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in the reign of Elizabeth. Salisbury House, on the site of the present Cecil Street and Salisbury Street, and Northampton, now Northumberland House, were built in the reign of James I. Middleton, the dramatist, describes it not untruly at this time as "the luxurious Strand."1 The stables of Durham House were taken down in 1610 to erect the New Exchange; York House was taken down in 1675; and Burghley, or Exeter House, in 1676, and Exeter 'Change erected the next year on the principal site. Arundel House was taken down in 1678; Worcester House in 1683; Salisbury House in 1696; Bedford House in 1704; Essex House in 1710; the New Exchange in 1737, and the Adelphi afterwards erected on the same site: old Somerset House was taken down in 1775; Butcher Row in 1813; and Exeter 'Change in 1829, when the great Strand improvements at the West End were made pursuant to 7 Geo. IV., c. 77.

The Lawyer embraced our young gentleman and gave him many riotous instructions how to carry himself: told him he must acquaint himself with many gallants of the Inns of Court, and keep rank with those that spend most, always wearing a bountiful disposition about him, lofty and liberal; his lodging must be about the Strand, in any case, being remote from the handicraft scent of the City.-Father Hubburd's Tales, 4to, 1604 (Middleton's Works, vol. v. p. 573).

For divers yeares of late certain fishmongers have erected and set up fishstalles in the middle of the street in the Strand, almost over against Denmark House, all which were broken down by speciall Commission, this moneth of May, 1630, least in short space they might grow from stalles to shedds, and then to dwelling houses, as the like was in former time in Olde Fish Street, and in Saint Nicholas Shambles, and in other places.-Howes, ed. 1631, p. 1045.

Come let us leave the Temple's silent walls,
The business to my distant lodging calls :
Through the long Strand together let us stray,
With thee conversing I forget the way.
Behold that narrow street, which steep descends,
Whose building to the shining shore extends;
Here Arundel's fam'd structure rear'd its frame,
The street alone retains an empty name :
Where Titian's glowing paint the canvas warm'd,
And Raphael's fair design with judgment charm'd,
Now hangs the Bell-man's song, and pasted here,
The coloured prints of Overton appear.

Where statues breath'd the work of Phidias' hands,
A wooden pump or lonely watch-house stands ;

There Essex' stately pile adorn'd the shore,

There Cecil's, Bedford's, Villiers',-now no more.-Gay, Trivia.

Where the fair columns of St. Clement stand,

Whose straitened bounds incroach upon the Strand;

Where the low pent-house bows the walker's head,

And the rough pavement wounds the yielding tread;

Where not a post protects the narrow space,
And strung in twines combs dangle in thy face;
Summon at once thy courage, rouse thy care,

Stand firm, look back, be resolute, beware.

Forth issuing from steep lanes,2 the Collier's steeds

1 Middleton's Works, by Dyce, vol. v. p. 578.

2 Milford Lane.

Drag the black load; another cart succeeds,

Team follows team, crowds heap'd on crowds appear.—Ibid.

The Strand is now given up entirely to business purposes, and the "luxurious" mansions of the nobility and gentry must be sought for farther westward. The Strand is remarkable as containing more theatres than any other street in London. In it are to be noticednorth side Adelphi, Nos. 410, 411; Vaudeville, No. 404; Lyceum, No. 354 Gaiety, No. 345; Opera Comique, No. 299. South side: Strand, No. 168; and Terry's, Nos. 105, 106. Besides these the Royal Italian Opera House, Drury Lane. Theatre, the Globe, the Savoy, Toole's, and the Avenue only lie a short distance off the Strand. [See these respective headings.] The business of the Strand now forms a kind of connecting link between the hurry and bustle of the City and the comfort and leisure of the West End.

Eminent Inhabitants (not already mentioned).-Sir Harry Vane the elder (temp. Charles I.), next door to Northumberland House (then Suffolk House), where now stands the Grand Hotel;1 this was long the official residence of the Secretary of State. Mr. Secretary Nicholas was living here in Charles II.'s reign. William Lilly, the astrologer (d. 1681), at "the corner house, over against Strand Bridge." He was servant for some time to a man of the name of Gilbert Wright, and performed many of the menial offices of his houseswept the street before his door, cleaned his shoes, scraped the trenchers, and played the part of tub-boy to the Thames in carrying water for his master's use. "I have helped," he says, "to carry eighteen tubs of water in one morning." Lilly got on in life, married his master's widow, and came at last to possess the house in which he had performed so many menial occupations. William Faithorne, the engraver (d. 1691), "at the sign of the Ship, next to the Drake, opposite to the Palsgrave Head Tavern, without Temple Bar." Pierce Tempest, the engraver of the Cries of London, which bear his name :

There is now Published the Cryes and Habits of London, lately drawn after the Life in great Variety of Actions, Curiously Engraved upon 50 Copper Plates, fit for the Ingenious and Lovers of Art. Printed and Sold by P. Tempest over against Somerset House in the Strand.-The London Gazette, May 28 to 31, 1688.

