Mayfair, Belgravia, and Bayswater Part 6

In Church Street (1846) stands the college of St. Barnabas, founded by Rev. W. J. Bennett. The buildings are of Kentish ragstone, were designed by Cundy, and contain a church, clergy house, and school-house with teacher's residence. The church, originally built as a chapel of ease to St. Paul's, Knightsbridge, is in Early Pointed style, and has a tower and spire of Caen stone 170 feet high, with ten bells. The edifice cost 15,000, and was at the opening signalized by ritualistic disturbances.

The schools built on the site of the Orange Tavern and tea-gardens in the Pimlico Road were designed for 200 boys, 200 girls, and 200 infants, but a separate boys' school has been since built in Ebury Street.

Ranelagh Grove occupies the site of The Avenue, which led from Ebury Bridge to old Ranelagh House, but now ends in the blank wall of Chelsea Barracks.

In Ranelagh Terrace (now abolished), near Ebury Bridge, d. at No. 2 the Rev. T. Pennington, son of Elizabeth Carter, in 1852.

Commercial Road (1842) is occupied by works and industrial dwellings (Gatcliff Buildings, 1867, and Wellington Buildings). On the west side is the wall of Chelsea Barracks.

It leads by the Chelsea Bridge Road to the embankment at Victoria Bridge, a light and graceful suspension bridge designed by Page and opened in 1858. The structure, which cost 88,000, is built of iron, and rests on piers of English elm and concrete enclosed in iron casings. The piers are each nearly 90 feet in length by 20 feet in width, with curved cut.w.a.ters. The whole bridge is 915 feet long, 715 feet between abutments, the centre span 347 feet, side-spans each 185 feet, and there is a clear water-way of 21 feet above high-water mark. The roadway is made by two wrought-iron longitudinal girders extending the whole length of the bridge, suspended by rods from the chains. Toll-houses stand at each end, but it was purchased in 1879 for 75,000 as a free bridge.

Near the end of the bridge stood the White House, a lonely habitation much used by anglers; opposite, on the Surrey side, was a similar building, the Red House. A short way to the east stood the Chelsea Waterworks, incorporated as a company in 1724, though waterworks seem to have existed here before that date. They extended, with the Grosvenor Ca.n.a.l and basin (now occupied by Victoria Station), over 89 acres, and supplied water to Chelsea, Knightsbridge, Belgravia, Pimlico, and part of Westminster. The company has now removed to Kingston, and the site is occupied by the western pumping-station of the main drainage system of London, built 1873-75 at a cost of 183,000.

Graham Street (1827) incorporated with which in 1894 were Graham Street West and Gregory Street (1833), contains the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, a chapel of ease to St. Paul's, Knightsbridge, a red-brick building with a spire, built in 1872. Caroline Street (1834) is of no interest. Eaton Terrace (1826) was until 1884 named Coles.h.i.+ll Street. At the corner of Clieveden Place is an old proprietary chapel, Eaton Chapel, in Grecian style, built about 1800, with sittings for 1,200. A chapel existed here, however, before that date, known as the Five Fields Chapel.

Chester Terrace was in 1878 amalgamated with Minera Street (1830), and in 1887 with Newland Street (1836).

Chester Square is very long and narrow; it is five acres in extent, and was commenced about 1834. It has three enclosed gardens. At the west end is the handsome church of St. Michael, erected 1844-46 in the Decorated style from designs by Cundy. The tower has a lofty spire. The chancel was extended in 1874, and the building has on several occasions been enlarged and restored.

Chester Place, at the east end of the square, was incorporated with it in 1874.

The portion of our district lying between the Buckingham Palace Road and Grosvenor Ca.n.a.l and the eastern boundary forms an acute-angled triangle with the apex at Buckingham Palace. The streets north of Victoria Street, which lead into Buckingham Palace Road from the east, are narrow and unimportant. Here is Palace Street (1767), until 1881 called Charlotte Street, after Queen Charlotte, the first royal occupant of the Palace. In it is St. Peter's Church, a plain building with seats for 200, which existed as Charlotte Chapel in 1770. Its most famous inc.u.mbent was Dr. Dodd, who was executed for forgery in 1777.

Subsequently it was held by Dr. Dillon, who was suspended in 1840. It was then a proprietary chapel, but is now a chapel of ease to St.

Peter's, Eaton Square; also St. Peter and St. Edward's Catholic Chapel.

