Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 7.djvu/105

 10 s. vii. FEB. 2, 1907.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

81

LONDON, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY :>, 1007.

CONTENTS. No. 162.

NOTES : Westminster Changes, 81 Dodsley's Collection of Poetry, 8-2 "Llan, "84 Miltoniana George III. and " What" Habib Ullah Link with Charles I., 87.

QUERIES : " Popjoy " " Portobello " ' Collection of Thoughts 'Sir Thomas Malory Rev. R. Grant Sted- combe House Brett Baronet Bible containing Genea- logy pictures at Teddington, 88 Edinburgh Stage Quadi and Marcomanni " Stedanese "Lame Dog Poem Sir Cosmo Gordon Sonnets by A. and F. Tennyson- Parry and Halley Families, 89 John Custis Lady Hatton ' Lawyers in Love ' Sir John Barnard Adrian Gilbert Healing Springs, 90.

REPLIES : Public Office=Police Office, 90 Brasses at the Bodleian Bidding Prayer "The Old Highlander," 92 The Scots Greys " Eslyngton " " Over fork: fork over _ " ito " : " Itoland," 93 Elliott : Ponsonby Boundaries : Tommy - on - the - Bridge, 94 Coleridge's ' Dejection ' Gentlemen's Evening Dress, 95 The Ainsty of York "The Mahalla " Rotary Bromide Process- Prof. Walter Baily Andrew Jukes, 96" A penny saved is two pence got "Anglo-Indian ' Little Jack Horner,' 97 J

NOTES ON BOOKS : Besant's 'Mediaeval London' 'Letters of Literary Men' Sismondi's 'Italian Repub- lics' Crawford's ' Collectanea.'

Booksellers' Catalogues. Notices to Correspondents.

WESTMINSTER CHANGES, 1906.

WILLIAM COBBETT found it needful in his day to speak of London as a " great wen," we can hardly think what he would call it in the present day ; but we may feel assured that that master of vigorous English would be at no loss for an expressive phrase to convey his impression. What would be his ideas about the changes already made and those still going on ? Westminster in the past year saw a good many changes, many of them, however, merely continuations of what had been previously begun.

To start with the huge pile of buildings put up by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners primarily for their own offices, and for an investment at the corner of Millbank Street and Great College Street, it may be said that outwardly the building is complete, as is also the greater portion of the internal fitting. The Commissioners have entered their new offices, and have consequently let those which they occupied in Whitehall Place for so many years, and which of late they had found terribly cramped. Some of the other offices are also in use. The first door in Great College Street is numbered 3 in that thoroughfare (why No. 1 has been overlooked is not clear), and gives access

to the offices of Mr. W. D. Caroe and Mr. H. Passmore, the former gentleman being the architect to the Commissioners, and the designer of the building in which he now finds himself luxuriously housed. He, too has left the neighbourhood of Whitehall^ having vacated his office in Whitehall Yard' formerly occupied by Mr. Ewan Christian' a well-known architect of an earlier era! The next door is numbered 5, and leads to the offices of Messrs. Glutton, the well- known surveyors, who also have left White- hall Place, this arrangement being evidently for convenience. Round the corner in Little College Street there are two doors giving access to offices, No. 1 being occupied by Messrs. Smiths, Gore & Co., and No. 3 by Messrs. Jennings, White & Foster, com- missioners for oaths. A portion of the roadway in Great College Street, and the whole of that in Little College Street, have been widened, but are not yet finished. In Millbank Street matters remain pretty much as at the close of 1905, except that all the wharves and other premises on the river- side are in a more deplorable and dilapidated condition as time goes on. Two houses have been demolished, and an addition erected for the Electric Generating Com- pany, which seems somewhat peculiar as all the tenants are virtually under notice to quit. In Church Street, nearly opposite, lead- ing from Millbank Street, to the east end of the church of St. John the Evangelist in Smith Square, some houses (about four or five) were at the end of the year being de- molished. They were of no particular merit, nearly all let out in tenements, but one of them had been the residence of several Westminster curates in the past. With these houses has been obliterated from the map of London Horse and Groom Yard, which at its Church Street end was only a' thoroughfare for pedestrians ; but at the other end in Wood Street it was much wider and contained some stables, warehouses' &c. I believe that the fiat has been issued for the demolition of the greater portion of Tufton Street and the whole of Marsham Street, in the interest of an exceedingly large scheme for the reconstitution of this part of St. John's parish ; but it is difficult to get any particulars, as the people are inclined to keep what information they have to themselves ; at the close of the year, however, nothing had been done. In Smith Square, North Street, and Romney Street there was no change from the previous year, but the immediate future is full of uncer- tainty.