A Walk from London to Fulham Part 5

[Picture: Dropped Capital T] he first stone of this church was laid on the 12th October, 1820, and the New Church was consecrated on the 18th October, 1824. The architect was Mr. Savage of Walbrook. {80} The burial-ground in which it stands had been consecrated on the 21st November, 1812; and an Act of Parliament, 59 George III., cap. 35, 1819, authorised the appropriation of part of that ground for the site of building a church. In the burial-ground repose the remains of Dr. John M'Leod, the companion and friend of the gallant Sir Murray Maxwell, and the author of 'A Narrative of a Voyage in H.M.S. Alceste to the Yellow Sea, and of her s.h.i.+pwreck in the Straits of Gaspar,' published in 1817.

On his return to England, the services of Dr. M'Leod were rewarded by his appointment to the Royal Sovereign yacht, which he did not long enjoy, as he died in lodgings in the King's Road, Chelsea, on the 9th November, 1820, at the age of thirty-eight.

Signor Carlo Rovedino, a ba.s.s singer of some reputation, also lies buried in this churchyard. He was a native of Milan, and died on the 6th of October, 1822, aged seventy-one. The remains of Blanchard and Egerton, two actors of established character, repose here side by side. William Blanchard was what is termed "a useful comedian;" whatever part was a.s.signed to him, he made the most of it. At the age of seventeen, he joined a provincial theatrical company at York, his native city, and in 1800, after fourteen years of laborious country practice, appeared at Covent Garden as Bob Acres in 'The Rivals,' and Crack in 'The Turnpike Gate.' At the time of his death, 9th May, 1835, he resided at No. 1, Camera Square, Chelsea. Blanchard had dined with a friend at Hammersmith, and left him to return home about six in the evening of Tuesday. On the following morning, at three o'clock, poor Blanchard was found lying in a ditch by the roadside, having been, as is supposed, seized by a fit; in the course of the evening he was visited by another attack, which was succeeded by one more violent on the Thursday, and on the following day he expired.

Daniel Egerton-"oh! kingly Egerton"-personified for many years on the stage of Covent Garden all the royal personages about whom there was great state and talk, but who had little to say for themselves. He was respected as being, and without doubt was, an industrious and an honest man. Having saved some hardly-earned money, Egerton entered into a theatrical speculation with a brother actor, Mr. Abbott, and became manager of one of the minor houses, by which he was ruined, and died in 1835, under the pressure of his misfortunes. His widow, whose representations of the wild women of Scott's novels, Madge Wildfire and Meg Merrilies, have distinguished her, died on the 10th August, 1847, at Brompton, aged sixty-six, having supported herself n.o.bly amidst the troubles of her latter days. Mrs. Egerton was the daughter of the Rev.

Peter Fisher, rector of Torrington, in Devons.h.i.+re. She appeared at the Bath theatre soon after the death of her father in 1803, and in 1811 made her first appearance at Covent Garden Theatre as Juliet.

On the right-hand side, a little off the main road, is Onslow Square, which was built upon the site of the extensive house and grounds once occupied as a lunatic asylum. The row of large trees now in the centre of the square was formerly the avenue from the main road to this house.

Mr. Henry Cole, C.B. lives at No. 17, Onslow Square; he is well known to the public as a member of the Executive Committee of the Crystal Palace, a promoter of art manufactures, and the author of numerous works published under the _nom de plume_ of "Felix Summerly." No. 31 is the residence of Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Martin (better known as Miss Helen Faucit). At No. 34 resides Baron Marochetti, the celebrated sculptor, who settled in England after the French revolution of February, 1848, and has obtained high patronage here. At the back of the house is the studio, with an entrance from the main road, where the avenue of trees continues. W. M. Thackeray, the popular writer, lives at No. 36, and Rear-Admiral Fitzroy, the distinguished geographer and navigator, is at No. 38.

