural playhouse on the bank of the New River itself, with a row of trees between, and a man in a cocked hat fishing. As is well known, this position by the river used to be turned to dramatic uses, the waters being let in for aquatic spectacles. The shade of Grimaldi must haunt the place. The track of the New River can still be made out, running beside the theatre, but it is now covered in.
The old mansion in Clerkenwell which serves as the head office of the New River Company is worthy of the energetic, gallant, and beruffled Sir Hugh Myddelton, the Lesseps of his time. His statue is to be seen in Islington; and in all the annals of English pluck and perseverance there is nothing better or more encouraging than the indomitable pluck of this intrepid water purveyor—himself “a company.” The board room of the building is a fine, picturesque apartment in a good old style; its ceiling, a good piece of florid decoration, laid out in carpet pattern, or like a flowerbed, with rich stucco borders—a circle within a square, and a border round that again. Panelling runs all round, and there is an elaborately-wrought mantel, with carvings and other decorations. Corinthian pillars flank it, one on each side, and the whole chamber has a lightsome, spacious look and general air of state.
Among Lamb’s quaint and interesting recollections of his time at Christ’s Hospital, one, of a little boy’s scheme which was never carried out, seemed always highly original. He once, he tells us, planned an expedition to discover the source of the New River; that is, to follow its course to the original spring in Hertfordshire. But, as may be conceived, this was far too arduous an undertaking for a schoolboy. The New River seems to have been always associated with Lamb’s course in a mysterious way. In his school-days the summit of holiday enjoyment was to be taken to it to bathe: an extraordinary proceeding, which nowadays would be a high crime against manners. At one time he fixed his residence on its very bank, at Colebrooke Row, and his letters have constant allusions to his “old New River.” He was proud of his little house. “You enter without passage into a cheerful dining-room, etc.” It was from this mansion, as readers of “Elia” know, that George Dyer, the blear-eyed pundit, walked straight into the river, and was fished out, having had a narrow escape indeed. He lived to marry his charwoman in his old age, to his great comfort.
It is impossible to pass this house without being affected with dismal associations. It stands in a most desolate stretch of houses, and the buried river in front seems to add to the forlornness. Since Lamb’s day the river has been covered in, and is, as it were, lost to view. But as we come to Canonbury it suddenly shows itself in a rather cheerful fashion between green banks and trees. Following it diligently, we see it rippling away between its banks—very pellucid on the whole, and not too broad for an active jumper to clear at a bound. It does not seem more than two or three feet deep. Here there are abundance of shady trees; and the houses have their little gardens coming down to the edge, with cosy seats, a stray Japanese umbrella spread—all exactly as if it were some real river and not an unpretending make-believe runnel. But has it not come all the way from “pleasant Hertfordshire,” and recreated many a cit’s heart, who of a summer’s evening has his afternoon tea at the river’s edge? Presently our old New River dives underground once more, and seems hopelessly lost. Here I was completely puzzled to find it again. With much difficulty and many inquiries, and many false scents too, I caught it up; when I saw it strike out across the country, meandering over a rich green pasture in diligent fashion, with a pretty open walk beside it. Thence it passed under the road, by some old-fashioned houses with gardens and overgrown with creepers. Here is the prettily-named region of the Green Lanes, and an old-fashioned line of houses called Paradise Row, which looks out on spreading “park-like meadows,” to use the auctioneers’ term; and here our river seems to have regularly got free and started off across the grass, never stopping till it reaches Stoke Newington. Here, however, it meets with rough usage; for the company have erected large buildings, pumping-engines, and reservoirs, and, as it arrives from Hertfordshire, it is detained prisoner until it accumulates in volume. In short, the amount of agreeable twirling and general aquatic vagaries pursued by the pleasant little stream during its course must be extraordinary. It brings pleasure and rurality wherever it goes. I was sorry to part company with it, and would gladly have pursued it further on its rural course.
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE QUEEN ANNE STYLE—OLD DOORWAYS.
THE so-called “Queen Anne style” has within the past few years displayed itself in every shape of extravagance, running riot, as it were, in fantastic freaks of brick. Entirely new quarters, as in the regions close to Sloane Street, have sprung up, entirely covered with these singular edifices. They seem to be dark, uncomfortable tenements, with peaks and gables of the most elaborate kind, and are certain to require constant repairs.
Considering that England has been the country of bricks, it is astonishing that so little is known of the principles of brick-building, which the modern development seems to defy. In foreign countries nothing can be more satisfactory than the treatment of this material, always used in a way that will best set it off. The effect of brick is produced by the display of broad surface, and by the exhibition of masses of brick, as in towers. Being of one geometrical size and pattern bricks have little cohesion; whereas stones, of irregular sizes and patterns, can be blended into masses difficult to separate or dissolve. All these florid gables are certain to disintegrate; and, further, owing to the system of laying bricks in masses of mortar, the process of disintegration is made more certain. The lumps of mortar soon dry up and powder away, and the bricks do little more than rest upon one another. Bricks or tiles are very friable and brittle, and any bold cutting or carving, though it may look stout and effective at first, will certainly decay and drop off in fragments, owing to the lodgment of wet in the cracks, etc. Any one that studies the old brickwork will discover that the mouldings, pilasters, etc., are of the most delicate character and in low relief, so as to attract rain or decaying dirt as little as possible.
The rather piquant Hans Place used to be one of the most retired and picturesque inclosures in London. In shape it is an octagon, the houses thin, narrow, and compact, well suited to the person known to auctioneers as “the bachelor of position,” or the old maid of snug resources. The little “Square,” with its low railing, ancient trees and flowers, had a monastic air. The place was completely shut out and shut in also. At this moment it is being regularly and gradually rebuilt, and the uniform narrowness of the space filled by each house gives opportunity for a Bruges-like picturesqueness of design and variety. Rents have gone up amazingly, as the houses have gone up; and the “bachelors of position” have given place to families of a more opulent class. A very striking entrance to the little square has been made from Lennox Gardens, between two stately mansions with towers which correspond in design. In a few years the whole will have been reconstructed, and for variety of pattern and contrast there will be few things more effective in London.