Just beyond York House came Hungerford House, which has given its name to the railway bridge crossing from the station; and then came Northumberland House, which was the last of the great historic riverside palaces to be demolished, being pulled down in comparatively modern times to make way for Northumberland Avenue. Other famous palaces are remembered in the names of Durham Street and Scotland Yard.
When in 1529 Wolsey fell from his high estate, Henry VIII., his unscrupulous master, at once took possession of his palace at Whitehall, and made it the principal Royal residence. To give it suitable surroundings he formed (for his own sport and pleasure) the park which we now call St. James’s Park. When later he dissolved the monasteries he seized a small hospital, known as St. James-in-the-Fields, standing on the far side of the estate, and converted it into a hunting lodge. This afterwards became the famous Palace of St. James’s.
Of Whitehall Palace all that now remains is the Banqueting Hall (now used to house the exhibits of the United Service Institution), built in the reign of James I. by the famous architect Inigo Jones; the rest perished by fire soon after the revolution of 1688. For some time afterwards St. James’s Palace was the only Royal residence in London, but the Sovereigns soon provided themselves with the famous Kensington and Buckingham Palaces.
The Banqueting Hall, Whitehall Palace.
CHAPTER TEN
Royal Westminster—The Abbey
The story of Westminster is nearly as old as that of London itself.
In our first chapter we spoke of the position of London being fixed to a large extent by the Kent road passing from Dover to the Midlands. That road, heading from Rochester, originally passed over—and still passes over—the Darent at Dartford, the Cray at Crayford, the Ravensbourne at Deptford; and then made its way, not to the crossing at Billingsgate, but to a still older ford or ferry which existed in very early days at the spot where Westminster now stands. If you look at the map of London, you will see that the Edgware Road, passing in a south-easterly direction from St. Albans, comes down, with but a slight curve, as if to meet this north-westerly Kent road. That they did so meet there is but little doubt, and this meeting gave us the Royal City of Westminster.