A few yards beyond Sydney Place (leading into Onslow Square), on the opposite side of the road, is Sydney Street, leading direct to St. Luke's Church, the late inc.u.mbent of which, the Rev. Charles Kingsley, who died on 29th February, 1860, aged 78, was the father of the well-known popular writer, the Rev. Charles Kingsley, of Eversley Rectory, Hants. Sydney Street was originally called Upper Robert Street, as being the continuation of Robert Street, Chelsea; but, under some notion of raising its respectability, the inhabitants agreed to change the name. It happened, however, that the corner house adjoining the Fulham Road, on the western side, was occupied by a surgeon, who imagined that the change in name might be injurious to his practice, and he took advantage of his position to retain the old name on his house. Thus for some time the street was known by both names, but that of Upper Robert Street is now entirely abandoned. The opposite corner house, No. 2, Sydney Street, was for some years occupied by the Rev. Dr. Biber, author of the 'Life of Pestalozzi,' and editor and proprietor of the 'John Bull' newspaper. On his selling the 'John Bull,' it became incorporated with the 'Britannia.'

No. 24 was for some time the residence of Mr. Thomas Wright, the well-known antiquary and historical writer, who now lives at No. 14.

ROBERT STREET, which connects the main Fulham Road with the King's Road, pa.s.ses directly before the west side of the s.p.a.cious burial-ground, and immediately opposite to the tower of St. Luke's Church; at No. 17 formerly resided Mr. Henry Warren, the President of the New Society of Water-Colour Painters.

Returning to the main Fulham Road, and pa.s.sing the Cancer Hospital, now in course of erection, we come to YORK PLACE, a row of twenty-two well-built and respectable houses on the south, or, according to our course, left-hand side of the road.

No. 15, York Place, was, between the years 1813 and 1821, the retirement of Francis Hargrave, a laborious literary barrister, and the editor of 'A Collection of State Trials,' {84} and many other esteemed legal works.

Here he died on the 16th of August, 1821, at the age of eighty-one.

In 1813, when obliged to abandon his arduous profession, in consequence of over-mental excitement, the sum of 8,000 was voted by Parliament, upon the motion of Mr. Whitbread, for the purchase of Mr. Hargrave's law books, which were enriched with valuable notes, and for 300 MSS., to be deposited in the library of Lincoln's Inn, for public use. As doc.u.ments of national historical importance may be particularised, Mr. Hargrave's first publication, in 1772, ent.i.tled '_The Case of James Somerset_, _a Negro_, _lately determined by the Court of King's Bench_, _wherein it is attempted to demonstrate the present unlawfulness of Domestic Slavery in England_;' his '_Three Arguments in the two causes in Chancery on the last Will of Peter Th.e.l.lusson_, _Esq._, _with Mr. Morgan's __Calculation of the Acc.u.mulation under the Trusts of the Will_, _1799_;' and his '_Opinion in the Case of the Duke of Athol in respect to the Isle of Man_.'

Opposite to York Place was a fine, open, airy piece of ground to which Mr. Curtis, the eminent naturalist, removed his botanical garden from Lambeth Marsh, as a more desirable locality. Upon the south-east portion of this nursery-ground the first stone was laid by H.R.H. Prince Albert, on the 11th July, 1844, of an hospital for consumption and diseases of the chest, and which was speedily surrounded by houses on all sides; probably a circ.u.mstance not contemplated at the time the ground was secured.

The botanical garden of Mr. Curtis, as a public resort for study, was continued at Brompton until 1808, when the lease of the land being nearly expired, Mr. Salisbury, who in 1792 became his pupil, and in 1798 his partner in this horticultural speculation, removed the establishment to the vacant s.p.a.ce of ground now inclosed between Sloane Street and Cadogan Place, where Mr. Salisbury's undertaking failed. A plan of the gardens there, as arranged by him, was published in the 'Gentleman's Magazine'

for August, 1810. {85}

Mr. Curtis, whose death has been already mentioned, was the son of a tanner, and was born at Alton, in Hamps.h.i.+re, in 1746. He was bound apprentice to his grandfather, a quaker apothecary of that town, whose house was contiguous to the Crown Inn, where the botanical knowledge of John Lagg, the hostler, seems to have excited rivalry in the breast of young Curtis. In the course of events he became a.s.sistant to Mr. Thomas Talwin, an apothecary in Gracechurch Street, of the same religious persuasion as his grandfather, and succeeded Mr. Talwin in his business.