At "No. 18 in the Strand" lived J. Mathews the bookseller, and father of Charles Mathews the actor, and in this house the latter was born. Jacob Tonson, the bookseller and friend of Dryden, at "Shakespeare's Head, over against Catherine Street, in the Strand," now No. 141; the house (since rebuilt) was afterwards occupied by Andrew Millar, the publisher, and friend of Thomson, Fielding, Hume, and Robertson; and after Millar's death by Thomas Cadell, his apprentice, and friend, and the publisher of Gibbon. Thomson's Seasons, Fielding's Tom Jones, and the Histories of Hume, Robertson, and Gibbon were first published at this house. Millar was a Scotchman, and distinguished his house by the sign of "Buchanan's Head." James Northcote, R.A.,

1 This house was No. 1 in the Strand, and was the first house in London that was numbered. -Smith's Nollekens, vol. i. p. 236.

lodged at "Mrs. Lefty's, week gained by colouring "At the corner of Beaufort

on his first coming to London in 1771 Grocer in the Strand." Six shillings a prints of flowers covered all his expenses. Buildings, in the Strand," lived Charles Lillie, the perfumer, known to every reader of The Tatler and The Spectator. [See Beaufort Buildings.] Mrs. Inchbald, the actress and dramatic writer, was living in 1809 at No. 163, "by the side of the new Church," and from the top of this house was a witness of the burning of Drury Lane Theatre. No. 332, now the printing-offices of The Weekly Times and Echo, was during its flourishing epoch the office of The Morning Chronicle,—the upper floors being the Editor's rooms and the residence of Mr. John Black during his long editorship of that journal.1 No. 346 (corner of Wellington Street), now the offices of The Field and The Queen, was formerly Doyley's warehouse for woollen goods. Dryden in his Limberham speaks of "Doily Petticoats," and Steele in The Guardian (No. 102) of his "Doily Suit," while Gay in his Trivia describes a Doily as a poor defence against the cold. No. 277 was in the time of Queen Anne the shop of Bat Pidgeon, known to every reader of The Spectator.2 At No. 132 Bathoe the bookseller established in 1740 the first circulating library in London. On the first floor of a house at the eastern corner of Castle Court (where Agar Street now stands) the Society of Arts held their meetings in 1756, and there they erected assaying furnaces. Nathaniel Smith and Joseph Nollekens were playfellows here. Adjoining Temple Bar and on a part of the site of the New Law Courts, stood the small pent-house of lath and plaster occupied for many years by Crockford 3 (d. 1844) as a shell-fish shop; here he made the money with which he established the Club in St. James's Street which bore his name. [See Crockford's.] The Banking House of Messrs. Coutts and Company is numbered 59.

The business hitherto carried on in St. Martin's Lane was removed by Middleton to its present site in 1757—in a house erected for it, the central house of eleven which formed the New Exchange, or Britain's Bourse. The house itself was at this time known as the Three Crowns. In 1755 Mr. James Coutts of Edinburgh was admitted as a partner, the firm being then entitled Campbell and Coutts. By the death of George Campbell in 1760 Coutts was left sole partner. Soon after his brother Thomas was admitted, and he, surviving his brother, became the head of the firm, the Old Coutts of boundless wealth. By his death in 1822 the male line of Coutts became extinct.-"Account of Coutts Family," by Robert Chambers, Chambers's Journal, November 7, 1874.

[See the various buildings mentioned under their several names, and also the several streets along the line.]

Strand Bridge, the original name for the fine bridge by John Rennie, but changed by Act of Parliament, and now universally known as Waterloo Bridge. It was previously applied to a bridge over the

1 See Forty Years' Recollections, by Charles Mackay, LL.D., vol. i. p. 71.

2 Smith's Nollekens, vol. i. p. 3; vol. ii. p. 217.

3 There is a good view of the house in No. 1 of J. W. Archer's Vestiges of Old London.

streamlet from St. Clement's Well, where it crossed the Strand; and afterwards to a landing-pier at the foot of Strand Lane. [See Strand Lane.]

Then had ye in the high street a fair bridge called Strand Bridge, and under it a lane or way down to the landing-place on the bank of the Thames.-Stow, p. 165. February 25, 1527.-The Lady Elizabeth came riding from her house at Hatfield to London unto her place called Somerset Place, beyond Strand

Bridge.-Strype, Hist. Mem., vol. iii. p. 444; Machyn, p. 167.

I landed with ten sail of Apricock boats at Strand Bridge, after having put in at Nine Elms, and taken in Melons, consigned by Mr. Cuffe of that place to Sarah Sewell and Company at their stall in Covent Garden.--The Spectator, No. 454.

