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Authors: Richard Guard

Lost London

BOOK: Lost London
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For Kirsty, Oliver, Isaac and Alfred

Seized by a compulsion you long to discover Drayton Park.

Go there at once and miss a turn.
The London Game
, Seven Towns Ltd, 1972

First published in Great Britain in 2012 by
Michael O’Mara Books Limited
9 Lion Yard
Tremadoc Road
London SW4 7NQ

Copyright © Michael O’Mara Books Limited 2012

All rights reserved. You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means
(electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this
publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-1-84317-803-3 in paperback print format
ISBN: 978-1-84317-896-5 in EPub format
ISBN: 978-1-84317-895-8 in Mobipocket format

Designed and typeset by Design 23

Picture research by Judith Palmer.
Jacket picture sources:
Antiquities of London and Its Environs, Antiquities of Westminster
, both by John Thomas Smith;
Father Thames
by Walter Higgins;
London
by Walter Besant;
Knight’s London, Vols. I, V, VI;
The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction
, Vols. XII & XIX;
Old and New London
, Vols. I, II, VI, by Walter Thornbury and Edward
Walford;
The Old Bailey and Newgate
by Charles Gordon;
A Short History of the English People
, Vol. II, by J. R. Green. Page 24
www.clipart.com

www.mombooks.com

 
Contents

I
NTRODUCTION

Ackerman’s
The Strand

Adam and Eve Tea Gardens
Tottenham Court Road

Agar Town
King’s Cross

Alhambra
Leicester Square

Alsatia
Temple

Archery

Astley’s
Westminster Bridge Road

Atmospheric Railway
Southwark

Barbican
EC
2

Bartholomew Fair
Smithfield

Baynard’s Castle
Blackfriars

Bedlam, or St Bethlehem’s Hospital
Liverpool Street

Bishopsgate

Bon Marché
Brixton

Bridewell
Banks of River Fleet

Carlisle House
Soho Square

Charing Cross

Chelsea Bun House

Chippendale’s Workshop
Covent Garden

Clare Market
Aldwych

Coldbath Fields Prison
Clerkenwell

Colosseum
Regent’s Park

Costermongers’ Language

Crapper and Company Ltd
Chelsea

Cremorne Gardens
Chelsea

Crossing Sweepers

The Devil Public House
Fleet Street

Dioramas

The Dog and Duck
Southwark

Dog Finders

Don Saltero’s Coffee House
Chelsea

Durham House
The Strand

Eel Pie House
Highbury

Effra River
South London

Egyptian Hall
Piccadilly

Enon Chapel
Near the Strand

Essex House
Near the Strand

Euston Arch

Execution Dock
Wapping

Exeter House
The Strand

Farringdon Market

Fauconberg House
Soho

Field of the Forty Footsteps
Russell Square

Fleet Marriages

Fleet Prison
Blackfriars

Fleet River

Frost Fairs

Gaiety Theatre
The Strand

Gamages
High Holburn

Gentleman’s Magazine

The Globe
Bankside

Goodman’s Fields Theatre
Whitechapel

Gore House
Kensington

The Great Globe
Leicester Square

Gunter’s Tea Shop
Mayfair

Hanover Square Rooms

Harringay Stadium

Highbury Barn

Hippodrome Racecourse
Ladbroke Grove

Hockley-in-the-Hole
Clerkenwell

Holborn Restaurant

Holy Trinity
Minories Tower Hill

Horn Fair
Charlton

Islington Spa, Or The New Tunbridge Wells

Jacob’s Island
Bermondsey

Jenny’s Whim
Pimlico

Jonathan’s Coffee House
Bank

Kilburn Wells

King’s Bench Prison
Borough

King’s Wardrobe
Blackfriars

Kingsway Theatre
Holborn

Leicester House
Soho

Lillie Bridge Grounds
Earl’s Court

Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre

London Bridge
Some Notable Decapitated Heads Displayed Thereon

London Bridge Waterworks

London Salvage Corps

Lowther Arcade
The Strand

Lyons Corner Houses

Molly Houses

Mudlarks

Necropolis Railway
Waterloo

Newgate Prison
Old Bailey

New River Head
Clerkenwell

Nine Elms Railway Station

Nonsuch House
London Bridge

Old Clothes Exchange
Houndsditch

Old Slaughter’s Coffee House
Covent Garden

Pantheon
Oxford Street

Paris Gardens
Bankside

Patterers, or Death Hunters

Penny Gaffs

Peerless Pool
Shoreditch

Pillory

Plague Pits

Pure Collectors

Queen’s Hall
Langham Place

Rainbow Coffee House
Fleet Street

Ranelagh Gardens
Chelsea

Ratcliffe Highway
Wapping

Rillington Place
Ladbroke Grove

Rivers

The Rookeries

Rosemary Lane
Tower Hill

St George’s Fields
Southwark

St Paul’s Cathedral

Salmon’s Waxworks
Fleet Street

Silvertown Explosives Factory
West Ham

Slang

Steelyard
Cannon Street

Street Cries

Street Traders

Tabard Inn
Borough

Thorney Island
Westminster

Toshers

Tyburn
Marble Arch

Vauxhall Gardens
Lambeth

Walbrook

Watermen

Whitehall Palace
Westminster

Wren’s Lost Churches

I
NDEX

 
INTRODUCTION

London is a very old and magnificent city – but its buildings are not that ancient. Although it has been inhabited for 2000 years few traces are left from that time. Tiny
sections of the old wall and the London Stone from which the Romans measured distances throughout the land are all that remain. Mosaics, foundations and artefacts have been frequently uncovered,
but there’s no colosseum, amphitheatre or Parthenon to mark 400 years of Roman rule.

The medieval period too has little to show for itself – a few churches claim to have been established in the 10th century, but the oldest existing building is William the Conqueror’s
White Tower, the original Tower of London, built in 1085.

A series of rapid expansions and terrible disasters have stripped the capital of its age old monuments. Most famous is the Great Fire of 1666 which destroyed 90 per cent of the old city. Over
ten thousand new dwellings were built in its aftermath – none are left – the German Blitz destroyed the last of these.

Much of the city built between the Great Fire and the death of Queen Victoria in 1901 – the city immortalized in the works of Charles Dickens – was swept away with modernizing and
moralizing zeal. Massive urban development consumed the fields where city dwellers once took their pleasures. The railways sliced through ancient thoroughfares and demolished districts that had
stood for hundreds of years. Many fabulous and remarkable buildings were simply removed because they were old.

Now only a few glorious pockets of 18th century London remain. It would be a fool’s errand to attempt to describe all that has been lost – indeed it would be
impossible. This humble book only aims to amuse its readers by describing some of the buildings and streets, the jobs and habits, the markets, fairs and pastimes that have made London what it is
today, the greatest city in the world.

London has been the epicentre of so many important historical events – in politics, in the arts, in science – that for lovers of the capital the very streets seem to reverberate with
echo of voices past. In compiling this book I have attempted, where possible, to find a contemporaneous quote that brings the location and the time and place back to life, so that the reader will
be able to walk the city’s streets and people them with the great rush of humanity that have called London their home for the last 2000 years.

RG, E
AST
D
ULWICH
, 2012

BOOK: Lost London
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