Ramble V — Bank of England to Her Majesty’s Theatre
The Bank; Dombey and Son, Tom Pinch—George and Vulture Inn; Mr. Pickwick’s Hotel—“The Green Dragon,” alias “The Blue Boar,” Leadenhall Market; Tony Weller’s Headquarters—Newman’s Court (alias Freeman’s Court), Cornhill; The Offices of Messrs. Dodson and Fogg—House of Sol Gills, Leadenhall Street; The Wooden Midshipman—St. Mary Axe; Pubsey and Co.—House of Sampson Brass in Bevis Marks—“The Red Lion;” Mr. Dick Swiveller’s recommendation—Bull Inn, Aldgate; Starting-place of the Ipswich Coach—The Minories—Aldgate Pump; Mr. Toots’s Excursions—Mincing Lane; Messrs. Chicksey, Veneering, and Stobbles—Boarding House of Mrs. Todgers, King’s Head Court—London Bridge; Meeting-place of Rose Maylie and Nancy—“The White Hart Inn”; its Pickwickian Associations—The Marshalsea Prison; The Dorrit Family—St. George’s Church; Little Dorrit’s Night Refuge and Marriage—Lant Street; Dickens and Bob Sawyer’s Lodging—King’s Bench Prison—Horsemonger Lane Gaol—Mr. Chivery’s Shop—St. George’s Obelisk; “the long-legged young man”—The Surrey Theatre; Fanny Dorrit and Uncle—Bethlehem Hospital; “Uncommercial Traveller”—Astley’s Theatre; visit of the Nubbles Family—Millbank; Poor “Martha”—Church Street, Smith Square; the Dolls’ Dressmaker—Julius Handford—Westminster Abbey—The Red Lion, Parliament Street; the “Genuine Stunning”—The Horse Guards’ Clock—St. James’s Park; Meeting between Martin and Mary—Her Majesty’s Theatre.
Our starting-point is now the Bank of England, Dombey and Son’s
“Magnificent neighbour; with its vaults of gold and silver, ‘all among the dead men, underground.’”
Tom Pinch, diffident of requesting information in London, resolved that, in the event of finding himself near the Bank of England,
“He would step in, and ask a civil question or two, confiding in the perfect respectability of the concern.”
Adopting the route viâ Lombard Street, we come, on the left (No. 56), to George Yard, traversing which, there will be found, at the corner of Castle Court (No. 3), the George and Vulture Inn, at which Mr. Pickwick resided when in London, subsequent to his removal from Goswell Street; and which has honourable mention in the history of the Pickwickians.
Through Lombard Street, and turning left into Gracechurch Street, we shortly arrive, on the right, at Bull’s Head Passage (turning by the Branch Post Office, No. 82), in which, at No. 4, is the Green Dragon Tavern, in close proximity to Leadenhall Market. This is, in all probability, the house mentioned in “Pickwick” as “The Blue Boar,” Leadenhall Market, a favourite house of call with the elder Weller, and the place where Sam indited his “Valentine” to Mary, the pretty housemaid, afterwards Mrs. Sam. But the neighbourhood of the Market has undergone considerable renovation since the old coaching-days, and it is difficult to fix the locale of the tavern with certainty.
Proceeding onwards through Gracechurch Street, we come into the thoroughfare of Cornhill; and at No. 73, on the opposite side, arrive at Newman’s Court. It will be remembered that in “Pickwick” the offices of Messrs. Dodson and Fogg (Mrs. Bardell’s attorneys) are located in Freeman’s Court, Cornhill. There is no such place in Cornhill; Freeman’s Court being in Cheapside. It is evident, therefore, that Dickens, for reasons of his own, emulated the special contributor to the Eatanswill Gazette, and so “combined his information.” Taking Cornhill to be the locality intended, we shall find Dodson and Fogg’s Office at the furthest end of the Court, No. 4, still associated with legal business, being in possession of Messrs. Witherby and Co., law stationers.
Passing onwards in Cornhill, past Bishopsgate Street, we come into Leadenhall Street, and may be interested to note, at No. 157 (now an outfitting establishment), the original position of the House of Sol Gills, ships’ instrument maker, at whose door was displayed the figure of
“The Wooden Midshipman; eternally taking observations of the hackney coaches.”
