Chapter X: Battersea to London Bridge (2)

Though St. Paul's Cathedral is some little way from the Thames, its splendid cupola is so prominent an object from the river that it is impossible not to pause a little before Wren's masterpiece, and consider the history of this great edifice, the foundation of which takes us back to the early days of British history. By some antiquarians it has been supposed that, in the Roman times, the summit of Ludgate Hill was occupied by a temple to Diana; but this tradition was entirely discredited by Sir Christopher, who records that, in digging for the foundations of the present Cathedral, he found no evidences whatever of the existence of any such pagan structure--no fragments of cornice or capital, no remains of sacrifices. He did, however, arrive at some foundations, consisting of Kentish rubble-stone, cemented with exceedingly hard mortar, after the Roman manner. He believed these to have been the relics of an early Christian church, destroyed during the Diocletian persecution, the erection of which he considered may have been due to St. Paul himself. Whatever may be the truth of these remote traditions, it seems unquestionable that a Christian fane existed on this spot from an early period. The crown of the hill was a very likely place for such an edifice, and the proximity of the river made it easy of access from surrounding parts. The church demolished during the persecution of 302 was rebuilt in the reign of Constantine, between the years 323 and 337. In the following century it was destroyed by the Saxons, but, after the conversion of the early English, was again erected by Ethelbert and Sebert in the sixth and seventh centuries. The Cathedral which immediately preceded the present was begun about 1083, and lasted until the Great Fire of 1666. During this long period of nearly six hundred years, the edifice underwent frequent alterations, and received many additions. Some of its dimensions are thought to have exceeded those of any other church in Christendom. Its length from east to west was six hundred and ninety feet, and the spire over the central tower rose five hundred and twenty feet into the air. This spire was burned in 1561, and, from that time until 1633, the noble old pile was in a state of dilapidation, which it is surprising that so rich a city as London should have allowed to continue. But the whole condition of the Cathedral at this period was one not easy to understand at the present day. The middle aisle, usually termed Paul's Walk, was an ordinary lounging-place for the wits, gallants, and disreputable characters of the time. Under the pillars of that magnificent arcade the lawyer received his clients; the business man transacted his affairs; the idle inquired after news; servants wanting employment let themselves out for hire; and the chorister boys exacted tribute of gentlemen who entered the Cathedral, during divine service, with spurs on. From the period of the Reformation to the early part of the reign of Philip and Mary, matters had been even worse; for a daily market was held in the nave, and men would lead mules, horses, and other animals from entrance to exit. "Paul's Walk" is one of the most frequent subjects of allusion in the works of the Elizabethan dramatists; and there was certainly no better place in London for an observer of manners, like Ben Jonson, to imbue himself with the humours of men.

It need hardly be said that Old St. Paul's was a Gothic structure; but when it was repaired in 1633, the work was put into the hands of Inigo Jones, who was entirely a child of the Italian school. He accordingly set up a classical portico in front of the ancient Gothic church, thus producing an effect of painful incongruity, although the portico in itself appears to have been extremely fine. The circumstance, however, is to some degree excused by the design of Charles I. to build an entirely new Cathedral, of which Inigo's portico was to be the frontispiece. The Civil War put an end to this project, together with many others; and during those tumultuous days Cromwell's soldiers stabled their horses in the metropolitan church of London. The complete destruction of the building followed six years after the Restoration, when the greater part of London succumbed to a disaster which more vigorous measures might have stifled in its infancy. Another Gothic edifice would have been more in accordance with the traditions of the place; but it is fortunate that no attempt was made to revive an architectural style with which all the builders of that age were entirely out of sympathy. Wren held the Gothic forms in absolute contempt, and the towers which he added to Westminster Abbey show how miserably he failed when trying to accommodate himself to methods which he neither understood nor cared to understand. With the Renaissance he was perfectly at home; and his great work, whatever objections we may make on the score of coldness, so far as the interior is concerned, is surely characterised by a grandeur of its own, dependent not merely upon physical size, but on vastness of conception, and on that sense of towering magnificence, and almost infinite dilation, which is produced by this mountain of hewn stone, extending into curved and pillared aisles, and swelling upwards into the mimic firmament of the dome. For nearly two hundred years Sir Christopher Wren's Cathedral has been the central monument of London. Round its giant mass the waves of the great city beat day by day in feverish unrest; and there is something in its ponderous bulk, its countless reduplication of arch and column, and its soaring cupola, which seems to image the stability of English life in the midst of constant agitation and perpetual change.