There was a third bridge in the Strand in addition to Ivy Bridge and Strand Bridge, the remains of which were discovered in 1832 during the construction of a sewer a little east of St. Clement's Church. "It was of stone and consisted of one arch about 11 feet long, very antique in its appearance and of the most durable construction." 1 It is difficult for us to conceive what a London roadway must have been in the time of the Tudors and Stuarts. When James Naylor, the weak-minded Quaker enthusiast, was flogged by the direct order of Parliament, the historian of the sect records that

The 18th December [1656] J. Naylor suffered part: and after having stood full two hours with his head in the Pillory, was stripped, and whipped at a cart's tail, from Palace Yard to the Old Exchange, and received three hundred and ten stripes; and the executioner would have given him one more (as he confessed to the Sheriff), there being three hundred and eleven kennels, but his foot slipping, the stroke fell upon his own hand, which hurt him much.-Sewel's Hist. of the Quakers, 4to, 1709, vol. i. p. 239.

There were thus no fewer than 311 open channels crossing the roadway between Westminster Hall and the Royal Exchange; and after heavy rains every lane leading to the Thames must have been an open watercourse. Perhaps the largest of the unbridged channels was at Milford (Mill Ford) Lane.

Strand Inn, an Inn of Court belonging to the Middle Temple. It was pulled down by the Protector Somerset, and part of the present Somerset House occupies the site.

Strand Lane, in the STRAND, east of Somerset House, and opposite the east end of St. Mary's Church, was originally the channel of the rivulet which crossed the great thoroughfare under Strand Bridge. It must be remembered that the Strand at this part has been raised fully 20 feet above the ancient level. The lane led to the landing-place, at one time known as Strand Bridge; but this was destroyed in forming the Thames Embankment and the lane is no longer a thoroughfare. On the east side of this lane is a genuine ancient Roman Bath, which is well worth inspection. The bath is 13 feet long and 6 feet wide, and is supplied by a spring of beautifully clear, cold water. The bricks of which it is constructed are similar to those of the City Wall, but smaller in size.2

1 Knight, vol. ii. p. 151.

2 There is an engraving of the bath in Knight's

London, vol. ii. p. 164, 1842. It has been little altered since.

Strand Theatre, on the south side of the Strand, four doors west of Surrey Street, formerly called Punch's Playhouse, is principally devoted to burlesque and farce. The exterior is unpretentious, the interior well appointed.

Stratford Le Bow, (the Stratford atte Bowe of our old writers of the 14th and 15th centuries), now commonly called Bow, formerly a hamlet of Stepney, but made into a separate parish in 1720, lies a mile east of Mile End. The name Stratford or Straet-ford is derived from a ford through the Lea at the place where it was crossed by the old Roman Road to Colchester. About the beginning of the 12th century Queen Matilda built a bridge over the Lea near the "Old Ford," and from the shape of this bridge the name of the village took the addition of "atte Bow."

Matilda, wife of Henry I., having herself been well washed in the water, caused two bridges to be builded in a place one mile distant from the Old Ford, of the which one was situated over Lee at the head of the town of Stratford nowe called Bowe, because the bridge was arched like unto a bowe, a rare piece of work, for before that time the like had never been seen in England. The other over the little brooke, commonly called Chanelse Bridge.-Leland's Collections.

The old bridge, consisting of three narrow arches, had been so often repaired as to leave little of the original structure when taken down in 1835. The present one, a substantial structure in Aberdeen granite, of a single elliptical arch, 70 feet in span, was erected from the designs of Messrs. Walker and Burges, and formally opened February 14, 1839. The French of Chaucer's "Prioress" was spoken in the Stratford manner:And Frensch sche spak ful faire and fetysly, After the scole of Stratford atte Bowe, For Frensch of Parys was to hire unknowe.

Prologue to Canterbury Tales, 1. 124.

Bakers living at Stratford-le-Bow supplied London with bread as late as the reign of Henry VIII.

A custome which many holde that Mile-End is no walke without a recreation at Stratford Bow with creame and cakes.-Kemp's Nine Days' Wonder, 4to, 1600.

William de Croton, of the county of Suffolk, was attached for pretending to be a sergeant of the Sheriffs of London. Meeting Richolda of Stratford and Mabel of Stratford, bakeresses, who were bringing bread to the City with their carts, for sale, he arrested the carts of the said Richolda and Mabel until they had paid him a fine. Riley's Memorials, p. 79.

This parish was also for some time the resort of the butchers of London, "who do rent their houses at Stratforde and around Stratforde." In 1371 the air of the City having been "greatly corrupted and infected" by the slaughtering of cattle therein, Edward III. ordained that

All oxen, sheep, swine and other large animals, for the sustenance of our city aforesaid to be slaughtered, should be taken to the village of Stretteford, on the one side and the village of Knyghtebrugge on the other side of the said city and there be slaughtered.—Riley's Memorials, p. 356.

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