Lost London

by Richard Guard

  Edward Sheppard, architect of the Royal Opera House, was the designer of what was reported to be ‘an entirely new, beautiful convenient theatre’ where ‘dramatic pieces were performed with the utmost elegance and propriety’. However, Giffard’s decision to stage A Vision of The Golden Rump directly led to the passing of the 1737 Licensing Act that banned any play criticizing the government or the crown. As a result, the theatre closed but Giffard came up with a ruse to get around the new legislation.

  He hit upon staging musical concerts for which entry was charged, with plays performed during the interval. The theatre reopened in 1740 and, in January 1741, revived The Winter’s Tale for the first time in a hundred years. Giffard’s next coup, and his most enduring contribution to English theatre, was to give the title role in Richard III to David Garrick, spuriously claiming that it was Garrick’s stage debut. Despite that fib, Garrick was an instant hit, with Horace Walpole writing that ‘all the run is after Garrick, at Goodman’s Fields’. But political pressure from the established theatres in Lincoln’s Inn and Covent Garden led to Goodman’s compulsory closure on 27 May 1742 – the very day after Walpole had written those words to a friend – and it was never to reopen.

  Gore House

  Kensington

  SITUATED ON THE SITE WHERE THE Royal Albert Hall now resides, Gore House was built in the late 18th century.

  It was once the home of the famous anti-slavery campaigner, William Wilberforce, before the lease was taken over by the Countess of Blessington in the 1830s. The countess, an Irish writer famed for her beauty and wit, worked with her son-in-law, Count d’Orsay, to develop the house into the leading literary salon of its day. With eminent visitors including Disraeli, Wellington, Louis Napoleon, Walter Savage Landor and a youthful Charles Dickens, Blessington adopted an extravagant lifestyle that ultimately led to financial disaster. She and the Count were ultimately forced to flee to Paris, where she died of apoplexy in 1849.

  A subsequent sale of goods from Gore House lasted 12 days and attracted vast crowds of sightseers. H H Madden, one of Blessington’s friends, visited during the sale:

  The well-known library saloon, in which the conversaziones took place, was crowded – but not with guests... People as they passed through the room poked the furniture, pulled apart the precious objects of art and ornaments that lay on the table. And some made jests. It was the most signal ruin of an establishment I ever witnessed.

  The house briefly became a flamboyant restaurant run by the former Reform Club chef, Alexis Soyer, but the business failed after just five months and the building was bought by the Royal Commission ahead of the 1851 Great Exhibition and demolished.

  The Great Globe

  Leicester Square

  MAP-MAKER, GEOGRAPHER TO QUEEN VICTORIA and MP for Bodmin, James Wyld masterminded the Great Globe that stood in a building in Leicester Square Gardens from 1851 to 62.

  Although originally conceived as part of the Great Exhibition, the Exhibition’s organizing committee ultimately deemed it too big to fit into the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park. Nonetheless, after frantic negotiations with the landlord of the Leicester Square Gardens, Wyld’s scheme was hastily put into action and opened in time for the Exhibition in May 1851.

  Once completed, the globe was the largest that had ever been constructed, measuring 40ft wide and 60ft high. Its interior walls featured a plaster-of-Paris scale relief of the world, with each inch representing ten miles. It was lit by gas and could be viewed from any of four stages, while ‘the walls of the circular passages were hung with the finest maps, and atlases, globes and geographical works’. It was all housed in a grand, domed building in the centre of the gardens, which were once described by Charles Dickens as a ‘howling wasteland ... with broken railings, a receptacle for dead cats and every kind of abomination’. The attraction was an immediate success, with some 1.2 million people estimated to have visited in 1851 alone, including Prince Albert, the Duke of Wellington and the King of Belgium.

  However, the closure of the Great Exhibition marked a sharp decline in both interest and visitor numbers. It further lost out to competing educational shows in Leicester Square, such as the Panopticon of Science and Arts and Burford’s Panorama. By the late 1850s, Wyld himself was giving lectures inside the globe in a bid to keep it viable, but when his lease expired and he was threatened with legal action, the globe was speedily demolished and sold for scrap. Wyld reneged on his promise to return the gardens to a decent state and it was several more years before Leicester Square would lose its insalubrious reputation.

