Here we picked some time up the river, and at last debarked at Vauxhall. up Lord Granby, arrived very drunk from Jenny's Whim. assembled in our booth, Lady Caroline in the front, with the vizor of her hat erect, and looking gloriously jolly and handsome. She had fetched my brother Orford from the next box, where he was enjoying himself with his petite partie, to help us to mince chickens. We minced seven chickens into a China dish, which Lady Caroline stewed over a lamp with three pats of butter and a flagon of water, stirring and rattling and laughing, and we every minute expecting the dish to fly about our ears. She had brought Betty the fruit-girl, with hampers of strawberries and cherries from Rogers's, and made her wait upon us, and then made her sup by us at a little table. . . . In short, the whole air of our party was sufficient, as you will easily imagine, to take up the whole attention of the Garden; so much so, that from II o'clock till half an hour after I we had the whole concourse round our booth; at last, they came into the little gardens of each booth on the sides of ours, till Harry Vane took up a bumper and drank their healths, and was proceeding to treat them with still greater freedoms. It was 3 o'clock before we got home.— Walpole to Montague, vol. ii. p. 211-214. This [Foxhall] is the place where are those called Spring Gardens, laid out in so grand a taste, that they are frequented in the three summer months by most of the nobility and gentry, then in and near London; and are often honoured with some of the royal family, who are here entertained with the sweet song of numbers of nightingales, in concert with the best band of musick in England. Here are fine pavilions, shady groves, and most delightful walks, illuminated by above 1000 lamps, so disposed that they all take fire together, almost as quick as lightning, and dart such a sudden blaze as is perfectly surprising. Here are among others, 2 curious statues of Apollo the god, and Mr. Handel the master of musick; and in the centre of the area, where the walks terminate, is erected the temple for the musicians, which is encompassed all round with handsome seats, decorated with pleasant paintings, on subjects most happily adapted to the season, place, and company.—England's Gazetteer, 12mo, 1751 (art. "Foxhall "). There oft returning from the green retreats Where fair Vauxhallia decks her sylvan seats; Where each spruce nymph from city Counters free, Sips the frothed syllabub, or fragrant tea; While with sliced ham, scraped beef, and burnt champagne, Her prentice lover soothes his amorous pain. Canning's Loves of the Triangles, 1798. The title Spring Garden was retained till 1785, when it was changed to Vauxhall Gardens; but the annual licence was to the last taken out in the name of the Spring Gardens. The gardens continued to be a place of fashionable amusement nearly to the end of the reign of George III.; and after they ceased to be fashionable they were long a popular resort. In their later years they were a favourite place for balloon ascents. M. Garnerin ascended several times from these gardens, and on one occasion, September 21, 1802, he descended from a great height in a parachute. It was at Vauxhall that Green became famous as an aeronaut. His voyage to the continent, with Messrs. Monck Mason and Holland, was made in his great balloon, 80 feet high, from Vauxhall, at half-past one in the afternoon of November 7, 1836, and the descent near Weilburg in Nassau about half-past seven next morning. After many changes of managers and fluctuations in prosperity Vauxhall Gardens were opened for the last time on the night of Monday, July 25, 1859. Then, as the advertisements ran, C I૪ "Farewell to Vauxhall. The last night for ever! . . . The last Dancing! the last Suppers! the last Punch! And no extra charge!" Soon after the closing of the gardens the site was laid out in streets, and the whole is now covered with houses, schools, and a church (St. Peter's) designed by J. L. Pearson, architect. The memory of the gardens is preserved in Vauxhall Walk, Tyer Street, etc. There is a capital old view of the gardens by J. Müller, after Wall, and another by S. Maurer, dated 1744; but the best of all is "A general Prospect of Vauxhall Gardens, showing at one view the disposition of the whole Gardens," engraved for the 1754 edition of Stow. Later views abound. Vauxhall Park, SOUTH LAMBETH, a small park of about 8 acres in the South Lambeth Road, opened by H.R.H. the Prince of Wales on Monday, July 7, 1890. The cost was about £45,000, raised partly from the rates but largely by private subscriptions. The park includes the garden of the Right Hon. Henry Fawcett and the house in which he died. The park has been handed over to the vestry of Lambeth and laid out at the expense of the Kyrle Society. Vedast's (St.), FOSTER LANE, a church in the ward of Farringdon Within; destroyed in the Great Fire, and rebuilt from the design of Sir Christopher Wren. The lane as well as the church originally bore the name of St. Vedast; this was corrupted into Fauster and then into Foster. In the 17th century the correct name of the church was revived with the alias of St. Foster's, but the lane retained the corrupted form. It serves as well for the parish of St. Michael-leQuerne. The