In Palace Place (until 1881 Little Charlotte Street) is St. Peter's Chapel School, established in 1830.

The St. George's Union Workhouse, a large red-brick building, built in 1884, stands in Wallis's Yard, off Princes Row (1767). Buckingham Palace (1840), Brewer Street (1811), and Allingham Street (1826) have no interest. The latter leads to Victoria Street, a broad thoroughfare opened in 1851, only the western end of which falls within the district.

On the south side is the Victoria Station of the Metropolitan District Railway, commenced in 1863 and opened in 1868. The line runs in a curve underground from Sloane Square, crossing Ebury Street at Eaton Terrace, and Buckingham Palace Road at Grosvenor Gardens. From the Underground Station a subterranean pa.s.sage leads to the Victoria terminus, the starting-point of the London, Brighton, and South Coast and London, Chatham, and Dover Railway Companies. The present station, which has no pretension to architectural beauty, is being greatly enlarged and partly rebuilt. It was built at a cost of 105,000, provided by the Victoria Station and Pimlico Railway Company, which, having acquired 91 acres of land, had built a temporary station and opened the line for the two companies' traffic in 1860. The bridge over the Thames was built about the same time by Fowler, and on it is the Grosvenor Road ticket-collecting station. The land occupied by the railways is freehold of the Victoria Company, and leased by the two lines. In 1863 the lines of the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway were widened to enable their trains to come into the station independently. The lines of the London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway are now being extended. The station of the latter is a West End branch, the headquarters being at London Bridge; but the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway have here their princ.i.p.al starting-point. The ground between Victoria Station and the river occupies the site of the old manor of Neyte, which belonged to the Abbey of Westminster until confiscated by Henry VIII. in 1536. It was a favourite residence of the Abbots, and here also lived John of Gaunt, and here John, son of Richard, Duke of York, was born in 1448. In 1592 the manor became a farm and pa.s.sed with the Ebury Estate into the possession of the Grosvenor family. The manor-house stood where is now St. George's Row, and in Pepys' time was a popular pleasure-garden.

Between the Willow Walk (Warwick Street) and the river were the Neat House Gardens, which supplied a large part of London with vegetables.

The name lingered until the present century among the houses on the river-bank, and is still commemorated by Neat House Buildings in Ranelagh Road. The whole area was low-lying and swampy, and the neighbourhood of Eccleston Square was occupied by a vast osier bed. In 1827, however, Cubitt raised the level of the district by depositing the earth excavated from St. Katharine's Docks, and the present houses and squares were gradually completed. The whole district is singularly uninteresting, the streets of good breadth, and the houses faced with plaster of the type we have seen in Belgravia. North of Belgrave Road the streets are occupied by the poorer cla.s.ses, but the squares and princ.i.p.al streets in this neighbourhood are tenanted by the wealthy. The southern portion is dully respectable, and most of the houses are let in lodgings. The eastern end of Warwick Street and Lupus Street contain the only shops, and those of no great size or importance. The streets, with their princ.i.p.al buildings, are as follows:

The Vauxhall Bridge Road, commenced after 1816, but first mentioned under that name in 1827. The following terraces were incorporated with it in 1865: Bedford Place (1826), Trellick Place (1826), York Place (1839), Pembroke Place, Gloucester Place, Windsor Terrace, Shaftesbury Crescent (1826), Howick Place and Howick Terrace (1826).

Wilton Road (1833), with which, in 1890, was incorporated Wilton Terrace, skirts the east side of Victoria Station. In it stands the Church of St. John the Evangelist, a chapel of ease to St. Peter's, Eaton Square. It is a handsome red-brick edifice, built by Blomfield in 1875, and it accommodates about 900. Behind, in Hudson's Place, are St.

Peter's Mission House and parish room.

Gillingham Street (1826), Hindon Street (1826), Berwick Street (1830), and St. Leonard's Street (1830) are mean and uninteresting.

Warwick Street occupies the site of the ancient Willow Walk, a low-lying footpath between the cuts of the Chelsea Waterworks, where lived the notorious Aberfield (Slender Billy) and the highwaymen Jerry Abershaw and Maclean. It is first mentioned in the rate-books in 1723.

Belgrave Road (1830) is a broad, well-built street, with large houses.

In 1865 Eccleston Terrace, North and South Warwick Terrace, Upper Eccleston Place, and Grosvenor Terrace, were incorporated with it.

Nearly opposite Eccleston Square is Eccleston Square Chapel (Congregational), in Cla.s.sical style, with seats for 1,100. The railway is crossed by Eccleston Bridge. Eccleston Square is 4 acres in extent, and is long and narrow, with an enclosed garden, built in 1835.

Warwick Square, of 3 acres, is very similar, and was built in 1843. At the end stands St. Gabriel's Church, built by Cundy in Early English style, and consecrated in 1853.

St. George's Road is a broad street joined to Buckingham Palace Road by Elizabeth Bridge.

In Gloucester Street is the Belgrave Hospital for Children, founded in 1866 by the late Rev. Brymer Belcher, Vicar of St. Gabriel's, 1853-85.

The objects of this charitable inst.i.tution are:

1. The medical and surgical treatment of the children of the poor.

2. The promotion of the study of children's diseases.

3. The training of pupil nurses.

Clarendon Street (1858) absorbed Warwick Place in 1870. Stanley Street (1851) was renamed Alderney Street in 1879, Winchester Street 1852, c.u.mberland Street 1852.

Ebury Bridge is the oldest of the bridges over the railway and ca.n.a.l. It was known in early days as Chelsea, and afterwards as Waterworks Bridge, a wooden structure. A turnpike existed here until 1825. At the south end stood Jenny's Whim, a celebrated tavern and pleasure-garden, perhaps named from the name of the proprietress and the fantastic way it was laid out. It was in the height of its popularity about 1750, and came to an end _circa_ 1804. When the railway was widened in 1863 all vestiges of it were swept away.

St. George's Row was built as Monster Row _circa_ 1785, and renamed in 1833. Here was the site of the manor-house of Neyte. The Monster public-house commemorates the old Monster tavern and garden, the name being probably a corruption of monastery.

At the corner of Warwick Street are the Pimlico Rooms, containing a hall for entertainments, etc., and occupied by the Ebury Mission and Pimlico day-school for boys, girls, and infants. Adjoining the railway is a double row of industrial dwellings, built by the trustees of the Peabody fund under the name of Peabody's Buildings.

Westmoreland Street (1852) contains the Pimlico chapel for United Free Methodists.

Lupus Street (1842) is named after Hugh Lupus, Earl of Chester, an ancestor of the Duke of Westminster. It contains a hospital for women and children.

At the eastern end is St. George's Square (1850), a long narrow s.p.a.ce reaching to the river with an enclosed garden in the centre. The houses are large. At No. 9 Sir J. Barnby d. 1896.

At the north end is St. Saviour's Church, built in 1864 from designs by Cundy in a Decorated Gothic style. It has sittings for 1,834, and was restored in 1882. To the east are Pulford Street (1848) and Aylesford Street, in which is St. Saviour's Mission House, built by the Duke of Westminster at a cost of 4,000. It serves also for parochial meetings.

Here also are the works of the Equitable Gas Company, established 1830.

In Claverton Street (1852) is a Methodist Wesleyan chapel, in Cla.s.sical style, with seats for 1,000.

In Glasgow Terrace (1851), formerly Caledonia Street, are St. Saviour's and St. Gabriel's National Schools. This neighbourhood contains many works and offices, the largest of which is Taylor's repository for storing property. Along the river runs the Grosvenor Road, part of the Thames Embankment. The houses built on and near it were generally known in the last century as the Neat Houses. Terraces with various names--Albion Terrace, Pier Terrace, Erin Place (1826), Thames Parade (1827), Thames Bank (1828)--were incorporated with the road in recent years. Facing the river is All Saints' Church, a chapel of ease to St.

Gabriel's, by Cundy, built _circa_ 1870 to replace a mission church; opposite it is the Pimlico Pier for river steamboats. Adjoining St.

George's Square is the Army Clothing Factory, established in 1857 in the Vauxhall Bridge Road as an experiment to provide labour for women. The present establishment was opened in 1859, and has since been largely increased, occupying a s.p.a.ce of about 7 acres. The east block is the Government store, the west the factory, the centre of which is occupied by a gla.s.s-roofed hall, three stories high, surrounded by s.p.a.cious galleries.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BELGRAVIA DISTRICT.

Published by A. & C. Black, London.]

PADDINGTON

BY G. E. MITTON

_Derivation._

The origin of the word Paddington is very obscure. Mr. Edwards in his "Names of Places" gives "Pad, padi, A.S. equivalent to Paeda, King of Mercia; hence Paddington, the town of Paeda's descendants."

Paddington is not mentioned in Domesday Book.