Lost London (8 page)

Henry Mayhew interviewed one dog finder for his great work on London, a man named Chelsea George who had been educated as a gentlemen but had fallen on hard times.

Chelsea George had a cunning technique. He would paint his hand with gelatine mixed with pulverized fried
liver and then approach a dog that looked ‘a likely
spec’. Rubbing his hand on the animal’s nose, it soon became a willing captive. He would abduct the animal with a sack he carried for the purpose, then have flyers printed declaring
‘Dog Found’. He posted one at a local public house with a friendly landlord and the other he kept on his person.

When the dog’s owner approached the publican, they were directed to George, who would produce the other flyer – saying he had come across it during the day – and return the dog
for a reward. Mayhew believed Chelsea George had run this trick for nearly fifteen years ‘without the slightest imputation on his character’, earning him an annual income of around
£150 (which in Victorian London put him on a par with a headmaster, and way above a labourer who could expect £25 per year).

Chelsea

A C
HELSEA INSTITUTION FOR ALMOST
150
YEARS
, Don Saltero’s was opened in 1695 by one James Salter, a barber and former
servant of Sir Hans Sloane.

Originally on the corner of Lawrence Street, it moved first to Danvers Street and then in 1717 to Cheyne Walk This popular coffee house was packed with curiosities donated by
Sloane, whose collection of objects would later form the basis of the British Museum.

Salter acquired his ‘Don’ nickname from Rear-Admiral Sir John Munden, a notorious lover of all things Spanish. Salter was an eccentric, not only serving his customers coffee
but also shaving them, pulling their teeth, reciting poetry and playing the violin. His fame reached its apogee in 1709 when an edition of the
Tatler
was dedicated to his shop
and its ‘ten thousand gimcracks’.

After Salter’s death in 1728, the business passed to his daughter. A year later a catalogue of the items in the coffee house was published, and again in 1795. A good many of them were sold
off in 1799, raising £50 despite (or perhaps because of) including ‘a starved cat found between the walls of Westminster Abbey when repairing’. No 18 Cheyne Walk, built in 1867,
now sits on the site.

The Strand

F
OR
800
YEARS BEFORE THE
E
MBANKMENT WAS
built, the Strand was the site of many of London’s finest
houses, offering both river views and close proximity to the City and Westminster.

Durham House was originally built in the mid-14th century as the town house of the Bishop of Durham. The first officeholder to reside there was Richard Le Poor. Legend has it
that Henry
III
was once passing nearby during a thunderstorm when the then incumbent, Simon de Montfort, invited him in to take refuge. The king replied, ‘Thunder and
lightning I fear much, but by the head of God I fear thee more’.

The house also served as home to both Cardinal Wolsey and Anne Boleyn, while Katherine of Aragon lodged here before her marriage to Henry
VIII
’s
older brother, Arthur. Lady Jane Grey was wed here on 21 May 1553, shortly before her tragic nine days on the throne of England. By the time of Elizabeth
I
’s reign,
the house was described as ‘stately and high, supported with lofty marble pillars. It standeth on the Thames very pleasantly.’ It eventually became the home of
Sir
Walter Raleigh and while living there he was memorably drenched with beer by a servant who feared that his master had caught fire when he found him smoking.

After Raleigh’s untimely eviction from the property when he fell from favour, James
I
used it mainly to house visiting ambassadors, although its gardens were
incorporated into neighbouring Cecil House. In Oliver Cromwell’s time it was used for billeting troops and in 1660, by then much dilapidated, it was demolished. Slum housing occupied the site
for the next 100 years until the construction of the Adams Brothers, Adelphi Buildings in 1769. The only reminder of the original building left today is Durham House Street.

Highbury

S
TANDING JUST NORTH OF
H
IGHBURY
S
LUICE
,
WHICH
controlled the flow of water from
the New River (a man-made channel), Eel Pie House was famous not only for its pies but its tea and hot rolls too.

Although it was commonly believed that the eponymous eels were local, they were in fact imported from the Netherlands.

The pub was a hot spot for the working class from at least 1804, ideally situated for leisure pursuits and fishing. With gardens next to the ‘Boarded River’ aqueduct, a walk from
the pie house to Hornsey Woods became a Palm Sunday tradition. Although urban development rapidly encroached, guidebooks still listed it as a popular destination as late as
1844. But within twenty years the river and the surrounding countryside were built over. The approximate site of Eel Pie House is today covered by No. 57 Wilberforce Road.

South London

A
LTHOUGH NOT TRULY LOST
–
HIDDEN IS A MORE
appropriate word – the Effra is one of several central London rivers of
which there is now almost no evidence above ground. Others include the Peck, the Fleet, the Tybourne, the Westbourne and the Walbrook.

The Effra rose in Upper Norwood and flowed through Dulwich along Croxted Road to Herne Hill, along the side of Brockwell Park, then down Brixton Road to Kennington Church,
around the curve of the Oval, past what used to be Vauxhall Gardens, then into the Thames immediately above Vauxhall Bridge. History records that it was 12ft wide and 6ft deep around Brixton Road.
Although it served as a sewer in Brixton from the 17th century, its waters were still being used in Dulwich as late as 1860. It provided water to the Vauxhall Water Works Company until they moved
their source of supplies outside the capital. Still visible in Dulwich’s Belair Park, today the river supplies a couple of ponds before disappearing underground and linking into the sewer
system.