Mr. Curtis's love of botanical science, however, increased with his knowledge. He connected with it the study of entomology, by printing, in 1771, 'Instructions for Collecting and Preserving Insects,' and in the following year a translation of the 'Fundamenta Entomologiae' of Linnaeus.

At this time he rented a very small garden for the cultivation of British plants, "near the Grange Road, at the bottom of Bermondsey Street," and here it was that he conceived the design of publis.h.i.+ng his great work, 'The Flora Londinensis.'

"The Grange Road Garden was soon found too small for his extensive ideas. He, therefore, took a larger piece of ground in Lambeth Marsh, where he soon a.s.sembled the largest collection of British plants ever brought together into one place. But there was something uncongenial in the air of this place, which made it extremely difficult to preserve sea plants and many of the rare annuals which are adapted to an elevated situation,-_an evil rendered worse every year by the increased number of buildings around_. This led his active mind, ever anxious for improvement, to inquire for a more favourable soil and purer air. This, at length, he found at Brompton. Here he procured a s.p.a.cious territory, in which he had the pleasure of seeing his wishes gratified to the utmost extent of reasonable expectation. Here he continued to his death;"

having, I may add, for many years previously, devoted himself entirely to botanical pursuits.

To support the slow sale of 'The Flora Londinensis,' Mr. Curtis, about 1787, started 'The Botanical Magazine,' which became one of the popular periodicals of the day, and Dr. Smith's and Mr. Sowerby's 'English Botany' was modelled after it.

What Mr. Curtis, as an individual, commenced, the Horticultural Society are endeavouring, as a body, to effect.

Immediately past the Hospital for Consumption is Fowlis Terrace, a row of newly-built houses, running from the road.

At the corner of Church Street (on the opposite side of the road) is an enclosure used as the burial-ground of the Westminster Congregation of the Jews. There is an inscription in Hebrew characters over the entrance, above which is an English inscription with the date of the erection of the building according to the Jewish computation A.M. 5576, or 1816 A.D. Beside it is the milestone denoting that it is 1 mile from London.

The QUEEN'S ELM TURNPIKE, pulled down in 1848, was situated here, and took its name from the tradition that Queen Elizabeth, when walking out, attended by Lord Burleigh, {87a} being overtaken by a heavy shower of rain, found shelter here under an elm-tree. After the rain was over, the queen said, "Let this henceforward be called The Queen's Tree." The tradition is strongly supported by the parish records of Chelsea, as mention is made in 1586 (the 28th of Elizabeth, and probably the year of the occurrence), of a tree situated about this spot, "at the end of the Duke's Walk," {87b} as "The Queen's Tree," around which an arbour was built, or, in other words, nine young elm-trees were planted, by one Bostocke, at the charge of the parish. The first mention of "The Queen's _Elm_," occurs in 1687, ninety-nine years after her Majesty had sheltered beneath the tree around which "an arbour was built," when the surveyors of the highway were amerced in the sum of five pounds, "for not sufficiently mending the highway from the Queen Elm to the bridge, and from the Elm to Church Lane." In a plan of Chelsea, from a survey made in 1664 by James Hamilton, and continued to 1717, a tree occupying the spot a.s.signed to "The Queen's Elm," is called "The Cross Tree," and in the vestry minutes it is designated as "The High Elm," which latter name is used by Sir Hans Sloane in 1727. Bostocke's arbour, however, had the effect of giving to the cross-road the name of "The Nine Elms." Steele, on the 22nd June, 1711, writing to his wife, says, "Pray, on the receipt of this, go to the Nine Elms, and I will follow you within an hour." {88} And so late as 1805, "The Nine Elms, Chelsea," appeared as a local address in newspaper advertis.e.m.e.nts.

