Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 9.djvu/526

 518

NOTES AND QUERIES.

ix. JUNE 28, 1902.

are full of the grossest mistakes. One of the most ludicrous specimens is that perpetrated by Dr. Karl Theodor Gaedertz of Washing- ton Irving's * Sketch-Book.' In the ' Beiblatt zur Anglia' (Jahrgang 1900) I. Ellinger has shown up several hundreds of glaring blunders. This traduttore is a real traditore.

G. KRUEGER. Berlin.

EUSTON ROAD (9 th S. ix. 427). Euston Road forms a portion of the New Road from Pad- dington to Islington, which was formed by Act of Parliament 29 George II., c. Ixiii. The Act of Parliament authorizing the construc- tion of the road prohibited the erection of buildings at a less distance than fifty feet from the roadway, and empowered the autho- rities of the parishes through which the road passes to pull down any such erection and to levy the expense of so doing on the offenders' goods and chattels. The restriction with re- gard to the erection of buildings appears to have been tolerably well maintained until some fifty years ago, when the control of lines of frontage in the metropolis was vested in the Metropolitan Board of Works, since which time some encroachments have occurred. Some of the buildings erected in advance of the fifty -feet line have been sanctioned, as in the case of the Hospital for Women and the block of shops opposite the Great Northern terminus ; but in the majority of instances the buildings are unauthorized, and have in many cases been erected piecemeal after the manner adopted by squatters iri building on common land, which has rendered the task of repression difficult. An example of these tactics may be seen in the case of a fruitstall recently erected on a portion o the forecourt of one of the houses on the north side of Euston Road, between Georg( Street and Euston Square. The Londor County Council took proceedings to obtair the removal of this fruitstall, but withou success, and it is probable that in the proces: of time this stall will develope into a perma nent building. It is to be borne in mine that although the New Road from Paddington to Islington was for the most part carried across open land, there were some scatterec buildings abutting upon it at the time it wa laid out, as may be seen in the map in th supplement to the Gent. Mag. for 1755 notably at the Edgware Road and Islingtoi ends, and at the intersection with Hampstea( Road, and advantage has been taken by th owners of these buildings to rebuild am extend them from time to time.

It is difficult to say at the present tim

o whom the unsatisfactory condition of uston Road is to be attributed ; but the

jondon County Council must be exonerated

rom any blame with regard to it, that body aving from its first institution shown the tmost anxiety to preserve it from further

ncroachment. JOHN HEBB.

It might be supposed that the City Road, if which the Euston Road is a continuation, s older than the latter ; but this is not the ase, except in name only, while Pentonville load, connecting the two, could not have >een so named until after 1773, when Penton- ille itself arose out of the formation of the

ew Road, which passed through certain ields belonging to Henry Penton, Esq. The Huston Road, now that portion of the New ioad extending from King's Cross to Osna- mrgh Street, was not so named until 1857, /he New Road itself having been formed in .757, whereas the City Road was not opened or passengers and carriages until 29 June, 1761. This "New Road," from Paddington to Islington, was formed under the provisions of a local Act (29 Geo. II., c. Ixxxviii.), entitled

" An Act to enable the respective Trustees of the yurnpike-roads leading to Highgate Gate House and Hampstead, and from St. Giles's Pound to Kil- oourne Bridge, in the county of Middlesex, to make a new road from the Great Northern Road at Islington to the Edgeware Road near Paddington, and also from the north end of Portland Street, across the Farthing Pye House fields, into the said new road ; and for enlarging the terms and powers granted by two several Acts for repairing the said road from St. Giles's Pound to Kilbourne Bridge." Tomlins's ' Perambulation of Islington,' 1858, p. 43. The site of the New Road, says Cunningham in his l London,' is distinctly marked in the map before the 1754 edition of Stow ; and in the Public Advertiser of 20 February, 1756, is a long account of the intended road, and the important advantages which would result from its formation. Fitzroy Square, Grafton Street, Euston Square, Euston Road, &c., were all named after the Fitzroys, Dukes of Grafton and Earls of Euston, the then ground landlords. I think this property, in all about a hundred acres in the immediate neighbour- hood of Euston and St. Pancras railway stations, is now owned by the Duke of Bed- ford. One of Horace Wai pole's letters alludes to the " new road," and to a former Duke of Bedford's connexion with it, as fol- lows :

"A new road through Paddington has been pro- posed to avoid the stones. The Duke of Bedford, who is never in town in summer, objects to the dust it will make behind Bedford House, and to some buildings proposed, though, if he was in town,

he is too short - sighted to see the prospect." 25 March, 1756.