CHAPTER XII
BELOW BRIDGE
'Below Bridge' covers Tooley Street and her lanes: Horselydown, Bermondsey, Rotherhithe, Deptford, Greenwich, and Woolwich. The railway has ruined one end of Tooley Street, which is a corruption of St. Olave's Street. Perhaps it was ruined before the railway appeared at all. Certainly no one would believe that this dark and narrow street was once a place of Palaces. The Prior of Lewes had here, opposite St. Olave's Church, his Inn or Town House: here the Abbot of St. Augustine had his Inn: and here, we have seen, was the house of Sir John Fastolf. Here was the Pilgrim's Way to Bermondsey Rood. Some came across the bridge; some by boat, which was far more convenient, to Tooley Stairs; some to Battlebridge Stairs; some to Pickle Herring Stairs. The way lay along Tooley Street and by 'Barmsie' Lane through the fields and gardens: a lovely rural lane. Beyond Tooley Street lies a quarter bounded on the North by the River, and on the East by St. Saviour's Dock: a quarter which is certainly the most industrious in the whole of London. It is called Horselydown, the derivation of which seems obvious, but derivations are not to be trusted, however obvious. We may take it for granted, because we can prove the fact by looking at Roques' map of 1745, that there were meadows where horses grazed as soon as the embankment was up, and the ground drained. There was some kind of common here at one time: here suicides and persons deprived of Christian rites were buried. There was also a Fair held at Horselydown. The industries made their appearance in the eighteenth century, but they came gradually. It is now a place of most remarkable variety as regards occupations. All along the river and the bank of the Dock, formerly Savoy Dock, there are wharves: inland are bonded warehouses, granaries, leather warehouses, hide warehouses, hop warehouses, and wool warehouses. There are tanneries, currieries, fur and skin dyeing works, breweries, rice mills, mustard mills, pepper mills, dyeing works, dog's food manufactories, vinegar works, bottle works, iron foundries, wooden hoop manufactories, cooperages, roperies, smithies, biscuit manufactories, oil and colour works, pin manufactories, varnish works, and distilleries. All this in a district half a mile long and a quarter of a mile broad. Between the factories and the warehouses are houses for the workmen and the foremen. On the south side stands the Church, almost the ugliest Church in London: next to the Church is, or was, a few years ago, a street which has something of the look and feeling of a Close.
It is a great pity that in the whole of South London lying east of the High Street there is not a single beautiful, or even picturesque Church. Look at them! St. Olave's, St. John, Horselydown, St. Mary Magdalen, St. Mary, Rotherhithe, the four oldest churches in the quarter. It cannot be pretended that these structures inspire veneration or even respect. You may see drawings of them in Maitland. St. Olave's was rebuilt in 1737, St. John's, Horselydown, in 1735, St. Mary Magdalen in 1680, and St. Mary, Rotherhithe, in 1713 on the site of the older church. In 1738 the steeple was added. The four churches are therefore all examples of the church architecture of nearly the same period.
Of all the quarters and parts of London that of Horselydown is the least known and the least visited, except by those whose business takes them there every day. There is, in fact, nothing to be seen: the wharves block out the river: the warehouses darken the streets, the places where people live are not interesting: there is not an ancient memory or association, or any ancient fragment of a building, to make one desire to visit Horselydown. When we pass the Dock, we find ourselves in quite a different quarter: the wharves are arranged along the river wall, called the Bermondsey Wall, but behind the wharves there are fewer factories and more people. Alas! poor people! It is a grimy place to live in: of greenery or garden land there is none. There is not even any access to the river except by one or two narrow stairs: the 'works' are those whose near neighbourhood is not generally desired: places where they make leather and curry it: or where they make glue or vinegar. Fortunately, however, the good people of Bermondsey are spared the handling of tallow, bones, or soap. Things might therefore have been worse. This is the industrial centre of South London, and it occupies, including Horselydown, St. Olave's, Bermondsey, and Rotherhithe, something like a quarter of a million, which is a good-sized city in itself. On the one side of St. Saviour's Dock we may step aside to look at two streets, which fifty years ago represented the lowest kind of vice and brutality, and the worse kind of human pigsties, Talbot Street and London Street. The former was taken over by Dickens to adorn his 'Oliver Twist' – lugged in, for indeed it does not belong there.