Here our eccentric friend Captain Cuttle remained in charge during the absence of old Sol Gills and his nephew; here Florence, accompanied by the faithful Diogenes, found asylum; and here Walter Gay returned after shipwreck, to make everybody happy and marry the gentle heroine of the story. (See “Dombey and Son” for information in extenso.) Until recent years, these premises were in occupation of Messrs. Norie and Wilson, ships’ instrument makers and chart publishers. They have removed to the Minories, No. 156, where the quaint effigy of the Wooden Midshipman, with his cocked hat and quadrant complete, may now be seen, as bright and brisk as in old days. “When found, make a note of.”
Farther on, on the same side of Leadenhall Street, we reach St. Mary Axe, turning northward at No. 117, which we notice en passant as the thoroughfare in which Pubsey and Co. had their place of business; “a yellow overhanging plaster-fronted house”—reconstructed, with many others, some years since—at the top of which Riah (the manager) arranged his town garden; where the Dolls’ Dressmaker invited Fascination Fledgby to “come up and be dead.” All of which is duly set forth in the pages of “Our Mutual Friend.” The position of the house cannot now be localised.
Proceeding to the other end of St. Mary Axe, we may turn (right) into Bevis Marks, where there once existed the House of Mr. Sampson Brass, No. 10, but this and others have long since been rebuilt and re-enumerated. Here lived that honourable attorney and his sister the fair Sally; aided in their professional duties by a young gentleman of eccentric habits and “prodigious talent of quotation.” Here the Marchioness lived, or rather starved, in attendance as maid-of-all-work, and first made the acquaintance of Dick Swiveller, her future husband; being by him initiated into the mysteries of cribbage and the peculiarities of purl. Here lodged the “single gentleman,” who evinced such exceptional interest in the national drama, and so discovered a clue to the retreat of Little Nell and her grandfather.
On the north side of the street there still flourishes the old Red Lion Inn, an establishment patronised in his time by Mr. Richard, and once eulogised by that gentleman on the occasion of his specifying “the contingent advantages” of the neighbourhood. “There is mild porter in the immediate vicinity.”
For these and the other associations of this spot the tourist is referred to the pages of the “Old Curiosity Shop.”
Following downwards through Bevis Marks and Duke Street beyond, we come into Aldgate, keeping still on the left-hand side of the way to Aldgate High Street, where at a short distance we pass the Station of the Metropolitan Railway. At No. 24, just ahead, is the Bull Inn Yard, once the City Terminus of Coaches travelling north-east. From this point Mr. Pickwick started per coach for Ipswich, accompanied by the red-haired Mr. Peter Magnus; Mr. Tony Weller officiating as driver. On which occasion we read that Mr. Weller’s conversation, “possessing the inestimable charm of blending amusement with instruction,” beguiled “the tediousness of the journey during the greater part of the day.”
Returning westward on the other side of the way, the Rambler may turn, at No. 81, into the Minories; and, at the second house on the right, may observe the figure of the Wooden Midshipman, previously referred to as removed from its original position in Leadenhall Street. The route being continued (same side) from the Minories, we can note, as we pass into Fenchurch Street, Aldgate Pump, standing at the top of Leadenhall Street. There is a reference to this old pump in “Dombey,” as being a stated object of Mr. Toots’s special evening excursions from “The Wooden Midshipman,” when that gentleman desired some temporary relief from the hopeless contemplation of Walter Gay’s happiness.
The tourist will now soon arrive at (No. 42) Mincing Lane, leading to Great Tower Street. This short street is entirely occupied by wholesale merchants and brokers, and it will be remembered that Messrs. Chicksey, Veneering, and Stobbles, wholesale druggists, flourished in this locality in the days of the “Golden Dustman.” The fourth house on the left from Fenchurch Street, next to Dunster Court, has been indicated as the probable whereabouts of the firm. We may remember that R. Wilfer’s office was on the ground-floor, next the gateway.
