Lost London (5 page)

Banks of River Fleet

A
ROYAL PALACE BUILT BETWEEN
1515 and 1520 on the western bank of the Fleet River, it was mainly used for entertaining visiting foreign dignitaries,
most notably the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles v. On a visit in 1522, he enjoyed tennis, feasts, music and pageants here.

Hans Holbein painted his famous
The Ambassadors
at the palace and it was also the site of the Papal Legatine inquiry into the marriage of Henry
VIII
and Katherine of Aragon. Bridewell provided the backdrop for Katherine’s famous and
noble speech in which she defended her position:

This 20 years or more I have been your true wife and by me ye have had divers children, although it hath pleased God to call them from this world, which hath been no default in me ... And
when ye had me at first, I take God to my judge, I was a true maid, without touch of man. And whether this be true or no, I put it to your conscience ... Therefore, I humbly require you to spare me
the extremity of this new court ... And if ye will not, to God I commit my cause.

Perhaps because of the unfortunate events played out here, Henry’s son, Edward
VI
, gave up Bridewell Palace after being nagged to do so by Archbishop Ridley. In a
sermon, Ridley had asked the King to provide a place for ‘the strumpet and the idle person, the rioter... and the vagabond’ and so Bridewell thenceforth became a house of correction for
short-term prisoners. Floggings were held twice a week, and a ducking stool and stocks had been installed by 1638. Hogarth immortalized the place in plate 4 of
The Harlot’s Progress
,
which shows the harlot beating hemp as a punishment.

Bridewell also took in a number of orphans and destitute children, known for the blue uniforms they wore. It became both a school and a prison and in 1700 was the first jail to appoint its own
medical staff. The model was so successful that the regime was copied and the name came to be used at other institutions in the city at Westminster and Clerkenwell, as well as further afield in
Norwich and Edinburgh. The original Bridewell was eventually closed in 1855 and its location is today the site of Unilever House.

Soho Square

B
UILT IN
1685 F
OR THE SECOND
E
ARL
of Carlisle, this was a private home for many decades before hosting
an upholstery company and then becoming the lodgings of the Neapolitan Ambassador.

In 1759 it was rented out to a Venetian society belle, Mrs Cornelys. A lady who scorned social mores, she converted the building into a venue for masquerades, card evenings and
musical concerts, some of which were directed by the composer J S Bach. Increasingly risqué events led to the extravagant Mrs Cornelys being repeatedly fined for keeping a ‘disorderly
house’.

Although initially massively popular, the venue started to decline with the opening of the Pantheon on Oxford Street in 1772. Desperate to retain the house’s reputation as the premier
society venue, she undertook once again to refurbish it, even more grandiosely this time. The debts she incurred crippled her business and she was arrested and imprisoned in October 1772 at the
King’s Bench Prison, where she died in 1797. Amongst her various claims to fame was that Casanova was the father of her daughter.

For several years the rooms continued as a house of entertainment but garnered a much less salubrious clientele. One foreign visitor described the guests thus: ‘The ladies were rigged in
gaudy attire, attended by bucks, bloods and
macaronis ...’ The house closed in 1781 and was demolished in 1791, the site redeveloped as St Patrick’s Catholic
Church.

When she died, near Lincoln, her body was transported to Westminster, a journey that took twelve days. Edward had a memorial cross erected at every resting place of her funeral
procession. The last at the village of Charing, a stopover between the City of London and Westminster.

Originally constructed of wood it was replaced by a cross of Caen stone, octagonal in shape, with smooth marble steps and decorated with eight statues. Removed by the Parliamentary Act of 1643, it
was not actually taken away until 1647, the stone reputedly being used to pave Whitehall.

The cross built in the forecourt of Charing Cross Station is a Victorian replacement, 180 yards away from its former location now marked by a statue of Charles
I
on
horseback looking down Whitehall. For many years this spot was used to measure distances from London, replacing St Paul’s, and prior to that the London Stone, the Roman mile-post in Cannon
Street. London taxi drivers are required to know all the streets within a six-mile radius of Charing Cross, a principal that was instituted in 1865.

Pimlico

O
PENING IN THE EARLY
1700
S IN
J
EW
’
S
ROW
(now
Pimlico Road), this is where Chelsea buns were invented. In its day, the Bun House was hugely famous, prompting Jonathan Swift to celebrate the ‘Rrrrrrrare Chelsea buns’ after he
visited in 1711.

Its proprietor, Richard Hand, decorated the interior with clocks and a collection of curious artefacts. The Bun House even found popularity among royalty, with both George
II
and George
III
, their wives and children all visiting.

So successful was the business that on Good Fridays,
crowds of over 50,000 gathered outside the premises to purchase its products. The crush was such that in 1793 Mrs Hand
issued a notice that ‘respectfully informed her friends and customers that in consequence of the great concourse of people Good Friday last by which her neighbours have been much alarmed and
annoyed ... she is determined, though much to her loss, not to sell Cross Buns on that day’.

In 1804 the closure of the nearby Ranelagh Gardens had a profound effect on trade and the business began to decline. Yet even so, on Good Friday 1839 the House sold a staggering 240,000 buns.
Nonetheless, the building was demolished later the same year.

Covent Garden

I
N
D
ECEMBER
1753,
THE RENOWNED
cabinet-maker, Thomas Chippendale, leased the building at 60–61 St
Martin’s Lane in Covent Garden. It was from here that he published the legendary
Gentlemen and Cabinet Maker’s Directory
.

His illustrated furniture catalogue made him famous around the world and both Louis
XIV
and Catherine the Great were known to own copies.

Not only a designer of furniture, Chippendale also made wallpaper, brassware and carpets, and his illustrious
clients included the architect Robert Adam, the actor David
Garrick, the outrageous Mrs Cornelys (Chippendale was one of her creditors when she was imprisoned for debt) and Lord Mansfield, who installed Chippendale’s work at his Kenwood House home in
Hampstead. Similarly, Lord Shelbourne bought furniture for his Lansdowne House property in Berkeley Square.

On Chippendale’s death in 1779, the business passed to his sons but tastes were changing. In 1793 Chippendale’s work was described as ‘wholly antiquated and laid aside’.
In 1804 the business failed and all the company’s remaining stock was auctioned. ‘Beautiful Mahogany Cabinet Work of the first class, including many articles of great taste and the
finest workmanship’ were sold off in under two days.