  Gunter’s Tea Shop

  Mayfair

  OPENED IN 1757 AS THE POT AND PINE APPLE by an Italian pastry chef, Domenico Negri, at 7–8 Berkeley Square, this shop specialized in ‘making and selling all sorts of English, French and Italian wet and dry sweetmeats’.

  Expanding to serve ice creams and sorbets too (said to be made from a secret recipe), it became a Mayfair institution and a favourite haunt of the fashionable. It was taken over by Robert Gunter in 1799, who renamed it accordingly, and won a reputation as one of a few locations where a lady could meet a gentleman without a chaperone. In those socially delicate times, coaches would park beneath the trees of Berkeley Square, the ladies sitting inside while their attentive gentlemen stood on the pavement. Waiters would take their orders and bring the famed ices out to them, dodging the traffic as they did so.

  Jane Carlyle, a Victorian lady of letters and wife of historian Thomas, was recommended to visit by Charles Darwin in August 1843. She reported that he told her that she ‘looked as if I needed to go to Gunter’s and have an ice’, an experience that she confirmed left her ‘considerably revived’. The other house speciality was elaborately decorated, multi-tiered wedding cakes, an essential for every society wedding.

  Gunter founded a catering and sweet-selling empire that stayed in his family for many generations and funded the construction of a large family home in Earl’s Court, affectionately known as ‘Currant Jelly Hall’. Redevelopment of Berkeley Square in 1936–7 saw the teashop move to Curzon Street, where it remained until 1956, the catering side of the business eventually folding twenty years later.

  Hanover Square Rooms

  OPENED IN 1774 AT THE CORNER OF HANOVER Square and Hanover Street, for a century this was one of London’s premier venues for musical concerts.

  Run on a subscription basis, the 800-seat concert hall was decorated with the works of Thomas Gainsborough, Benjamin West and Giovanni Battista Cipriani.

  Johann Christian Bach and Karl Frederick Abel both held wildly successful seasons here and among the venue’s biggest fans was George III, who had a special room laid out (the Queen’s Tea Room). He even donated a large mirror to the establishment. From 1785 until 1848, The Messiah was performed here annually, and between 1791 and 1795 Haydn conducted a series of twelve symphonies especially written in celebration of London. From 1833 to 1866 the Philharmonic Concerts were held here and from 1846 it served as home to the Amateur Music Society.

  Balls and masques were also hosted regularly, thrown by some of the most famous dandies of their day, such as Lord Alvanley, Henry Pierrepoint, Sir Henry Mildmay and Beau Brummel. One such event gave rise to one of the great put-downs of the age. Having been forced to invite the Prince Regent despite being on opposite sides of the political fence, when Brummel saw the Prince he cried out, ‘Alvanley, who’s your fat friend?’ The Prince was apparently cut to the quick by the unerring accuracy of the barbed question.

  The very last musical performance given at the Rooms was on Saturday, 19 December 1874. The following year it was turned into a gentleman’s club – The Hanover Square Club – which lasted until 1900, when the building was demolished.

  Harringay Stadium

  IN 1927 THIS BECAME THE THIRD GREYHOUND racing stadium to open in the country after Manchester (1926) and White City (1927). It had a capacity of 50,000, mostly on banked terracing, and a reputation for violence, with at least three major inciden
ts garnering national attention.

  In 1946, for instance, The Guardian reported that, following a disqualification, spectators ‘invaded the track and for over half an hour indulged in senseless destruction. They started bonfires which they fed with pieces of the hare trap ... smashed electric lamps and arc lights, tore down telephone wires, and broke windows, wrecked the inside of the judge’s box, overturned the starting trap ... They also attacked the tote offices.’

  The involvement of gangsters was also a fact of life at the stadium and it is said that Joe Coral, founder of the famous bookmakers, was forced to resort to threatening a local gang boss, Darby Sabini, with a gun to deter the mob from taking a slice of his income. But Harringay’s most extraordinary incident involved an attempt to introduce cheetah racing to the public.