The condition of the latter is figured in Wilkinson's 'London Illustrated' in the year 1806.
The ugliness of the neighbourhood remains, but some of the dirt has been washed away.
It seems impossible to create a quarter of workmen's cottages or residences which shall be beautiful. First there is the slum with a row of two- or four-roomed cottages in a narrow court: the windows are broken: the banisters of the staircase are broken away to be burned: the sanitary appliances are terrible: the court is a laystall. Some of these delightful places still survive in Southwark. The next step is to build streets for working men in places where the ground is not too valuable. Thus the town of Bromley near Bow sprang into existence. It consists entirely of monotonous streets with monotonous houses, all small, all ugly, all built after the same pattern: the result being dreary and dispiriting. Then come the model dwelling-houses: the huge barrack, of which, Bermondsey way, there are enormous stacks, accommodating the working classes by the hundred thousand. There is not the smallest attempt at making these places beautiful: they are simple cubes of grey brick with rows and lines of windows. Outside they may be models of economy in space. Once within, they may be models of convenience; but there is another side. The moral effect of this piling up of family on family is reported to be injurious in ways not contemplated by the founders: the quiet folk are terrorised by the rowdy; the children are demoralised: there are dangers not expected, and temptations not considered: in a word, the model lodging-houses of Southwark and Bermondsey are not, in every respect, adapted to a model population.
It is difficult between London Bridge and Rotherhithe to get at the river, except at two or three spots where the old stairs can be approached by a narrow passage. There is an embankment or terrace: the whole bank is occupied for commercial purposes: business men do not like strangers on these wharves: and for all practical purposes the dwellers below Bridge might just as well be a dozen miles inland. If, however, the resident of Bermondsey can sometimes – say, on Saturday afternoon – get down to the stairs and look out upon the river, he will see close at hand, not only the ships and barges that lie about the wharves, but the grand new Watergate of London, the most appropriate entrance that could be devised to the port – the new Tower Bridge.
Where Bermondsey Wall ended and Rotherhithe began the houses, until fifty years ago, rapidly grew thinner, until Rotherhithe itself consisted of little more than a single street, with docks, and stairs, and taverns on the riverside, and on the other side lanes leading to cottages and cottage gardens. The Commercial Docks were opened in 1807, but the place still preserved something of its old character until quite recently. It consisted of a district round which the river flowed on the north and east. Like all the country about the Thames, it was low-lying, and originally a marsh. Even as late as 1830 it was imperfectly drained, and a good part of it remained still a marsh. Thus the road, now called Southwark Park Road – why could they not leave the old name, Blue Anchor Road? – even in 1830 wound through a marsh covered with ditches and ponds. On the east side, near the junction of Blue Anchor Road with Jamaica Row, there was a most remarkable collection of ponds and islands, ending with a broad stream or ditch running into the river at Rotherhithe stairs. Other ditches or streams lay or flowed at will over the levels, making islands which were approached by bridges. The character of the place was entirely that of a marsh: in fact, it was the last part of London where there lingered still the appearance of a marsh. The names show this. We have The Reed Bed; Providence Island; the Seven Islands; the West Pond; the East Pond; Broom Fields; Halfpenny Hatch, repeated more than once. The numerous Ropewalks scattered about show that the ground was cheap, and the factories where they make glue, soap, brimstone, turpentine, white lead, and paper are there, which require plenty of room and few people to enjoy the smell.
