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Bloomsbury is the district bounded on the south by New Oxford Street, on the west by
Tottenham.Court Road, on the north by the Euston-Road, and on the east by Gray's-inn. It was at one time a fashionable quarter of the town, and contains several good squares, among them Bedford, Russell, Brunswick and Tavistock Squares. The houses in the two former of these are large, roomy, and substantially built; whilst both for houses and garden Russell- square is incomparably the finest in London. Rents, very moderate; but the Bedford Estate leases are rather stringent. To strangers its chief interest is that in Russell-street, Bloomsbury, stands the British Museum. Although no longer a fashionable, it is still an eminently respectable district of London, and as it is not traversed by any main thoroughfares, its streets and squares, with the exception of some few which are still paved with the old heavy stones, are remarkably quiet, and free from noise and bustle.
Charles Dickens (Jr.), Dickens's Dictionary of London, 1879
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Not far from Hampstead is Highgate Cemetery. It
is by far-in our opinion- the most beautiful cemetery in the region of London, It is situate on an eminence - on the south-eastern slope of a beautiful hill, looking down upon the busy metropolis, and is a quiet and retired place. There are many beautiful and even magnificent tombs in the cemetery.
A short distance from the cemetery can be found
one of the sweetest English lanes that ever we saw. Perhaps a kind of beauty was added to it from the fact that it used once to be the favorite walk of John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley. For, many years since, Keats and Shelley used to walk in it, and Byron too, and Coleridge. Leigh Hunt, if we mistake not, first met Keats in this lane, and speaks of it in some of his writings. |
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PALACE YARD, LAMBETH
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A large and rapidly growing district on the Surrey side, of
very varied character. The best part, close to the Common, stands high, and is one of the healthiest and most bracing situations in the immediate neighbourhood of London. Thence, however, the ground slopes away, and many of the houses in Clapham lie low, and in quite a different climate. The Common itself is a fine open space of about 200 acres, with several fine clumps of old trees. Rents run comparatively high, and houses in the choicer situations are not easy to obtain, the demand for them being all the greater that Clapham, which still retains something of its semi-rural flavour, is nevertheless within the magic four-mile circle.
Charles Dickens (Jr.),
Dickens's Dictionary of London, 1879
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The pretty village of Hampstead, and from the summit
of Hampstead Heath, has a splendid view of Windsor Castle, distant nearly twenty miles. The village is on an eminence which overlooks London, and is an exceedingly healthy situation for a residence. The blue hills of Surrey rise beyond the tall dome of St. Paul's ; the great town lies open as on a map far below, while the noisy hum of traffic swells upward on the breezes which hasten over the great town.
Charles Dickens (Jr.),
Dickens's Dictionary of London, 1879
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The other face of
Hampstead 1900
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THE ST.GILES ROOKERY - Wretched houses with broken
windows patched with rags and paper; every room let out to a different family, and in many instances to two or even three - fruit and 'sweetstuff' manufacturers in the cellars, barbers and red-herring vendors in the front parlours, cobblers in the back; a bird-fancier in the first floor, three families on the second, starvation in the attics, Irishmen in the passage, a 'musician' in the front kitchen, a charwoman and five hungry children in the back one - filth everywhere - a gutter before the houses, and a drain behind - clothes drying, and slops emptying from the windows; ... men and women, in every variety of scanty and dirty apparel, lounging, scolding, drinking, smoking, squabbling, fighting, and swearing.
Charles Dickens, Sketches by Boz, 1839 on St Giles Rookery
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ST.GILES INTERIOR
AND EXTERIOR 2006
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ILLUSTRATION OF CONDITIONS DESCRIBED
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This page last modified on Wednesday, May 16, 2007
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