Here, then, in this prosaic neighbourhood, John Rokesmith, following Bella Wilfer, came to the warehouse where Little Rumty was sitting at the open window at his tea, and much surprised that gentleman by a declaration of love for his daughter; what time “The Feast of the Three Hobgoblins” was so agreeably celebrated. This place is also associated with other pleasant episodes connected with the history of the Wilfer family, the details of which are fully furnished in the pages of “Our Mutual Friend.”
Proceeding through Mincing Lane, we turn to the right through Eastcheap, which leads westward to the top of Fish Street Hill. The tourist now proceeds southward, passing the Monument on the left. At a short distance beyond (No. 34) we arrive at King’s Head Court, “a small paved yard,” in which are certain city warehouses and a dairy. On the south side of the court, now occupied by the warehouses aforesaid, once stood the Commercial Boarding-House of Mrs. Todgers—an old-fashioned abode even in the days of Mr. Pecksniff—which has long since given place to other commercial considerations. In the 9th chapter of “Martin Chuzzlewit” full, true, and particular account is given of this establishment as it used to be. We may here call to remembrance the characters of Bailey junior, Mr. Jinkins, Augustus Moddle, and others in connection with the domestic economy of Mrs. Todgers and the several Pecksniffian associations of the place; notably, the festive occasion of that Sunday’s dinner when Cherry and Merry were first introduced to London society; the moral Mr. Pecksniff thereafter exhibiting alarming symptoms of a chronic complaint. (See chapter 9.) And we may indulge in a kindly reminiscence of good-hearted Mrs. Todgers herself, worried with the anxieties of “gravy” and the eccentricities of commercial gentlemen. “Perhaps the Good Samaritan was lean and lank, and found it hard to live.” We now come to London Bridge, the scene of Nancy’s interview with Mr. Brownlow and Rose Maylie (see “Oliver Twist”), which took place on the steps near St. Saviour’s Church, on the Surrey side of the river—
“These stairs are a part of the bridge; they consist of three flights. Just below the end of the second, going down, the stone wall on the left terminates in an ornamental pilaster, facing towards the Thames.”
And it will be remembered that Noah Claypole here ensconced himself as an unseen listener.
As we come to the Surrey side of the Thames, a passing thought may be given to Mrs. Rudge and her son Barnaby, who lived near at hand “in a by-street in Southwark, not far from London Bridge”; and we may recall the incident of Edward Chester being brought hither by Gabriel Varden, having been found wounded by a highwayman on the other side of the river. But it is altogether impossible to locate the house, the neighbourhood having so entirely changed during the present century. Onwards by the main thoroughfare of the Borough, we shall find, on the left-hand side of the way (No. 61), the (former) location of “The White Hart,” described in “Pickwick” as
“An old inn, which has preserved its external features unchanged, and which has escaped alike the rage for public improvement and the encroachments of private speculation. A great, rambling, queer old place, with galleries and passages and staircases, wide enough and antiquated enough to furnish materials for a hundred ghost stories.”
The old inn has been pulled down some years since; the original gateway only remains, leading to White Hart Yard. A tavern and luncheon-bar of modern erection now occupy one side of the old coach-yard in which Messrs. Pickwick, Wardle, and Perker made their first acquaintance with Mr. Samuel Weller, on that memorable occasion when Mr. Jingle had eloped from Dingley Dell with Miss Rachael Wardle, and had brought the lady to this establishment. Farther on, towards the end of the Borough, we arrive at Angel Place, a narrow passage near to St. George’s Church. It leads into Marshalsea Place, of which Dickens writes as follows in his preface to “Little Dorrit”:—
“Whoever goes into Marshalsea Place, turning out of Angel Court, leading to Bermondsey, will find his feet on the very paving-stones of the extinct Marshalsea jail; will see its narrow yard to the right, and to the left, very little altered if at all, except that the walls were lowered when the place got free; will look upon the rooms in which the debtors lived; and will stand among the crowding ghosts of many miserable years.”
This, then, was The Marshalsea Prison, in which, during Dickens’s youthful days, his father was imprisoned for debt; and the place is intimately associated with the story of Little Dorrit and her family. We must be all familiar with the Father of the Marshalsea, his brother Frederick, Maggie, and the several others of the dramatis personæ of that charming tale.
