KENNINGTON GATE DERBY DAY
THE OLD ROMAN BATH IN THE STRAND
The turnpike has gone, and the pikeman with his apron has gone—nearly everybody’s apron has gone too—and the gates have been removed. That is a clear gain. But there are also losses. What, for instance, has become of all the baths? Surely we have not, as a nation, ceased to desire cleanliness? Yet in reading the list of the London baths fifty years ago one cannot choose but ask the question. St. Annice-le-Clair used to be a medicinal spring, considered efficacious in rheumatic cases. Who stopped that spring and built upon its site? The Peerless Pool close beside it was the best swimming bath in all London. When was that filled up and built over? Where are St. Chad’s Wells now? Formerly they were in Gray’s Inn Road, near ‘Battle Bridge,’ which is now King’s Cross, and their waters saved many an apothecary’s bill. There were swimming baths in Shepherdess Walk, near the almshouses. When were they destroyed? There was another in Cold Bath Fields; the spring, a remarkably cold one, still runs into a bath of marble slabs, represented to have been laid for Mistress Nell Gwynne in the days of the Merry Monarch. Curiously, the list from which I am quoting does not mention the most delightful bath of all—the old Roman Bath in the Strand. I remember making the acquaintance of this bath long ago, in the fifties, being then a student at King’s. The water is icy cold, but fresh and bright, and always running. The place is never crowded; hardly anybody seems to know that here, in the heart of London, is a monument of Roman times, to visit which, if it were at Arles or Avignon, people would go all the way from London. Some day, no doubt, we shall hear that it has been sold and destroyed, like Sion College, and the spring built over.
CHAPTER IV.
IN THE STREET.
Let us, friend Eighty-seven, take a walk down the Strand on this fine April afternoon of Thirty-seven. First, however, you must alter your dress a little. Put on this swallow-tail coat, with the high velvet collar—it is more becoming than the sporting coat in green bulging out over the hips; change your light tie and masher collar for this beautiful satin stock and this double breastpin; put on a velvet waistcoat and an under-waistcoat of cloth; thin Cossack trousers with straps will complete your costume; turn your shirt cuffs back outside the coat sleeve, carry your gloves in your hand, and take your cane. You are now, dear Eighty-seven, transformed into the dandy of fifty years ago, and will not excite any attention as we walk along the street.
LONDON STREET CHARACTERS, 1827
(From a Drawing by John Leech)