Picturesque Sketches of London, Past and Present

by Thomas Miller

The Temple alone would occupy a long chapter, and detain us in this locality far beyond the limits that our pages allow, so we shall without further apology pass through Temple Bar and enter the Strand.

CHAPTER XIII.
THE STRAND, ADELPHI, AND COVENT-GARDEN MARKET.

Of the early church that occupied the site of the present one but little is really known. Stowe tells us that it was “so called, because Harold, a Danish king, and other Danes, were buried there.” There is a doubt whether Harold, who ascended the throne after Canute, was in any way related to the latter; his pretended mother, Algigiva, was never married to Canute, and it is recorded that she never had a child, but that Harold, who passed for her son, had no higher origin than a poor cobbler for his father. Harold was buried at Westminster; but when Hardicanute (the legitimate son of Canute) came to England, he ordered the body of Harold to be disinterred, decapitated, and thrown into the Thames. The body was taken out of the river by some Danish fishermen, and again interred in a cemetery in London, where only the Danes buried their dead. We have not entered into the reign of Harold at all; these few facts are all that history records of the origin of St. Clement Danes. The present church was built by Pierce under the guidance of Wren. The old church was pulled down in 1660. Dr. Johnson had a sitting in the present church. The interior is heavily decorated with festoons and drops, and contains two tolerable statues of Moses and Aaron. Facing this church stands the office of the far-famed Illustrated London News, in the columns of which paper the greater portion of these sketches originally appeared.

You still hear a few of the old London cries in the by-streets that branch out of this busy neighbourhood, though many, which the “oldest inhabitants” can just remember, are heard no more.

The cry of “green boughs” to deck the summer parlours, and “green rushes” to strew upon the floors, has long since ceased. The fire-place is no more adorned with bunches of the blossoming hawthorn, branches of sweetbrier, and huge pots filled with the fragrant and trailing honeysuckle: art, with its paper ornaments, has driven away these beautiful products of nature, and the less healthy carpet has carried off the meadow-like smell of the rushes. “Cherry ripe” we occasionally hear, sung out as clear and silvery as when Herrick composed his inimitable little song, though Ben Jonson, by the way, wrote one long before Herrick, on the same subject. “Watercresses,” though no longer borne by a nymph, who paused every now and then to throw aside the long hair which fell over her nut-brown and weather-stained cheeks, is a cry we still hear; but the figure that conjured up Sabrina and the “glassy cool translucent wave” has long since departed. Lemons and oranges are cried by the wandering race, whose dark-haired mothers, in ancient days, poured forth their songs in the land of Israel. The primroses and violets of spring are still sold in these streets, but the cry of “Come buy my pretty bow-pots” is now rarely heard. The apple-stall, with its roasted chestnuts, the oyster-stall (a simple trestle), and the pieman who is ever ready to try his luck at pitch-and-toss, still haunt the corners of a few of our obscure streets, as they did in bygone days. The grinder and the tinker, and those who yet follow many a primitive old calling, and who set up their workshops in every open street where they can find a job, have been driven, with their quaint cries, into the suburbs, and the men themselves are but shadows of the jolly tinkers and merry pedlars who figure in our ancient ballad lore. The rattle, and roll, and thunder of our modern vehicles have drowned their old-fashioned cries in the great thoroughfares of Fleet-street and the Strand.

But though many of these old cries are heard no more, there is still many a poetical association thrown around this busy neighbourhood.

Who has not heard of the May-pole that stood in the Strand, how it was removed by command of the stern protector Cromwell, and how, at the restoration of Charles, a new one was erected, amid the beating of drums and loud-sounding music, and the cheers of assembled thousands, who were weary of the puritanic gloom which had so long hung over merry England? What a buzzing there would be in that neighbourhood on the occasion, while May-garlands hung across the streets, as we have often seen them in our day, in a few out-of-the-way old fashioned towns, where the manners and customs of the people have undergone but little change during the last two centuries.

In an old volume printed before the Great Fire of London, entitled, The Citie’s Loyalty displayed, we find the following account of the May-pole that stood in the Strand.

“This tree was a most choice and remarkable piece (134 feet high): it was made below bridge, and brought in two parts up to Scotland-yard, and from thence it was conveyed, April 14th, to the Strand to be erected. It was brought with a streamer flourishing before it, drums beating all the way, and other sorts of music. It was supposed to be so long, that landsmen could not possibly raise it. Prince James, the Duke of York, Lord High Admiral of England, commanded twelve seamen off aboard to come and officiate the business; whereupon they came, and brought their cables, pullies, and other tacklins, with six great anchors. The May-pole then being joined together, and hooped about with bands of iron, the crown and vane, with the king’s arms richly gilded, was placed on the head of it, [and] a large top like a balcony was about the middle of it; this being done, the trumpets did sound, and in four hours space it was advanced upright.” [Four hours to draw up a May-pole! a slow age, my masters; they could not have built Hungerford Suspension-Bridge in those days, which is a toy compared to that now stretched across the Menai Straits. But to proceed with our extract.] “After which, being established fast in the ground, six drums did beat, and the trumpets did sound: again great shouts and acclamation the people gave, that it did ring throughout all the Strand. * * * * It is placed as near at hand as they could guess in the very same pit where the former stood, but far more glorious, bigger, and higher than ever any one that stood before it. * * * Little children did much rejoice, and ancient people did clap their hands, saying, ‘Golden days begin to appear.’ ” This was in 1661. Whether a May-pole was erected after the one given to Sir Isaac Newton, it “being old and decayed,” we have not discovered. The one given to Newton was afterwards used for raising a telescope at Wansted in Essex.