St. George’s Church, close at hand, will be remembered in connection with the above, as once affording refuge in its vestry for Little Dorrit, when the sexton accommodated her with a bed formed of the pew-cushions, the book of registers doing service as a pillow. She was afterwards married to Arthur Clennam in this church. Full particulars of the ceremony will be found in the last chapter of the tale. At a short distance from this point, down Blackman Street, on the right, is (No. 90) Lant Street. In Forster’s Biography it is narrated that Dickens, when a boy, lodged in this street what time his father was imprisoned in the Marshalsea. The house stood on part of the site now occupied by the Board School adjoining No. 46—
“A back attic was found for me at the house of an insolvent-court agent, who lived in Lant Street, in the Borough, where Bob Sawyer lodged many years afterwards. A bed and bedding were sent over for me, and made up on the floor. The little window had a pleasant prospect of a timber-yard; and when I took possession of my new abode, I thought it was a Paradise.”
This opinion of his boyhood seems to have been somewhat modified fifteen years later, when the “Pickwick Papers” were written, and Mr. Robert Sawyer had taken residence in the locality. We read—
“There is an air of repose about Lant Street, in the Borough, which sheds a gentle melancholy upon the soul. A house in Lant Street would not come within the denomination of a first-rate residence, in the strict acceptation of the term; but it is a most desirable spot, nevertheless. If a man wished to extract himself from the world, to remove himself from within the reach of temptation, to place himself beyond the possibility of any inducement to look out of the window, he should by all means go to Lant Street.”
Walking onwards from “this happy valley” past Suffolk Street, to the westward, turning off Borough Road, we may note on the north corner the site of the old King’s Bench Prison, in which Mr. Micawber was detained—in the top storey but one—pending the settlement of his pecuniary liabilities. Later on in the Copperfield history, Micawber appointed a meeting for David and Tom Traddles as follows:—
“Among other havens of domestic tranquillity and peace of mind, my feet will naturally tend towards the King’s Bench Prison. In stating that I shall be (D.V.) on the outside of the south wall of that place of incarceration on civil process, the day after to-morrow, at seven in the evening, precisely, my object in this epistolary communication is accomplished.”
See chapter 49 for particulars of the subsequent interview. This “dead wall” of the prison is also mentioned in the same book as the place where young David requested “the long-legged young man”—who had charge of his box for conveyance to the Dover coach-office—to stop for a minute while he (David) tied on the address. It will be remembered that poor David lost his box and his money on this occasion, when he started for Dover,
“Taking very little more out of the world, towards the retreat of his aunt, Miss Betsy, than he had brought into it on the night when his arrival gave her so much umbrage;”
the total sum of his remaining cash amounting to three half-pence.—See chapter 12.
The first reference of our author to King’s Bench Prison will be found in “Nicholas Nickleby” (chapter 46), on the occasion of the hero’s first visit to Madeline Bray, who resided with her father in one
“Of a row of mean and not over cleanly houses, situated within ‘the rules’ of the King’s Bench Prison;... comprising some dozen streets in which debtors who could raise money to pay large fees—from which their creditors did not derive any benefit—were permitted to reside.”
We learn from Allen’s “History of Surrey” that these rules comprehended all St. George’s Fields, one side of Blackman Street, and part of the Borough High Street, forming an area of about three miles in circumference. They could be purchased by the prisoners at the rate of five guineas for small debts, eight guineas for the first hundred pounds of debt, and about half that sum for every subsequent hundred.
The site of the prison is now occupied by workmen’s model dwellings named “Queen’s Buildings,” divided, north and south, by Scovell’s Road.