Leaving Rotherhithe, we arrive at a place much more interesting, namely, Deptford. They have done their best to spoil Deptford of late years: they have taken away the old Trinity Almshouses: they have built new streets: but a good deal of the old Deptford remains. I walked about it nearly every day for three months some twelve years ago, reconstructing the Deptford of 1750 from the Deptford of 1886. It is like reconstructing the face in youth from a portrait in middle life. I succeeded at last, to my own satisfaction, and, I hope, to the satisfaction of my readers when the eighteenth-century Deptford appeared as the background of a novel. It was not a very big place: it consisted chiefly of an old church in the lower part of the town, and a new church in the upper part: there were two almshouses: there was the Hall where the Brethren of the Trinity House assembled every year before their service at St. Nicolas and their feast at their house on Tower Hill. The town was full of sailors and naval officers: the latter were not remarkable for the finicking ways of the beaux their contemporaries: on the contrary, they despised such ways – 'their fashions I hate, like a pig in a gate.' When they were young they made love all the time they were ashore, except when they were drinking and taking tobacco at the tavern – these occupations, truly, left the honest fellows less time for love than might have been expected. There were officers' taverns and seamen's taverns: rum, however, was the favourite drink at both. And, really, it would surprise you to hear the songs they sang, and to observe the cheerfulness with which they put up with everything: favouritism: long and hopeless service in the lower ranks: bad food on board: long years of foreign service: and for all the gallantry that these brave fellows showed in service not a word of thanks: not a hint at promotion.
The Town consisted mostly of a single street: there were shops, but poor things: there was a market: fruit and vegetables were brought in from the country round: within a few steps of the town one was in the loveliest country, with the Ravensbourne flowing between meadows and under the branches of willows and of alders.
The dockyard of Deptford was founded by Henry the Eighth, and continued till 1869. It was at Deptford that most of the ships were built for the Royal Navy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: it was here that Drake's ship, the Golden Hind, in which he had made his voyage round the world, was laid up, her cabin turned into a place of entertainment. She remained here, an object of pilgrimage for the Londoners, for many years. She was a good deal cut about, because everybody wanted to carry away a piece of her. At last she was suffered to fall to pieces. One pious archæologist got a chair made out of her timbers and presented it to the Bodleian Library.
Pepys was often at Deptford in his capacity of Secretary of the Admiralty. 'Up and down the yard all the morning, and seeing the seamen exercise, which they do already very handsomely. Then to dinner… After dinner and taking our leave of the officers of the yard, we walked to the waterside, and on our way walked into the ropeyard, where I had a look into the tarhouses and other places, and took great notice of all the several works belonging to the making of a cable.'
It was at Deptford that Pepys visited Lady Sandwich, 'where I stood with great pleasure an hour or two by her bedside, she lying prettily in bed.' During the plague year, when he and his wife were staying at Woolwich, he goes over to Deptford nearly every day, and was continually feasting with his friends and always 'very merry,' though the plague was slaying its thousands only a mile or two away.
Another visitor to Deptford who left a lasting memory was Peter the Great, who stayed here in 1698, studying ship architecture. The people of the town had the satisfaction of seeing the Czar of Muscovy – not quite so great a man then as he is now – smoking a pipe of tobacco and drinking brandy in their taverns every evening. By day they might see him working among the dockyard men at the various parts of a ship and its gear.
The most interesting person, however, who is connected with the annals of Deptford is certainly John Evelyn.
Evelyn was not a great writer, nor a great scholar, nor a great statesman: he was not great in anything that he did: yet his memory remains, and will remain long after that of much stronger men has been forgotten. He wrote a great deal, and since some of his writings survive after three hundred years it is manifest that he must have written well. He was a strong royalist who knew how to take care of his own skin. In order to avoid being dragged into the army and fighting for the cause which he loved, he went abroad and travelled in Europe for four years, during which time the royal cause fell to pieces, and those who fought for it were ruined. In 1647 he came home again; in 1649 he went back to France, where he stayed till 1652. By this time he had made many discoveries and observations on art and antiquities. He also married a wife, the daughter of Charles's ambassador at Paris. Through his wife he obtained possession of Sayes Court, Deptford, where, with a few breaks, one of which was to allow Peter the Great to use the house, he lived till nearly the end of his life. He was one of the founders and first Fellows of the Royal Society: he was a member of many commissions: he was the first Treasurer of Queen Mary's new naval hospital, and held many other offices.