Again let me crave indulgence for minute attention to the changes of name; but much topographical difficulty often arises from this cause.

The stump of the royal tree, with, as is a.s.serted, its root remaining in the ground undisturbed, a few years ago existed squared down to the dimensions of an ordinary post, about six feet in height and whitewashed.

But the ident.i.ty appears questionable, although a post, not improbably fas.h.i.+oned out of one of the nine elms which grew around it, stood till within the last few years in front of a public-house named from the circ.u.mstance the Queen's Elm, which house has been a little altered since the annexed sketch was made, by the introduction of a clock between the second floor windows, and the house adjoining has been rebuilt, overtopping it.

[Picture: Queen's Elm Public House]

On the opposite or north side of the Fulham Road, some small houses are called SELWOOD PLACE, from being built on part of the ground of "Mr.

Selwood's nursery," which is mentioned in 1712 by Mr. Narcissus Luttrell, of whom more hereafter, as one of the sources from which he derived a variety of pear, cultivated by him in his garden at Little Chelsea.

CHELSEA PARK, on the same side of the way with the Queen's Elm public-house, and distant about a furlong from it, as seen from the road, appears a n.o.ble structure with a magnificent portico. [Picture: Chelsea Park Portico] The ground now called Chelsea Park belonged, with an extensive tract of which it formed the northern part, to the famous Sir Thomas More, and in his time was unenclosed, and termed "the Sand Hills."

It received the present name in 1625, when the Lord-Treasurer Cranfield (Earl of Middles.e.x) surrounded with a brick wall about thirty-two acres, which he had purchased in 1620 from Mr. Blake. In 1717 Chelsea Park, which extended from the Fulham to the King's Road, was estimated at forty acres, and belonged to the Marquis of Wharton, with whom, when appointed in 1709 Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, Addison went over as Secretary. It subsequently became the scene of a joint-stock company speculation under a patent granted in 1718 to John Appletree, Esq., for producing raw silk of the growth of England, and for raising a fund for carrying on the same. This undertaking was divided into shares of 5 each, of which 1 was paid down. Proposals were published, a subscription-book opened, in which several hundred names were soon entered; a deed of trust executed and enrolled in Chancery; directors were chosen by the subscribers for managing the affairs of the Company; and, Chelsea Park being thought a proper soil for the purpose and in a convenient situation, a lease was taken of it for 122 years. Here upwards of 2000 mulberry-trees were soon planted, and extensive edifices erected for carrying on the work: this number of trees was, however, but a small part of what the company intended to plant if they were successful. In the following year Mr.

Henry Barham, F.R.S., who was probably a member of the company, published 'An Essay on the Silk Worm,' in which he thinks "all objections and difficulties against this glorious undertaking are shown to be mere phantoms and trifles." The event, however, proved that the company met with difficulties of a real and formidable nature; for though the expectation of this gentleman, who questioned not that in the ensuing year they should produce a considerable quant.i.ty of raw silk, may have been partly answered, the undertaking soon began to decline, and, in the course of a few years, came to nothing. It must, however, be admitted that the violent stock-jobbing speculations of the year 1720, which involved the shares of all projects of this nature, might have produced many changes among the proprietors, and contributed to derange the original design. However, from that period to the present time, no effort has been made to cultivate the silkworm in this country as a mercantile speculation, although individuals have continued to rear it with success as an object of curiosity.

Walpole, in his 'Catalogue of Engravers,' tells us that James Christopher Le Blon, a Fleming by birth, and a mezzotint-engraver by profession, some time subsequent to 1732, "set up a project for copying the cartoons in tapestry, and made some very fine drawings for that purpose. Houses were built and looms erected in the Mulberry Ground at Chelsea; but either the expense was precipitated too fast, or contributions did not arrive fast enough. The bubble burst, several suffered, and Le Blon was heard of no more." Walpole adds, "It is said he died in an hospital at Paris in 1740:" and observes that Le Blon was "very far from young when he knew him, but of surprising vivacity and volubility, and with a head admirably mechanic, but an universal projector, and with at least one of the qualities that attend that vocation, either a dupe or a cheat; I think,"

he continues, "the former, though, as most of his projects ended in air, the sufferers believed the latter. As he was much an enthusiast, perhaps like most enthusiasts he was both one and t' other."

