Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/237

 the disadvantages of the Carey-street site are very much more obvious than its advantages. In the first place—and this is a very important consideration—the area we have acquired for our eight hundred thousand pounds already expended, is ludicrously inadequate to the requirements of the profession and the public. Assuming that parliament will vote the seven hundred thousand pounds now proposed to be asked for, the ground at the disposal of the architects would even then be far too small for the great end in view. If we are to have new Law Courts at all, and if they are to cost us the enormous sum to which we appear to stand irrevocably committed, let us at any rate have a real Palace of Justice, where there shall be full accommodation, and to spare, for judges and barristers, jurymen and witnesses, suitors and public. Let there be no stinting of accommodation, no makeshifts, no turning of lobbies and passages into dim offices and courts:—expedients which have so often been forced upon unwilling architects by the exigencies of contracted space. Our new Law Courts must, in a word, be everything that the old Law Courts are not, and the first requirement is obviously—plenty of space. Our architects must have plenty of room to work in; or makeshift work and inferior accommodation become inevitable.

Light is another very serious requirement. The Law Courts, if built on the Carey-street site, might as well, except as far as the Strand front is concerned, be put down a tolerably deep shaft. They would on all other sides be entirely surrounded by buildings, and on the north-west side the huge bulk of King's College Hospital would effectually overshadow that part of the national building. Some day, also, no doubt there must come extensive rebuilding on the north side of Carey-street; and as the houses that will be erected there will most undoubtedly be considerably loftier than those which stand there now, the prospect of daylight is not encouraging in that quarter. More westerly again are the pleasant shades of Clare Market, Great Queen-street, and Drury-lane—not, on the whole, shades that one would select, and on that side also, therefore, the look-out is but poor. The Strand front is, no doubt, good; but the drawback of the disturbance caused by the noisy and interminable traffic would, there can be little doubt, drive the Courts and more important offices to more retired parts of the building, and consequently away from its better lighted portion.

What about the state of affairs outside the buildings?

The Strand is one of the most crowded thoroughfares in London, and, even now, is—in its eastern extremity in particular—totally inadequate for the stream of traffic constantly trying to flow through it. Even the removal of the south side of Holywell-street, or indeed demolition up to the south side of Wych-street, would but imperfectly relieve this great artery. For is there not Fleet-street eastward?—the narrow, inconvenient, often utterly impassable Fleet-street?

Except the Strand for the west, and Fleet-street for the east, the Palace of Justice, Carey-street, would be entirely without approaches. From the north there is no approach whatever, except Chancery-lane, with its magnificent outlet into Holborn already as full as need be. It is true that the wretched little alley in question, not wide enough for two vehicles to pass at one time, is so obviously a disgrace to the City that its removal cannot be much longer deferred, and therefore need not be seriously considered in the discussion of this question; but, given a proper entrance to Chancery-lane from Holborn, the lane itself is by no means large enough for the traffic that may be expected to flood it on its way to Carey-street. From Lincoln's-inn-fields, which itself has no good means of access from Holborn, the approach to Carey-street is by villainous little alleys round King's College Hospital; on the north-west side are the back settlements of Clare Market. Southward there is literally no approach for vehicles; the dirty and frowsy steps at the bottom of Essex-street being distasteful even to pedestrians. It is obvious that to utilise the three millions spent on the Carey-street site, a large additional expense would have to be incurred in providing proper approaches to the buildings from the north, north-west, and south. And even then we dismiss the consideration of all the additional traffic attracted by the Law Courts from the east and west. It is impossible to estimate what money, if the Law Courts take the place now designed for them, ought to be added to the calculation of their cost, in reckoning the wearisome delay, the loss of valuable time, the annoyance, the general inconvenience, and the needless vexation their situation would inevitably entail.

This matter of convenient approach affects the legal profession even more than the general public; it is of the last importance to professional men that they should be able easily to reach their places of professional resort, and that they should be able to calculate the times of their goings and comings with certainty and exactness. The new Law Courts are to be built chiefly with a view to remedy the inconveniences caused by the separation and remoteness of the old courts, but with the present approaches, and with a Strand and Fleet-street even more crowded than now—if indeed such a state of things can be—almost all the advantages hoped for would disappear, and a vast expenditure of the public money would be followed by nothing but dissatisfaction and recrimination.

The Carey-street site, though the best to be got when the original selection was made, does not meet the requirements of the case, and is not satisfactorily adapted to its destination.

What is the alternative?

At the time when Sir George Lewis's Committee was sitting, Londoners were vaguely dreaming of the possibility of rescuing the