In quite a brief note Pepys sums up the character and the accomplishments of this estimable man:
'Nov. 5, 1665. By water to Deptford, and here made a visit to Mr. Evelyn, who among many other things showed me most excellent painting in little: in distemper; in Indian ink; water colours; graving: and above all, the whole secret of mezzotinto, and the manner of it, which is very pretty, and good things done with it. He read to me very much also of his discourse he hath been many years and now is about, about Gardening, which will be a most noble and pleasant piece. He read me part of a play or two of his making; very good, but not as he conceits them, I think, to be. He showed me his "Hortus Hyemalis," leaves laid up in a book of several plants kept dry, which preserve colour, however, and look very finely, better than a Herball. In fine, a most excellent person he is, and must be allowed a little for conceitedness; but he may well be so, being a man so much above others.'
His memory survives on account of the personal character of the man which is revealed in his works, and of the high opinion in which he was held. 'A typical instance,' says his latest biographer ('Dict, of Nat. Biog.'), 'of the accomplished and public-spirited country gentleman of the Restoration, a pious and devoted member of the Church of England, and a staunch loyalist in spite of his grave disapproval of the manners of the court.' Above all things, it might be added, he was a gardener, and all gardeners are amiable and all gardeners are personally popular.
Of Greenwich Palace I have already spoken. There is little else in Greenwich except the Palace or Hospital. The Almshouse known as Norfolk College must not be forgotten, however. It is on the east side of the Hospital, and stands behind a stone terrace, overlooking the river. The College consists of a quadrangle containing a chapel and a small hall or common room, with gardens at the back. This kind of almshouse is common, but it is difficult to build it so that it shall not be beautiful. Norfolk College is quite a beautiful place. Finer and larger is Morden College, up the hill, designed for decayed merchants.
This is the end of London: a few yards beyond Norfolk College the houses stop suddenly: on the tongue of land projecting north formed by a loop of the river there are hardly any houses at all: the place is a dreary flat as far as Woolwich. The London County Council limits include Woolwich and Plumstead; but that broad area covered by continuous houses which begins at Battersea ends at Greenwich.
CHAPTER XIII
THE LATER SANCTUARY
The Sanctuary created and crossed by the Church for the refuge of those who had fallen into temptation became, as we know, the resort of the rogue, the murderer, and the habitual criminal. Within the precincts of St. – Martin's-le-Grand were carried on with impunity all the trades and methods of producing things counterfeit. The Sanctuary of Westminster was a scandal and a disgrace. These places had been finally abolished after much trouble: the City officers could march their rogues to Newgate without fear of a rescue from St. Martin's. The people of Westminster could lie down at night without fear of housebreakers from Sanctuary. At the same time the custom of holding and seeking sanctuary was too deep-rooted to be quickly abolished. Perhaps there was something comfortable in the thought that there should be a place, however small, where the officers of the law were not admitted, and where rogues should be unmolested. It was a loophole for repentance, perhaps: it was a gleam of sunshine on the path of the outlaw. So the custom was continued well into the eighteenth century. In this chapter I am going to recall the memory of these later Sanctuaries. As may be imagined, literature says little about them. But it says enough to show that there were places dotted about London which served all the purposes of the old sanctuaries without the restraints of ecclesiastical government: in fact, there was no government, except on purely democratic principles. In these places lived rogues and villains of all kinds: here the thief-taker came to find his man – observe that this functionary was admitted; the thief-taker ventured where the sheriff's officer could not. Why was this? Because the London rogue had a sense of justice: no man could expect to go on for ever: when a man's time was up, let him give place to his successor. The thief-taker, therefore, was a recognised official: it was his duty to assign to every man his proper length of rope. This allowance expended, it was the duty of the rogue to get up when he was called, go away quietly with the thief-taker, and get hanged in due course. Otherwise, there would have been no living to be made by the rogues on account of the competition of numbers. The name of Alsatia had been long forgotten, but the asylum still remained.
