Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume X.djvu/600

 594 LONDON Victoria street connects the mansion house with Blackfriars bridge. The whole neigh- borhood teems with new buildings and stores. In St. Martin's-le-Grand is the new post office, substantially completed in 1874, facing the old site, and extending from Newgate to Bath and Angel streets, the principal front being 286 ft., and the end fronts 142 ft. long. Newgate pris- on in the Old Bailey, the seat of the central criminal court (of which the recorder, the first law officer of the City, is the chief judge), and where those sentenced to death are hanged, throws a gloom over the City. In the vicinity is the Charterhouse in Aldersgate street. The Holborn viaduct, opened in November, 1869, has been lined with new rows of buildings and shops, and is doing much to relieve the traffic on other roads. The law region of Gray's Inn and Chancery lane lies among the cross streets of Holborn. Some of the unseemly by-streets between Holborn and the Strand are rapidly disappearing, though enough are left to mar the locality. Holborn leads into Oxford street (so called from being on the former highway from London to Oxford), running between St. Giles's pound and old Tyburn (now Cumber- land gate), and was formerly known as Ty- burn road. New Oxford street occupies (since 1847) the site of the so-called "rookery" of St. Giles's, long a notorious resort of the dangerous classes, nearly 3,000 of whom were crammed in 1849 into fewer than 100 adjoin- ing hovels ; but these slums have almost disap- peared. Oxford street is well patronized by the substantial middle classes, and is one of the most animated and spacious streets of Lon- don. At right angles with it is Tottenham Court road, leading into Hampstead road, a popular thoroughfare of the working classes, containing many furniture and other shops, and crowded on Saturday evenings with pur- chasers of provisions for Sunday. On pro- ceeding from the east to the west through Ludgate hill, the most conspicuous building is St. Paul's cathedral, of which a finer view is now obtained from the recent removal of the railings in front of the church. St. Paul's churchyard is the name applied to an irreg- ular group of houses enclosing the cathedral and its burial ground ; and near by is Paternos- ter Row, the headquarters of eminent publish- ers and booksellers. A number of small streets connect the hill on which St. Paul's stands, said to be the highest ground in the city, with Blackfriars bridge. In Water lane is Printing House square, occupied by the offices of the " Times." At the base of Ludgate hill former- ly ran the Fleet ditch, now a covered sewer, which gave the name to Fleet street. The fa- mous Fleet prison has been converted into a freight depot for a railway station. Newspa- per offices abound in this street and in the surrounding series of courts. It terminates at Temple Bar, which was long the official boun- dary between the West End and the City, the keys of which were here handed by the lord mayor to the sovereign on royal visits to the East End. Temple Bar, which is about to disappear (1874), celebrated the second cen- tury of its erection in 1872, after having long enjoyed a credit for antiquity to which it had no claim, from the fact that Lud gate, the real western gate of the City proper, has long since disappeared, the comparatively modern structure having been erroneously regarded as one of the veritable gates of mediaeval Lon- don. Between Temple Bar and Holborn is Lincoln's Inn Fields, one of the best squares of London, and a great legal centre. The Strand extends from Essex street (a little be- yond Temple Bar) to Charing Cross, and is among the most cheerful and animated cen- tral thoroughfares, with many streets extend- ing on its S. side to the river, and with the sites of Durham house, York house, where Bacon was born, and many other memora- ble localities, including Essex house, Arundel house, and Maypole (now St. Mary-le-Strand) church. It contains also Somerset house, with the internal revenue and other offices, Exeter hall, King's college, several theatres, and various public institutions. Among its many adjacent curious lanes and streets is Wych street, leading to Drury lane ; and close by is a labyrinth of alleys and lanes literally swarming with the poorest class of. people, chiefly Irish. Another curiosity is Holywell street, with its old book and old clothes stalls. The best known by-streets of the Strand are Southampton, Craven, Wellington (connecting with Waterloo bridge), Adam (with Adelphi terrace), Bedford, Catharine, and King William streets, many of them containing comparative- ly cheap hotels and boarding houses. At the western extremity of the Strand is Charing Cross, with a magnificent railway station, cele- brated for its architecture. Charing Cross and Trafalgar square (called by the late Sir Robert Peel the finest site of Europe, but somewhat deformed by the want of proportion in the Nel- son and other monuments) are the great turn- ing points from Whitehall and various parts of the West End and N. W. to the City, and, from their proximity to the club houses, the houses of parliament, and the galleries of art, are among the most animated localities in the metropo- lis, particularly during the season, when cabs start thence in all directions in great numbers, Charing Cross being the official centre of the service. S. W. of Charing Cross are Whitehall, Downing, and Parliament streets, all greatly improved by the new government buildings, the foreign and India offices having been completed for several years, and the home and colonial offices approaching completion in 1874. Old houses have been pulled down, and the thor- oughfare has been widened so as to form a continuous connection with Charing Cross, and to present a nobler view of Westminster abbey and the new houses of parliament. The pro- jected demolition of the admiralty, to make room for new streets, and the doom of North*