  On Saturday, 11 December 1937, twelve Kenyan cheetahs, which had been trained and acclimatized in Harringay, were raced in front of a packed house in Romford, Essex. The venture, though, was not a success, with the cheetahs losing interest in the competition after covering only a short distance.

  Harringay was also used for speedway and stockcar racing but a decline in popularity led to the stadium closing for good and being sold to the supermarket chain, Sainsbury’s, for £10 million in 1987. Some of its banked terracing can still be seen in the supermarket car park.

  Highbury Barn

  FAMOUS SINCE 1740 FOR ITS CREAM CAKES, IN the period 1770–1818 Highbury Barn was extended to include a bowling green and supper rooms under the management of the Willoughby family.

  As host of the annual Licensed Victuallers’ dinner in the 1840s, the Barn could seat 3000 diners at a time, more than twice the population of the village of Highbury itself.

  Becoming known as ‘The Cremorne of the North’, the addition of an enormous raised, outdoor dance floor covering 4000 square ft won the venue renewed popularity. Known as ‘the Leviathan’, the floor was lit by huge gas globes and its advertising literature boasted that it had ‘half a million lights’. It was to become the spiritual home of ‘La Varsovana’, a dance somewhere between a waltz and a polka.

  In 1861, under the management of Edward Giovanelli, the venue was further extended to cover over five acres. Acts who performed there included Giovanelli himself, a noted comedian, as well as famous hire-wire acts including Blondin and acrobats such as Léotard. There was also the spectacle of balloon ascents, a thriving music hall scene and novelties such as the appearance of the original Siamese twins. However, an increasingly rowdy and down-market clientele brought trouble to the Barn. In 1869, for instance, there was a notable riot by students from St Bart’s that had sections of Victorian society up in arms.

  In 1865 James Inches Hillocks, author of My Life and Labours in London, A Step Nearer the Mark, described the scene at the Barn one Sunday evening, the most popular night for visiting:

  Not far distant is a band of young men, varying from fifteen to thirty years of age. They are arm in arm, occupying the entire breadth of the road. Each one is more or less intoxicated, so much so, that it requires the combined efforts of the whole to keep some of them from measuring their length upon the ground. Their conversation is of the rudest kind, and spoken in the most boisterous manner. Utterly regardless of the effects of a gross outrage on the most common sense of propriety, not to mention the higher claims of the Lord’s-day, they sing. ‘The Strand, the Strand,’ is the song in which they all join as they marched along.

  A scandalous exhibition of French dancing by the Colonna Troupe led to the Barn losing its licence in 1871. By 1883 it had been completely built over. Today, 26 Highbury Park (the Highbury Tavern) covers a tiny part of the original site.

  Hippodrome Racecourse

  Ladbroke Grove

  HOPING THAT ITS PROXIMITY TO LONDON WOULD draw punters from the racecourse at Epsom Downs, in 1836 John Whyte leased 140 acres of Ladbroke Grove for a period of twenty years.

  Laying out a track for both flat-racing and steeplechasing, he blocked the way of an ancient footpath that offered the shortest route between Kensington Village and Kensal Green. It was a decision that came at a heavy cost to him.

  On the course’s opening day in June 1837, hundreds of visitors forced their way on to the course, successfully demanding free entry under the terms of right of way. The Sunday Times recorded that:

  A more filthy or disgusting crew than that which entered, we have seldom had the misfortune to encounter ... relying upon their numbers, they spread themselves over the whole of the ground, defiling the atmosphere as they go, and carrying into the neighbourhood of the stands and carriages, where the ladies are most assembled, a coarseness and obscenity of language as repulsive to every feeling of manhood as to every sense of common decency.

  Not even the racing proved successful:

  Save Hokey Pokey, there was nothing that could climb, or hobble, much more leap over a hedge, and as to a hurdle, it was absurd to attempt one.