In the 'Fortunes of Nigel' we are made acquainted with the Alsatia of Fleet Street. There were other places equally secure for rogues, besides Alsatia. Such were Whetstone Park in Lincoln's Inn Fields; Fullwood's Rents, Holborn; Milford Lane, Strand; Montagu Close, Southwark; and others. All these were gradually extinguished; not by any summary procedure; not by turning out the rogues and forcing them to scatter; not by marching off the whole population to prison; but by the slower and more gradual process of transformation. This process began when the parts and places around became respectable. There is something chilling and repellent to the common rogue about the proximity of respectability: he does not like to be in its neighbourhood: in this way these degenerate and unlawful sanctuaries gradually fell into decay. One alone remained, when all the others had disappeared. It was in that part of Southwark – that part which is still a slum – called Mint Street, nearly opposite St. George's Church in the High Street. This street, with its alleys and courts, was inhabited by as villainous a collection as even the eighteenth century, which in point of villains was rich beyond its predecessors, could not equal. They had retreated here from their former haunt in Montagu Close, as to a last fortress, which was not yet besieged. They lived in perfect safety here: no writ could be served on them: no arrest could be made: the only person they had to fear was, as said above, the thief-taker.
The annals of this Sanctuary were never, unfortunately, kept; it is impossible to ascertain what illustrious criminals were here housed and for how long. There are, however, one or two little histories of the Mint which will serve to show us at once the public spirit, the courage, and the immunity with which the people of the later Sanctuary lived and acted.
The first story belongs to the year 1715. The case of Dormer v. Dormer and Jones came on for hearing at Westminster Hall. It was a divorce case, in which the co-respondent had been a footman in the plaintiff's house. There seems to have been no defence, practically. The verdict of the Jury was for the plaintiff, with 5,000l. damages. Now, consider for a moment what that verdict meant. In these days, when a defendant without any private means at all is mulcted in damages and costs, whether of 5,000l. or of 100l., he simply smiles. He is not in the least degree affected. Nothing worse than bankruptcy can happen to him, and when a man has nothing bankruptcy presents few terrors. In Portugal Street subridet vacuus viator– the insolvent pilgrim smiles cheerfully. But in those days it was very different. To inflict damages of 5,000l. meant simply that the Jury considered the case one in which the defendant, who could not be tried in the criminal courts, could only be adequately punished by being locked up for the whole of his remaining days in a debtor's prison, where, since he was only a footman whose relations were probably unable to assist him and certainly unable to maintain him, he would speedily take his place on the common side, and there he would be slowly done to death by insufficient food and insufficient clothing, by privation, cold, fever and misery.
The Jury therefore gave this verdict with deliberate intention. It meant prison and slow starvation and insufficient warmth, and so everybody instantly understood, including Mr. Jones himself. In a moment the officers would have laid hands upon the unhappy but undeserving footman. But he was too quick for them: he turned: he fled: he hurled himself down Westminster Hall through the crowd of lawyers, witnesses, booksellers, glovesellers, and visitors: he tore across New Palace Yard, now pursued by the officers: he made for the 'Bridge,' that is, the pier so called, for as yet there was no Bridge: he jumped into the first boat and shoved off. When the bailiffs arrived breathless at the Stairs, they saw their prisoner already half way across the river. They too jumped into a boat: for some reason or other – one knows not why – it was most unlucky – their boat took a long time to get off: something was wrong with the painter: the ropes were knotted: the stretchers wanted to be set right: the oars were on the wrong sides: the men were slow in getting off their coats: finally, when she was cast loose the boat proved to be another Noah's Ark for creeping slowly over the face of the waters. Jones therefore got safely ashore on the other side, and the bailiffs turned back with a good deal of cursing. Once ashore, the fugitive made straight to Mint Street, as to a Levitical City which was also a City of Refuge. I know not what became of him afterwards. It was a hive where all the bees were busy. Jones could not eat the bread of idleness: he therefore, one may certainly conclude, became a rogue by profession and in due course met his fate bravely with white ribbons round his cap, an orange in one hand, a Prayer-book in the other, and a large nosegay in his shirt front.