Southwark Bridge, under which we pass shortly after returning to the river, is chiefly interesting as being the first thoroughfare which carries us over into what is popularly called "the Borough"--certainly one of the most memorable parts of the capital. By a kind of fiction, Southwark is accounted one of the twenty-six wards of London, and, considered in this relation, is entitled Bridge Ward Without. It is therefore, to some extent, a part of the City; yet it has its own government, and a distinctive character, both in general appearance and in metropolitan history. In early times, it was a sanctuary for malefactors, and in other respects possessed an evil reputation, which appears to have been not wholly undeserved. In the Bankside, Southwark, was situated the Bear Garden, of which we read so frequently in old English writers--a place where Shakespeare must have seen the bear Sackerson which he has immortalised in the _Merry Wives of Windsor_. Edward Alleyn, the actor, who founded Dulwich College, was at one time master of this objectionable place of amusement; and here Pepys went one day with his wife, and pronounced the entertainment "a very rude and nasty pleasure." A much pleasanter association with old Southwark is the fact that Shakespeare's theatre, the famous "Globe Playhouse," conspicuous in stage history, was here situated close to the river. The external shape of this illustrious edifice was hexagonal, and, though the stage was roofed over with thatch, the spectators sat in the open air without any covering whatever. The interior was circular, and the building displayed a classic figure of Hercules supporting the globe. One would be glad to know the exact spot where Shakespeare trod the boards, submitted some of his works to public approval, and perhaps discharged the duties of a manager. But, although the theatre is commonly said to have stood in Bankside, there appears to be some doubt upon the point. Unquestionably, however, the Bankside has the best claim, and it is believed that Barclay and Perkins's brewery occupies the site, or nearly so. Originally erected in 1594, the Globe was burned down on the 29th of June, 1613, owing to some lighted paper, projected from a piece of ordnance, having found a lodgment in the thatch. This was rather less than three years before the death of Shakespeare; but the playhouse was speedily rebuilt, at the expense of James I., and of many noblemen and gentlemen. The drama that was being acted on the occasion of the fire seems to have been Shakespeare's _Henry VIII._; and Sir Henry Wotton, who writes an amusing account of the affair to his nephew, says that the drama "was set forth with many extraordinary circumstances of pomp and majesty, even to the matting of the stage; the knights of the Order with their Georges and Garters, the guards with their embroidered coats, and the like." The new theatre was much handsomer than the old, and provided with a roof of tile, so that the discharge of ordnance should not again produce such disastrous consequences. The house was pulled down in 1644, by which time Puritanical opinions had gained so much ground amongst the London population that theatres were no longer the prosperous undertakings they had been in more careless and light-hearted days.

From the Bankside to the High Street of Southwark is no great distance; but it takes us backward from the time of Shakespeare to the time of Chaucer. The "Tabard" Inn stood in that ancient thoroughfare, and, until recently, some old, decrepit buildings flanked the back yard of this hostelry, which, though probably not coeval with Chaucer, were at any rate antique enough to suggest his period. The Borough High Street, being the main road into the south-eastern parts of England, was from an early date celebrated for its roomy hostelries, some of which still remain in all their picturesque amplitude, with external galleries, overhanging roofs, carved timber, dusky passages, and cavernous doorways. None, however, could boast such an association as that which throws its halo round the "Tabard." We are not, of course, to suppose that Chaucer's immortal poem is an exact record of anything that happened on some given occasion; but it is more than probable that Chaucer performed the pilgrimage to Canterbury, "the holy, blissful martyr for to seek," and that, with his companions, he started from the "Tabard" in the High Street. It is also conceivable that these pious excursionists often beguiled the way by telling stories; and it is thoroughly in accordance with the manners of the time that some of the stories should be of a very questionable tendency. Pilgrimages, after a while, became a form of dissipation with which the religious sentiment was but slightly associated. As early as the fourth Christian century, Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa, dissuaded his flock from joining pilgrimages, because of the low moral tone frequently developed amongst the travellers. In the ninth century, Englishwomen had a particularly bad name for the gallantries they carried on under pretence of devotion; and in the fourteenth century, when Chaucer wrote, the matter had doubtless become still worse. One of the results of this perversion, however, was that people distinguished by every variety of character were drawn together by the common object of adoration at some famous shrine. Chaucer was thus presented with the finest possible opportunity for the exercise of those powers of observation and of portraiture in which he was hardly inferior to Shakespeare himself. Hence a poem which, notwithstanding the difficulties of its partially obsolete English, is still a living force in the literature of our race. Hence a collection of stories which touch the whole round of human nature--in its pathos, its humour, its tragedy, its devotion, its blunt and rugged realism, its high-raised phantasy, its vulgarity, and its nobleness; and hence that fascinating light of genius and human fellowship which hovers round the vicinity of the "Tabard" Inn, and will consecrate even its modern brick-and-mortar with the tenderest memories of the past.