At the opposite side (east) of Newington Causeway, which here commences, is Union Road, late Horsemonger Lane; a short distance down which, on its south side, is “The Public Playground for Children,” formerly the site of Horsemonger Lane Gaol, erected at the back of the Surrey Sessions House. Here the execution of the Mannings took place, November 13th, 1849, on which occasion Charles Dickens was present. The same day he sent a notable letter to the Times, directing general attention to the demoralising effect of such public exhibitions; thus setting on foot an agitation which shortly resulted in the adoption of our present private mode of carrying out the last penalty of the law. After giving a forcible and graphic picture of the night scenes enacted by the disorderly crowd in waiting, the letter was thus continued:—
“When the sun rose brightly—as it did—it gilded thousands upon thousands of upturned faces, so inexpressibly odious in their brutal mirth or callousness, that a man had cause to shrink from himself as fashioned in the image of the devil. When the two miserable creatures who attracted all this ghastly sight about them, were turned quivering into the air, there was no more emotion, no more pity, no more thought that two immortal souls had gone to judgment, no more restraint in any of the previous obscenities, than if the name of Christ had never been heard in this world, and there was no belief among men but that they perished like the beasts. I have seen, habitually, some of the worst sources of general contamination and corruption in this country, and I think there are not many phases of London life that could surprise me. I am solemnly convinced that nothing that ingenuity could devise to be done in this city, in the same compass of time, could work such ruin as one public execution; and I stand astounded and appalled by the wickedness it exhibits.”
Mr. Chivery resided with his family in Horsemonger Lane, in close proximity to the old prison, and kept a tobacconist’s shop for the supply of his Marshalsea customers and the general public of the neighbourhood—
“A rural establishment one storey high, which had the benefit of the air from the yards of Horsemonger Lane Jail, and the advantage of a retired walk under the wall of that pleasant establishment. The business was of too modest a character to support a life-size Highlander, but it maintained a little one on a bracket on the door-post, who looked like a fallen cherub that had found it necessary to take to a kilt.”
In the little back-yard of the premises, “Young John”—disappointed in love—was accustomed to sit and meditate; taking cold among the “tuneless groves” of the newly-washed family linen, and composing suitable epitaphs to his own memory, in melancholy anticipation of an early decease.
Proceeding along the Borough Road, we arrive in due course at St. George’s Obelisk, which stands at the meeting-point of six roads. In the twelfth chapter of “David Copperfield” we read of the Obelisk as the place near to which the “long-legged young man with a very little empty donkey-cart” was standing, whom David engaged to take his box to the Dover coach-office for sixpence. And we all remember the sad dénouement of that engagement, as previously mentioned. Near at hand, at the top of Blackfriars Road, stands The Surrey Theatre, at which Fanny Dorrit was engaged as a dancer, while her Uncle Frederick played the clarionet in the orchestra.
Crossing over to the opposite thoroughfare of Lambeth Road, the Rambler will find, at a short distance on the left, the entrance to Bethlehem Hospital, familiarly known as Bedlam. A reference to this asylum will be found in the pages of “The Uncommercial Traveller,” where our author implies the idea that the sane and insane are, at all events, equal in their dreams—
“Are not all of us outside this Hospital, who dream more or less, in the condition of those inside it, every night of our lives?”
The question may afford us matter for speculation as the route is continued through Lambeth Road, at the end of which we turn to the right, in the direction of the river. At the angle of the roads, past the Lambeth Police Office, we reach Christchurch, conspicuous for style and position, at which the Rev. Newman Hall some years since officiated. We may here recall the criticism given by Dickens with reference to this popular preacher in the book above referred to. See “Two Views of a Cheap Theatre,” as contained in “The Uncommercial Traveller.”
We now come onwards by Westminster Bridge Road, passing beneath the span of the London and South-Western Railway. Near Westminster Bridge, on the left, is the old site of Astley’s Theatre (non-existent since 1896). This establishment had cause to bless itself once a quarter, in days gone by, when Christopher Nubbles, Barbara, and friends patronised the performance. We may here remember the occasion when Kit knocked a man over the head with his bundle of oranges for “scroudging his parent with unnecessary violence;” also the happy evening that followed, when little Jacob first saw a play and learnt what oysters meant (vide the “Old Curiosity Shop”). On the site formerly occupied by this favourite place of entertainment, there now stand five handsome houses and shops, Nos. 225 to 233 Westminster Bridge Road.
Past a few doors beyond these, above, on the same side, we reach Lambeth Palace Road, turning by which we may walk (or ride by tramcar) a short distance southward. Leaving on the right the seven handsome buildings of St. Thomas’s Hospital, we pass—on the left—farther on, Lambeth Episcopal Palace, and cross the Thames by Lambeth Suspension Bridge.