right of presentation belongs alternately to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's. The church is noteworthy as having one of the most original and picturesque of Wren's spires. The steeple of the old church, being only partially injured by the fire of 1666, was retained when the new church was built, but in 1694 it was found necessary to take it down, when the present one was erected. Like most of Wren's towers it is quite plain till it rises above the houses. The spire is square in plan, but the lower stage is slightly concave, the second convex, and considerable character is given by clusters of engaged shafts projecting boldly from the angles, thus producing great play of light and shade. The entire height is 150 feet. The interior of the church has also some peculiarities. It consists of a nave (70 feet by 34) and south aisle (50 feet by 20, the tower being taken out of it); and in order to make the most of the site the walls are not exactly at right angles, the north side being a few feet longer than the south, which, again, is a little out of a straight line. Observe the altar with its Corinthian columns, vase-like finials, carved scrolls and festoons, a characteristic work of Grinling Gibbons. John Scott alias Rotherham, Archbishop of York and Lord 1674), was baptized here on August 24, 1591. His father, Nicholas, was a goldsmith in Cheapside. Vere Street, CLARE MARKET, was so called after Elizabeth Vere, (d. 1683), daughter of Horatio, Lord Vere, of Tilbury, and wife of John Holles, second Earl of Clare. Sir Thomas Lyttelton was living in this street in 1688.1 Here stood Gibbons's Tennis Court, converted into a theatre by Thomas Killigrew; and in this temporary building his company performed from 1660 till April 1663, when the new theatre in Drury Lane was ready to receive them. They furnished a list of twenty pieces, which they termed their stock plays. Of these three only were Shakespeare's, but one of them, Henry IV., was acted on the opening night, November 8, 1660. Dryden's first play, the Wild Gallant, was brought out here in February 1663. Rest you merry There is another play-house to let in Vere Street. Davenant, The Play-house to be Lett, 1663 (Works, p. 72). Ogilby, the poet, drew a lottery of books on Tuesday, June 2, 1668, "at the Old Theatre, between Lincoln's Inn Fields and Vere Street." He describes the books in his advertisement as all of his own designment and composure." One of the many "lock-ups" with which Sir Richard Steele became acquainted was situated in this street. On. October 24, 1740, he writes to his wife from "the Bull Head, Clare Market," and again on the 30th from "Vere Street." He was out the next day. Vere Street, OXFORD STREET to CAVENDISH SQUARE, derives its name from the Veres, Earls of Oxford. In St. Peter's Chapel, in this street (designed by James Gibbs, 1721-1724), cost £7000, William, second Duke of Portland, was married (July 11, 1734) to the Lady Margaret Cavendish Harley, only daughter and heir of Edward Harley, Earl of Oxford and Mortimer, by his wife, the Lady Henrietta Cavendish, only daughter and heir of John Holles, Duke of Newcastle. The surrounding streets preserve many of these names. This Duchess of Portland formed the celebrated museum which bore her name. The celebrated Rev. Frederick Denison Maurice was incumbent of this chapel from 1860 until his death, 1872. John Michael Rysbrack, the sculptor, lived for forty years in this street, and died at Bristol 1770. Mr. Rysbrach's house is in the further end of Bond Street, and up cross Tyburne Rode [Oxford Street], in Ld. Oxford's grownd upon the right hand going to his Chaple.-Gibbs, the Architect, to Pope (supp. vol. to Works of Pope, 8vo. 1825, p. 154). Edward Askew Sothern, the celebrated comedian (Lord Dundreary), died at his residence, No. 1 Vere Street, January 19, 1881, of consumption. Verge, Court of The, was instituted by James I. on June 8, 1611, apparently by the advice of Sir Francis Bacon, to take cognisance 1 Rate-books of St. Clement's Danes, "of personal actions which concern persons not being, or which hereafter shall not be, of our household," but which are within the verge of the King's house; there being some doubt as to the powers of the Marshalsea in such cases. Sir Thomas Vavasour and Sir Francis Bacon were the first judges. For nuisances and grievances I will for the present only single out one, that ye present the decays of highways and bridges, for where the majesty of the King's House brings recourse and access it is both disgraceful to the King and diseaseful to the people if the ways near abouts be not fair and good: whereas it is strange to see the chargeable pavements, causeways in the avenues and entrances of the towns abroad beyond the seas; whereas London, the second City (at the least) of Europe, in glory, in greatness, and in wealth, cannot be discerned by the fairness of the ways, though a little, perhaps, by the badness of them, from a village.-Bacon's Charge to the Jury on opening the Court of the Verge, 1611 (Works, vol. ii. p. 288). Moria. There should not a nymph or a widow be got with child in the Verge but I would guess, within one or two, who was the right father.