Here is another story of the same Eighteenth Century Sanctuary. It will seem incredible that the Executive should have been so incapable, but the story is literally true.
Things being in so satisfactory and settled a condition, the Law being so triumphantly defied, at the Mint in Southwark, some of the residents or collegians naturally desired to go farther afield, and to establish more Sanctuaries or Law-defying colonies on the other side of the river, which was reported to be ripe for these settlements. No reports of Meetings, Proceedings, and Resolutions held and passed on the subject have come down to us. However, that matters very little. Every great movement, we know, is the work of one man. Therefore there arose a Prophet – the Prophet as Rogue. He perceived, understood, and presently began to preach that a 'long felt want' – call it rather a 'need' – existed, which it was his duty to supply. The old Sanctuaries of North London, he pointed out, had fallen into decay. Alsatia was deplorably respectable: bailiffs had been seen in Milford Lane: the trade of counterfeit rings was no longer carried on in St. Martin's. And, though there were certainly taverns in Clerkenwell which bailiffs regarded with a useful respect, it could not be denied that London needed a new Sanctuary. This need he called upon his friends and fellow-residents in the Mint to supply. He set before his hearers with burning eloquence – I am sure it was burning – a Vision of a New London, Purged; Purified; without honesty; without morals; without law; with neither gallows, pillory, whipping post, or stocks: a City entirely in the hands of Rogues who would compel all the conquered City to work for them: would seize on all property and would live triumphantly happy with complete control over all the Prisons. To make a beginning of this Millennium, he proposed, by means of colonies from the Mint, to plant all London with Sanctuaries until, in fulness of time, the City should become one huge Sanctuary, where debts would never be collected, and robbery and murder would never be punished.
They chose for their new settlement a piece of ground on the east of Tower Hill, where Cable Street is now. They laid down their boundaries: they called the place the New Mint: they said, 'Within these limits there shall be no arrest.' This new law they communicated fairly and plainly, because everything was above board, to all the catchpoles. They then sat down as in an impregnable fortress. Remember, that if there were no police, such as we now understand by the word, they were close to the soldiers of the Tower, who might have been called in to disperse this lawless establishment. However, nothing at all was done. They sat down triumphant. Presently – I know not how long afterwards – a bailiff was actually found to disregard the warning. You will hardly believe that this rash and audacious person ventured to arrest a New Minter within the Precincts!
Then the colonists arose and formed into column: they called for music: preceded by a band of what used to be called the Whifflers, they marched in a procession, four abreast, quietly, calmly, but with settled purpose in their gallant and resolute faces: they carried a banner, yea, the Flag of Unrighteousness: they marched straight to the house of the offender, who, for his part, was so foolish as not to run away. It is, however, a weakness common to Catchpoles that they always put their trust in the Law. They arrested that Catchpole: they led him to the place where he had offended: and there they made an example of him. They tore away every shred of clothing from him: they flogged him all over with brooms and thorny brambles: they gave him a thousand lashes, so that there was not a whole inch of skin left upon him: they dragged him through filthy ponds and laystalls: they took him out and flogged him again: they tried to flog the life out of the poor wretch but failed, for he survived: then they dragged him again through the filth: at last they suffered him, bleeding and naked, to crawl home as best he might. I am sorry to say that I have no information as to the end of the New Mint adventure; but it certainly appears that no one was punished for this outrage, and that no attempt even was made to punish anyone. Perhaps the memory of that gallant deed still lingers in Cable Lane: but I have not ventured to inquire of the still rude and independent freemen, its present residents.