A great fair held in the fields in 1248 was a failure. All the shops and places of merchandise were shut during the fifteen days that it lasted, by the King's command, but the wind and rain ruined the project.
In 1256 John Mansell, the King's Counsellor and a priest, entertained the Kings and Queens of England and Scotland and so many Dukes, Lords, and Barons, at Westminster that he had not room for them in his own house, but set up tents and pavilions in Tothill.
In 1441 "was the fighting at the Tothill between two thefes, a pelour and a defendant; the pelour hadde the field, and victory of the defendour withinne three strokes."
Both the armies of the Royalists and the Commonwealth were at different times paraded in these fields; of the latter, 14,000 men were here at one time. During 1851-52 Scottish prisoners were brought to Tothill, and many died there, as the churchwardens' accounts show. In the latter year we read the entry: "Paid to Thomas Wright for 67 load of soyle laid on the graves in Tuthill Fields wherein 1,200 Scotch prisoners (taken at the fight at Worcester) were buried."
It was fifteen years later, in the time of the Great Plague, that the pesthouses came into full use, for we read in the parish records July 14, 1665, "that the Churchwardens doe forthwith proceed to the making of an additional Provision for the reception of the Poore visited of the Plague, at the Pesthouse in Tuttle ffieldes." The first two cases of this terrible visitation occurred in Westminster, and during the sorrowful months that followed, in place of feasting and pageantry, the fields were the theatre for scenes of horror and death. The pesthouses were still standing in 1832.
There was formerly a "maze" in Tothill Fields, which is shown in a print from an engraving by Hollar taken about 1650.
Vauxhall Bridge Road was cut through part of the site belonging to the old Millbank Penitentiary. The traffic to the famous Vauxhall Gardens on the other side of the river once made this a very crowded thoroughfare; at present it is extremely dreary. The Scots Guards Hospital is on the west side.
Turning to the left at the end in the Grosvenor Road, we soon come to the Tate Gallery of British Art, the magnificent gift of Sir Henry Tate to the nation. Besides the building, the founder gave sixty-five pictures to form the nucleus of a collection. This is said to be the first picture-gallery erected in England complete in itself; the architect is Sydney Smith, F.R.I.B.A., and the style adopted is a Free Classic, Roman with Greek feeling in the mouldings and decorations. There is a fine portico of six Corinthian columns terminating in a pediment, with the figure of Britannia at the central apex, and the lion and unicorn at each end. The basement, of rusticated stone, ten feet high, runs round the principal elevation. A broad flight of steps leads to the central entrance. The front elevation is about 290 feet in length. The vestibule immediately within the principal door leads into an octagonal sculpture hall, top-lighted by a glass dome. There are besides five picture-galleries, also top-lighted. The pictures, which include the work of the most famous British artists, are nearly all labelled with the titles and artists' names, so a catalogue is superfluous. The collection includes the pictures purchased by the Chantrey Bequest, also a gift from G. F. Watts, R.A., of twenty-three of his own works. The gallery is open from ten to six, and on Sundays in summer after two o'clock. Thursdays and Fridays are students' days.
The gallery stands on the site of the old Millbank Penitentiary, for the scheme of which Howard the reformer was originally responsible. He was annoyed by the rejection of the site he advocated, however, and afterwards withdrew from the project altogether. Wandsworth Fields and Battersea Rise were both discussed as possible sites, but were eventually abandoned in favour of Millbank. Jeremy Bentham, who advocated new methods in the treatment of prisoners, gained a contract from the Government for the erection and management of the new prison. He, however, greatly exceeded the terms of his contract, and finally withdrew, and supervisors were appointed. The prison was a six-rayed building with a chapel in the centre. Each ray was pentagonal in shape, and had three towers on its exterior angles. The whole was surrounded by an octagonal wall overlooking a moat. At the closing of the prison in Tothill Fields it became the sole Metropolitan prison for females, "just as," says Major Griffiths, "it was the sole reformatory for promising criminals, the first receptacle for military prisoners, the great depot for convicts en route for the antipodes."
In 1843 it was called a penitentiary instead of a prison. Gradually, as new methods of prison architecture were evolved, Millbank was recognised as cumbersome and inadequate. It was doomed for many years before its demolition, and now, like the prison of Tothill Fields, has vanished. Even the convicts' burial-ground at the back of the Tate Gallery is nearly covered with County Council industrial dwellings.