  After a redesign to accommodate the public footpath, the Hippodrome eventually reopened, with additional attractions including balloon ascents, archery and a cricket ground. At this point Whyte discovered another, fatal flaw in his plans. The course’s heavy clay soil was unsuitable for horse racing. With London’s rapid westward expansion, the land was in great demand for house-building. Whyte cut his losses and the last meet was held on 4 June 1841.

  Hockley-in-the-Hole

  Clerkenwell

  IN THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH I, THE BEAR GARDENS pub at Hockley-in-the-Hole, which is located on what is today Ray Street, Clerkenwell, rivalled the Southwark Bear Gardens as a venue for dog fights, cock fights, bear- and bull-baiting.

  Before fights, the animals were paraded through the streets to the beating of drums, as handbills were distributed describing the events of the day. One bill, for instance, read:

  This is to give notice to all gentlemen gamesters, and others, that on this present Monday is a match to be fought by two dogs, one from Newgate Market against one from Honey Lane Market, at a Bull, for a guinea to be spent, five Let-goes out of hand; which goes fairest and farthest in wins all. Likewise a green bull to be baited, which was never baited before, and a bull to be turned loose, with fireworks all over him; also a mad ass to be baited. With a variety of bull-baiting and bear-baiting, and a dog to be drawn up with fireworks. To begin exactly at three of the clock.

  Perhaps inevitably, some of the animals’ keepers met with tragic accidents. Christopher Preston, for instance, was attacked and almost devoured by one of his bears in 1709.

  The first advertisement for human-based ‘entertainment’ at Hockley-in-the-Hole dates to 1700, when the Daily Post reported that four men were ‘to fight at sword for a bet of half-a-guinea, and six to wrestle for three pairs of gloves, at half-a-crown each pair. The entertainment to begin exactly at three o’clock.’ By then, Hockley was widely regarded as a place of ill repute. Jonathan Wilde, the self-styled ‘Thief-Taker General’ who was executed in 1725, is thought to have lived here for a time. For many years, the Bear Gardens also displayed a suitcase inscribed ‘R Turpin’ and said to have belonged to the notorious highwayman.

  Hockley-in-the-Hole’s popularity waned as a more enlightened attitude to its ‘sports’ spread through society. Nonetheless, the squalid, tumble-down street remained until the widening of Farringdon Road and a programme of improvements to the Clerkenwell area in 1856–7 swept it away.

  Holborn Restaurant

  218 HIGH HOLBORN WAS FORMERLY A DANCE-HALL, casino and swimming baths, but reopened in 1874 under Frederick Gordon as a spectacular public dining room. Among its diners was Gandhi, who ate here as a young law student in 1889 and found the setting quite palatial.

  That same year the venue was extended and redecorated, and a decade later a Lieutenant-Colonel Newnham-Davies described eating there in his Dinners and Diners:

  In the many-coloured marble hall, with its marble staircase springing from either side, a well-favoured gentleman with a close-clipped grey beard was
standing, a sheet of paper in his hand, and waved us towards a marble portico, through which we passed to the grand saloon with its three galleries supported by marble pillars.

  The restaurant offered a choice of locations to eat, including the Grand Salon, Duke’s Salon, Ladies’ Salon, Grill Room or Lincoln’s Inn Buffet, as well as private dining rooms. Although clearly approving of the service and décor, Newnham-Davies was nonetheless somewhat scathing about the food: ‘The cutlet of mutton that was brought to each of us was small, and had suffered from having to journey some way from the kitchen.’

  An enduringly popular venue for reunions and annual suppers, the Holborn closed in 1955, in an asset sale prior to being demolished, it listed some 960 chairs for sale.

  Holy Trinity

  Minories, Tower Hill

  FOUNDED IN 1108 BY MATILDA (Henry I’s queen), from the late 13th century Holy Trinity served as a convent for an order known as the Poor Clares or Sister Minoresses (hence the street name, Minories).

  It was granted papal exemption from the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Canterbury and even after the dissolution of the monasteries, the church claimed the right to marry people without the calling of banns.

  In the late 16th century, London’s first great historian, John Stow, remembered as a child buying milk from the farm attached to the convent: