We have now made a circuit, noting all that is interesting by the way, and have returned to busy Charing Cross, from which runs the great thoroughfare, the Strand, which gives the district its name.
This important street might be considered either as a street of palaces—and in this respect not to be surpassed by any street in medieval Europe, not even Venice—or a street full of associations, connected chiefly with retail trade, taverns, shops, sedan-chairs, and hackney coaches.
The Strand, as the name implies, was the shore by the river. It has passed through two distinct phases. First, when it was an open highway, with a few scattered houses here and there, crossed by small bridges over the rivulets which flowed down to the Thames. One of these was the Strand Bridge, between the present Surrey Street and Somerset House; another, Ivy Bridge, between Salisbury Street and Adam Street. In 1656 there were more than 800 watercourses crossing it between Palace Yard and the Old Exchange! It was not paved until Henry VIII.'s reign, and we read of the road being interrupted with thickets and bushes.
Then came a period of great grandeur, when the Strand was lined with palatial mansions, which had gardens stretching down to the river, when the town-houses of the Prince-Bishops, of the highest nobility, and even of royalty, rose up in grandeur. The names of the streets, Salisbury and Buckingham, York and Durham, Norfolk and Exeter, are no mere fancy, but recall a vision of bygone splendour which might well cause the Strand to be named a street of palaces.
The palaces, which occupied at one time the whole of the south side of the street, were at first the town-houses of the Bishops. They were built along the river because, in their sacred character, they were safe from violence (except in one or two cases), and therefore did not need the protection of the wall, while it was perhaps felt that even if the worst happened, as it did happen in Jack Straw's rebellion, the river offered a liberally safe way of escape. In the thirteenth century Henry III. gave Peter of Savoy "all those houses in the Thames on the way called the Strand."
Gay speaks of the change that had fallen upon the Strand in his time:
"Through the long Strand together let us stray;
With thee conversing I forget the way.
Behold that narrow street which steep descends,
Whose building to the shining shore extends;
Here Arundel's fam'd structure rear'd its frame,
The street alone retains an empty name:
Where Titian's glowing paint the canvas warm'd,
And Raphael's fair design with judgment charm'd,
Now hangs the bellman's song, and pasted here
The colour'd prints of Overton appear;
Where statues breath'd the work of Phidias' hands,
A wooden pump or lonely watch-house stands;
There Essex's stately pile adorn'd the shore,
There Cecil's, Bedford's, Villiers's—now no more."
Disraeli, in "Tancred," says: "The Strand is, perhaps, the finest street in Europe." Charles Lamb said: "I often shed tears in the motley Strand for fulness of joy at so much life."
The Strand has now become a street of shops instead of a street of palaces; it has been, but is no more, a fashionable resort; it has been a place for the lodgings of visitors, and still has many small hotels and boarding-houses in its riverside lanes; its personal associations are many, but not so important as those in the City or Westminster; it is a street of great interest, but its architectural glories have almost all vanished.
Beginning at the west end, we note on the north side the Golden Cross Hotel, rebuilt. This is the successor of a famous old coaching inn, which stood further west. On the south side is Craven Street, formerly Spur Alley, where once Benjamin Franklin lived at No. 7. The site of Hungerford Market is now covered by the Charing Cross railway-station. In Charing Cross station-yard is a modern reproduction of the original Queen Eleanor's Cross. The market was built in 1680, rebuilt in 1831, and stretched to the river. The name will always be connected with that of Charles Dickens, and with "David Copperfield." Beside the market was the suspension bridge constructed by Brunel, opened in 1845, and removed to make room for the railway-bridge.