Leaving the church by the other entrance, we are in Church Lane. The first house opposite the gate of the churchyard is Pryor’s Bank, to which a separate chapter of our little volume is devoted, so that we can pass on immediately to the next house, Thames Bank, the present residence of Mr. Baylis, whose well-known
taste will no doubt soon change its present aspect. Granville Sharp’s [188a] House stood opposite. It was pulled down about twenty-five years ago. John’s Place (erected 1844) is on the site.
Next to Thames Bank, formerly stood Egmont Villa, the residence of Theodore Hook, and the house in which he died, now pulled down, the back of which, is shown in the annexed sketch. This house, though of the smallest dimensions, was fitted up with much good taste.
“There can be no need,” says the Editor, “at this day to enter upon any lengthened criticism of Theodore Hook’s merits as a novelist; they have been discussed over and over again, with little variety of opinion, by every reviewer of the kingdom. Indeed, both his faults and his excellencies lie on the surface, and are obvious and patent to the most superficial reader; his fables, for the most part ill knit and insufficient, disappoint as they are unfolded; repetitions and omissions are frequent: in short, a general want of care and finish is observable throughout, which must be attributed to the hurry in which he was compelled to write, arising from the multiplicity and distracting nature of his engagements. His tendency to caricature was innate; but even this would probably have been in a great measure repressed, had he allowed himself sufficient time for correction: while, on the contrary, in detached scenes, which sprang up as pictures in his mind, replete with comic circumstance, in brilliant dialogue and portraiture of character, not to mention those flashes of sound wisdom with which ever and anon his pages are lighted up, his wit and genius had fair play, revelling and rioting in fun, and achieving on the spur of the moment those lasting triumphs which cast into the shade the minor and mechanical blemishes to which we have adverted.”
Hook was a successful dramatist, and an extensive journalist. Of his novels, ‘Gilbert Gurney’ may be considered to be the most remarkable.
Hook’s furniture was sold by George Robins, in September, 1841. In 1855 the aqueduct was erected by the Chelsea Water Works Company, for conveying the water from Kingston-upon-Thames to the metropolis, and it was necessary that the contractor, Mr. Brotherhood, should get possession of Egmont Villa, to enable them to erect the
tower on the Fulham side. Here the piles and timbers of the old Bishop’s Ferry, used for the conveyance of passengers across the river from Putney to Fulham, before the old bridge was built, were discovered. It was subsequently considered desirable to pull the villa down; and there now remains no trace of the house in which Hook lived and died, and which stood within a few paces of his grave. Bowack mentions that Robert Limpany, Esq., “whose estate was so considerable in the parish that he was commonly called the Lord of Fulham,” resided in a neat house in Church Lane. He died at the age of ninety-four. Beyond the Pryor’s Bank on the right, is the Bishop’s Walk, which runs along the side of the Thames for some little distance, and from hence a view of the Bishop’s Palace is obtained. This palace has been from a very early period the summer residence of the Bishops of London. The land consists of about 37 acres, and the whole is surrounded by a moat, over which are two bridges.
Following the course of the Bishop’s Walk, we come to the road leading to Craven Cottage, originally built by the Margravine of Anspach, when Countess of Craven, and since altered and improved by Walsh Porter, who occasionally resided in it till his death in 1809. Craven Cottage was considered the prettiest specimen of cottage architecture then existing. The three principal reception-rooms were equally remarkable for their structure, as well as their furniture. The centre, or principal saloon, supported by large palm-trees of considerable size, exceedingly well executed, with their drooping foliage at the top, supporting the cornice and architraves of the room. The other