-Ben Jonson, Cynthia's Revels, Act iv. Sc. I. The Verge of the Court was a place privileged from arrests by ordinary officers of the law, and retained its rights till all privileges of sanctuary were abolished. It The Verge of the Court was that ground about Whitehall and St. James's which belongs to the Crown, and which is privileged from arrests. The privileged place includes Charing Cross on the north side of the way, from the corner of St. Martin's Lane to Hedge Lane, and both the King's Mews. On the south side from the street leading into Spring Gardens to the public house beyond the Treasury, and all Spring Gardens; on the opposite side of the way from Northumberland House to the end of Privy Garden, taking in all Scotland Yard, Whitehall, and Privy Garden. further includes all the Parks, the Stable-Yard, St. James's, Cleveland Court and all Hyde Park, except the mere crossing from the Green Park to Hyde Park. Most houses in the Verge let lodgings; and I knew an artful fellow once that eluded all his creditors by residing there: if he wanted to go out of it he took water at Whitehall Stairs, which place is privileged; and as no writ can be served on the water without a water-bailiff's warrant, which cannot be immediately procured, he would land safely in the City or on the Surrey side; for a Middlesex writ loses its force in the City and in Surrey, unless backed by a City or a Surrey magistrate, which requires time and preparation to get done.-Trusler's London Adviser and Guide, 12mo, 1790. Victoria Docks, PLAISTOW LEVEL, east of Bow Creek, were authorised by Parliament in 1850-1851, and opened in 1856. Excavated from the comparatively valueless marshes, the surface of which was below high-water mark, the docks were constructed on a larger scale, with greater facility and at less cost than the older docks in London. The area secured by the Company was about 600 acres, of which 200 acres were appropriated to dock purposes and the rest retained for building on and for future extension if necessary. The water area of the new docks was 100 acres, a little over that of the West India Docks, and exceeding the united area of all the other docks on the left bank of the Thames. The docks were especially fitted for vessels of the largest size, the intention being to save such vessels the risks attending the navigation of the narrow and crowded upper reaches of the river. The entrance lock, below Blackwall, is 325 feet long, 80 feet wide, and 28 feet deep. Quays and warehouses were carefully arranged and encircled with a complete system of railways and telegraphs, and hydraulic machinery was for the first time introduced-it is now employed in all the London Docks. The Company was empowered to raise a capital of £1,000,000 and borrow £200,000. The works were completed for about £1,000,000. The docks were found to answer the anticipations of the projectors, and have been steadily growing in favour with merchants and shipowners. This increasing competition of the Victoria Docks led to the union of the East and West India Docks, the London Docks, and the St. Katharine's Dock Companies in 1863, and after some negotiations to the amalgamation with them of the Victoria Docks, the latter undertaking being purchased in 1869 for £1,062,000. Since then the united Company has expended on the Victoria Dock a very large sum in the construction of warehouses and on various appliances; and in 1876-1880 it added a magnificent new dock to the east of the former, and with it uniting the Bugsby and Galleon Reaches of the Thames by a straight water-way 2 miles long, and saving steamers of the larger class the intricate navigation of the narrow upper reaches of the Thames. The Albert Dock as this extension of the Victoria Dock is named, was formally opened, May 7, 1880. The great basin is 6500 feet long, 490 wide, and has a depth of 27 feet below Trinity high-water mark. The entrance lock, by the Beckton Gas Works opposite Triphook Point, a short distance below Woolwich, is 800 feet long and 80 feet wide. A cut 200 feet long and 80 feet wide connects the two. The Albert Dock has proved of immense value as an auxiliary to Woolwich Arsenal in affording the means of rapidly victualling and preparing the large Government troop and store ships for sea with previously unequalled ease and quickness. Connected with the Albert Dock are two graving docks, respectively 500 and 410 feet long. The total water area of the Victoria and Albert Docks is about 185 acres; the land area is 430 acres. About these docks has grown up the large and populous districts or Canning Town and Silvertown, with half a dozen churches, and many chapels, schools, halls, institutes, and hotels, inns and public-houses of all grades. The "uptown" warehouses of the Victoria Docks are on the line of the Blackwall Railway by the Minories. Victoria Embankment. [See Thames Embankment.] Victoria Gardens, WESTMINSTER. The long vacant piece of ground on the south of the Victoria Tower of the Houses of Parliament, between Abingdon Street and the Thames, about an acre in extent, was laid out, 1880-1881, by Her Majesty's Board of Works, as a summer garden for public use and enjoyment, and named the Victoria Gardens. A vote of £2400 was made for laying and planting the ground, March 1881, in addition to which the Rt. Hon. W. H. Smith, M.P., contributed £1000 towards the cost. VOL. III 2 F |