On the Middlesex shore we come into Millbank Street, and bestow a brief thought on Poor “Martha,” following her in imagination as she took her melancholy way southward in this same street, towards the waste riverside locality, “near the great blank prison” of Millbank, long since replaced by Tate’s Gallery.
Here it will be remembered that David Copperfield and his trusty friend Mr. Peggotty saved the despairing girl from a self-sought and miserable death.
At a few minutes’ distance northward from the bridge, Church Street will be found, leading (left) to Smith Square. In this street lived The Dolls’ Dressmaker, little Jenny Wren. The whimsical description of the central church—St. John the Evangelist’s—as given in the pages of “Our Mutual Friend,” may be worth comparison with the original—
“In this region are a certain little street called Church Street, and a certain little blind square called Smith Square, in the centre of which last retreat is a very hideous church, with four towers at the four corners, generally resembling some petrified monster, frightful and gigantic, on its back with its legs in the air.”
The house in which Jenny and her father lived is stated to have been one of the modest little houses which stand at the point where the street gives into Smith Square. The Rambler will observe four houses answering this description on the north side of Church Street; No. 9 has been indicated as the humble home in question, where “the person of the house” and her “bad boy” resided. Here, also, Lizzie Hexam lodged for some time after the death of her father, during the days when her uncertain lover, Eugene Wrayburn, was yet a bachelor.
We may now return to the main road and continue the northward route by Abingdon Street, crossing Old Palace Yard. A passing thought may here be given to Mr. John Harmon, the Julius Handford of “Our Mutual Friend,” who furnished the Police authorities with his address—The Exchequer Coffee House, Palace Yard, Westminster. Such a house of resort no longer exists in this vicinity.
On the west side the Rambler passes the precincts of Westminster Abbey, beneath whose “high embowed roof” repose the sacred ashes of the illustrious dead. To this venerable fane—the especial resting-place of English literary genius—we will return after our concluding ramble to the birthplace of our greatest English novelist.
The onward road takes us past the Houses of Parliament, on the right, to Parliament Street, leading to Whitehall and Charing Cross. At a short distance up this thoroughfare is Derby Street—the first turning on the right; on the north corner of which there stood—until 1899—an old public-house, “The Red Lion” (No. 48). This place may be specially noted as the house at which young David Copperfield gave his “magnificent order” for a glass of the “Genuine Stunning,” and where the landlord’s wife gave him back the money and a kiss besides. This was an actual experience in the boyhood of Dickens, and is referred to in Mr. Forster’s Biography, where the house is indicated as above. It is now being rebuilt and modernised.
Proceeding by Whitehall, and crossing to the opposite side of the street, we shortly arrive at The Horse Guards, and may take passing observation of the Old Clock—famed for its perfection of time-keeping—by whose warning note Mark Tapley regulated the period of the interview next referred to. Passing through the arched passage beneath, we now attain the eastern side of St. James’s Park. This locality will be remembered as the place of meeting between Mary Graham and Martin Chuzzlewit, previous to his departure for America. As the young lady was escorted by Mark in the early morning from a City hotel, we may be certain that the interview must have taken place on this side of the Park, doubtless near the principal gate of the promenade facing the Horse Guards’ entrance.
Leaving the Park northward, by Spring Gardens, we come into Cockspur Street, shortly leading (left) to Pall Mall. At the first corner of the latter stands Her Majesty’s Theatre. At this establishment, as reconstructed during the early years of the century, Mrs. Nickleby attended, by special invitation of Sir Mulberry Hawk, Messrs. Pyke and Pluck assisting on that notable occasion, when, by a prearranged coincidence, Kate and the Wititterlys occupied the adjoining box.—Vide “Nicholas Nickleby,” chapter 27.
This Opera House was burnt down 1789, and rebuilt the following year. It was remodelled 1818, and again destroyed by fire, December 6, 1867. Being a second time rebuilt, it was, for some seasons, closed since 1875. The present theatre is of recent and splendid erection.
At this central position, from which we may readily take departure for any point in London, the present Ramble will terminate. To all those needing reparation of tissue, a visit to Epitaux’s Restaurant, near the Haymarket Theatre, will be satisfactory.