Returning towards the river, we find on our left hand, not far from the water itself, the fine old church of St. Saviour's, Southwark (anciently called St. Mary Overies, from its position as to the bridge), which contains a handsome Gothic monument to Chaucer's contemporary, John Gower. The church has been much injured by alterations in recent times, but still presents some beautiful specimens of the Early English style. All that remains of the old church founded in 1208 is in the choir and the Lady Chapel; yet, on the whole, the effect is venerable, and the associations with the church are highly interesting. Among the persons here buried are Edmund Shakespeare, the brother of William; John Fletcher, the fellow-dramatist with Beaumont; Philip Massinger, another dramatic poet; and several persons more or less connected with the theatrical world of Shakespeare's generation.

We are now at the southern extremity of London Bridge--one of the best of Rennie's works, but a very uninteresting structure compared with that which preceded it. Still, it is impossible to pass over this granite causeway without seeing, at any hour of the day, such a spectacle of human life as penetrates both the heart and soul. All bridges are favourable to this kind of observation; for they contract and isolate the great stream of human beings, which for a brief period is incapable of any diversion either to the right or to the left, but is brought sharply and sternly face to face with him who would take note of his fellow-creatures. Moreover, the absence of houses or other buildings at the side of the footpaths brings every figure into relief against the vast, eternal sky, and suggests, in a subtle and almost terrible way, the fragility of the individual, as compared with the infinity above his head. Beneath is the deep, dark river; above are the inscrutable heavens; and between the two are these mites and motes of a vanishing existence, suspended for a time between elements which are stronger than themselves. On London Bridge one sees all the chief varieties of human character, passing on from morn to eve, and often far into the night, with that look of patient endurance, or of half-suppressed suffering, which comes out so strangely when large multitudes of men and women are brought together, without any community of interest, or knowledge of each other's cares. The City man, the lawyer, the clerk, the rugged labourer, the railway servant, the desperately poor, who are evidently on the tramp, either from London to the country, or from the country to London; the lurking thief, the flashy swindler, the Jew with his bag, poor women with their heavy bundles, and heavier faces, and perhaps still heavier hearts; the street Arab on the look-out for stray halfpence, the girls who sell cigar-lights, the meagre seamstresses going to and fro with their work, and, at one season of the year the vast emigration of hop-pickers, making for the fields of Kent--all these are here, together with many other types of character that demand recognition from thoughtful minds. Under certain climatic conditions, the effect is almost phantasmal in its reduplication and variety, its familiar aspects and its mysterious depth of life.

The complete demolition of the old bridge in 1832 was a matter of necessity, since the decrepitude of the former had at length gone beyond all hope of further patching, and the growing traffic of London required a broader and more convenient way from the City to the Borough. But no more interesting structure was ever devoted to the labourer's pickaxe. A bridge appears to have existed as early as 978; another, built of wood, in 1014, was partly burned in 1136; and this was succeeded, some years later, by the edifice which was destroyed within the memory of some still living. The design was given by Peter of Colechurch, chaplain of St. Mary Colechurch in the Poultry. The construction occupied thirty-three years, from 1176 to 1209, which, considering the breadth of river to be spanned, the massiveness of the work, and the primitive nature of engineering science at that time, does not seem excessive. Peter's bridge was of stone, not of timber, and consisted of nineteen arches, a drawbridge for large vessels, a gate-house at each end, and a chapel in the centre, dedicated to St. Thomas of Canterbury. According to an old tradition, the course of the river was diverted into a trench while the works were proceeding--a trench which, commencing about Battersea, ended at Redriffe. Traces of this vast ditch were remaining about Lambeth Marsh in the middle of the seventeenth century, when small lakes of water appeared here and there, with intervals of fenny ground between. The bridge was built on piles, and these masses of timber, driven into the bed of the stream, must have lasted until the destruction of the bridge itself. On the outside of the timber foundations other piles were fixed, which rose up to low-water-mark, and formed projections into the river, having somewhat the character of open boats or barges. The object of the external masses, which were called "starlings," was to break the rush of water as it dashed towards the bridge itself; but the narrow arches and their timber defences constituted a peril in the navigation of the river, and were the occasion of several accidents to boatmen not thoroughly masters of their calling. The operation of "shooting the bridge" was an exceedingly awkward one, and many persons were afraid to undertake it. The water formed a little cascade in these menacing straits, and the strength and rapidity of the current would sweep away small boats, and leave their occupants little chance of their lives.

In many ways, London Bridge was perhaps the most characteristic structure of its kind in the world. The chapel of St. Thomas, erected on the eastern side of the bridge, over the tenth or central pier (which was carried a considerable distance eastward along the channel of the river), appears to have been a very beautiful Gothic building, reared upon a massive and graceful crypt, which could be approached not only from the bridge, but by a flight of steps leading from the starling of the pier. A tower, often grimly adorned with the heads of distinguished traitors, stood near the centre of the bridge, and the sides were covered with substantial houses, which were not taken down until 1757-8. The tower in the middle part of the bridge was removed towards the end of the sixteenth century, when its place was occupied by a wooden edifice called Nonsuch House, constructed in Holland, brought over to England in pieces, and put together with wooden pegs, to the exclusion of all iron. It crossed the bridge on an arch, and presented a singularly picturesque appearance, with its timber carvings, its four square towers, its domes, its spires, and its gilded vanes. The heads of the traitors--or of those who were described as such--were transferred from the demolished tower to the gate at the Southwark end, which was henceforth known as "Traitors' Gate." Such was the singular aspect of Old London Bridge, which, whether viewed from the river or from the roadway, must have looked like some fantastic vision. Its history is no less full of variety and of strange experiences. Terrific fires occurred from time to time, by which, on some occasions, large numbers of lives were lost. Arches and piers were carried away by high tides, or rendered frail by the incessant action of the water, so that large structural repairs were frequently needed. Here, in 1263, Eleanor of Provence, the queen of Henry III., was attacked by the Londoners, when, during the De Montfort troubles, she was endeavouring to escape to Windsor. Eleanor was proceeding up the river in a boat, and the exasperated citizens, assembling on the bridge, assailed her, not merely with insulting words, but with dirt and stones, so that she was obliged to return to the Tower. It should be observed that, although the bridge was for the most part flanked by houses, there were open spaces every here and there, very convenient for pelting a queen who happened to be unpopular. By this way, Wat Tyler obtained an entrance into the City at the head of his Kentish men. Single combats; desperate faction-fights, attended by much slaughter; triumphal processions of conquering kings; splendid pageantries of the great and noble; the mournful pomp of royal funerals; the sumptuous entry of foreign princesses; Wolsey in his grandeur, Wyatt and his insurgents, Charles II. on his return from the Continent, when he at length succeeded to the throne; knights, citizens, men-at-arms, priests, 'prentices, beggars, ruffians, fugitives; the rich, the poor, the mighty, the humble, the downcast, and the prosperous--all this wealth of human action, suffering, despair, and hope, gives an enduring charm to the memory of Peter of Colechurch's structure, and furnishes such a record as few other buildings can parallel. The story of London Bridge is a romance of the deepest interest, of the most gorgeous and the most gloomy colours. But we touch only on its more salient points, and, passing on along the eternal river, leave the shadow of this English _Ponte Vecchio_ behind us like a dream.

/Edmund Ollier/.