The present mansion was built upon a portion of Chelsea Park by Mr.

William Broomfield, an eminent surgeon, who resided in it for several years. The late possessor was Sir Henry Wright Wilson, Bart., to whose wife, Lady Frances Wilson (daughter of the Earl of Aylesbury), was left a valuable estate in Hamps.h.i.+re, {92} said to be worth about 3,000 a year, under the following very singular circ.u.mstances. Her ladys.h.i.+p was informed one morning in February, 1814, while at breakfast, that an eccentric person named Wright, who had died a few days previously at an obscure lodging in Pimlico, had appointed her and Mr. Charles Abbott his executors, and after some legacies had bequeathed to Lady Frances the residue of his property by a will dated so far back as August, 1800. As Lady Frances declared herself to be unacquainted even with the name of the testator, she at first concluded that there was some mistake in the matter. After further explanation, the person of Mr. Wright was described to her, and Lady Frances at last recollected that the description answered that of a gentleman she had remembered as a constant frequenter of the Opera some years previously and considered to be a foreigner, and who had annoyed her extremely there by constantly staring at her box. To satisfy herself of the ident.i.ty, she went to the lodgings of the late Mr. Wright, and saw him in his coffin, when she recognized the features perfectly as those of the person whose eyes had so often persecuted her when she was Lady Frances Bruce, but who had never spoken to her, and of whom she had no other knowledge whatever.

Mr. Wright left legacies of 4,000 to the Countess of Rosslyn, 4,000 to the Speaker of the House of Commons, 1,000 to the lord-chancellor, and the same sum to Archdeacon Pott, the rector of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, which church Mr. Wright had been in the habit of frequenting, having as little acquaintance with any of these parties as he had with Lady Frances Wilson. It may be supposed from these facts that Lady Frances Wilson was exceedingly beautiful, and that an admiration of her charms might have influenced Mr. Wright to make this extraordinary bequest in her favour; but those who knew Lady Frances well a.s.sert that such could not possibly have been the case, as she was far from beautiful at any period of her life; and the oddity of the story is, and it seemed to be the general opinion, that Mr. Wright's legacy was intended for a lady who usually occupied a box next to that in which Lady Frances sat, and who, at the period, was regarded as the _belle_ of the Opera.

THISTLE GROVE, on the opposite side of the road from Chelsea Park, leads, by what had been a garden pathway, to the Old Brompton Road. At each side of "the Grove," now occupying the sites of trees, are detached villas, houses, lodges, and cottages, named, or not named, after the taste of their respective proprietors; one of which, on the left hand, some fourteen houses distant from the main Fulham Road, was for many years the residence of Mr. John Burke, whose laborious heraldic and genealogical inquiries induced him to arrange and publish various important collections relative to the peerage and family history of the United Kingdom, in which may be found, condensed for immediate reference, an immense ma.s.s of important information.

In Thistle Grove Mr. J. P. Warde, the well-known actor, died in 1840.

Immediately beyond Chelsea Park the village of LITTLE CHELSEA commences, about the centre of which, and on the same side of the way, at the corner of the road leading to Battersea Bridge, stands the Goat in Boots public-house. [Picture: Goat in Boots] In 1663, there was a "house called the Goat at Little Chelsea," which, between that year and 1713, enjoyed the right of commonage for two cows and one heifer upon Chelsea Heath.

How the Goat became equipped in boots, and the designation of the house changed, has been the subject of various conjectures; the most probable of which is, that it originates in a corruption of the latter part of the Dutch legend,-

"MERCURIUS IS DER G.o.dEN BOODE,"

(Mercury is the messenger of the G.o.ds,)

which being divided between each side of a sign bearing the figure of Mercury-a sign commonly used in the early part of the last century to denote that post-horses were to be obtained-"der G.o.den boode" became freely translated into English, "the goat in boots." To Le Blon is attributed the execution of this sign and its motto; but, whoever the original artist may have been, and the intermediate retouchers or repainters of the G.o.d, certain it is that the pencil of Morland, in accordance with the desire of the landlord, either transformed the petasus of Mercury into the horned head of a goat, his talaria into spurs upon boots of huge dimensions, and his caduceus into a cutla.s.s, or thus decorated the original sign, thereby liquidating a score which he had run up here, without any other means of payment than what his pencil afforded. The sign, however, has been painted over, with considerable additional embellishments from gold leaf, so that not the least trace of Morland's work remains, except, perhaps, in the outline.

Park Walk (the road turning off at the Goat in Boots) proceeds to the King's Road, and, although not in a direct line, to Battersea Bridge.

Opposite the Goat in Boots is Gilston Road, leading to Boltons and St.

Mary's Place. At No. 6, St. Mary's Place, resides J. O. Halliwell, F.R.S., F.S.A., the well-known Shaksperian scholar, whose varied contributions to literature have been crowned by the production of his folio edition of Shakspere-a work still in progress. At No. 8, Mr.

Edward Wright, the popular actor, resided for a short time.

A few paces further on the main Fulham Road, at the north or opposite side, stood "Manor House," now termed Manor Hall, and occupied by St.

Philip's Orphanage, a large, old-fas.h.i.+oned building, with the intervening s.p.a.ce between it and the road screened in by boards,-which were attached to the antique iron gate and railings about twenty years ago, when it became appropriated to a charitable asylum. Previously, Manor House had been a ladies' boarding-school; and here Miss Bartolozzi, afterwards Madame Vestris, was educated.

SEYMOUR PLACE, which leads to Seymour Terrace, is a cul-de-sac on the same side of the main Fulham Road, between Manor Hall and the Somerset Arms public-house, which last forms the west corner of Seymour Place.

At No. 1, Seymour Terrace expired, on the 19th of June, 1824, in her twenty-fifth year, Madame Riego, the widow of the unfortunate patriot General Riego, "the restorer and martyr of Spanish freedom." Her short and eventful history possesses more than ordinary melancholy. While yet a child she had to endure all the hards.h.i.+ps and privations consequent upon a state of warfare, and under the protection of her maternal grandfather, had to seek refuge from place to place on the mountains of Asturias from the French army. At the close of 1821 she was married to General Riego, to whom she had been known and attached almost from infancy, and, in the spring of the following year, became, with her distinguished husband, a resident in Madrid. But the political confusion and continued alarm of the period having appeared to affect her health, the general proceeded with her in the autumn to Granada, where he parted from his young and beloved wife, never again to meet her in this world, the convocation of the extraordinary Cortes for October 1822 obliging him to return to the capital.

Accompanied by the canon Riego, brother to her husband, and her attached sister, Donna Lucie, she removed in March to Malaga, from whence the advance of the French army into the south of Spain obliged them to seek protection at Gibraltar, which, under the advice of General Riego, they left for England on the 4th of July, but, owing to an unfavourable pa.s.sage, did not reach London until the 17th of August. Here the visitation which impended over her was still more calamitous than all that had preceded it. Within little more than two months after her arrival in London, the account arrived of General Riego's execution. {97}

Gerald Griffin, the Irish novelist, in a letter dated 22nd of November, 1823, says,-

"I have been lately negotiating with my host (of 76 Regent Street) for lodgings for the widow and brother of poor General Riego. They are splendid apartments, but the affair has been broken off by the account of his death. It has been concealed from her. She is a young woman, and is following him fast, being far advanced in a consumption. His brother is in deep grief. He says he will go and bury himself for the remainder of his days in the woods of America."