If we look at a map of South London compiled at any time during the eighteenth century it is surprising to observe how little the place had grown since the fifteenth. There runs, as of old, the Causeway at right angles to the Embankment. On either side of the Causeway or High Street or St. Margaret's Hill, run off right and left a few narrow streets: the continuity of houses is broken by St. George's Church, south of which, although there are, here and there, detached houses and even rows of houses or terraces, there are open fields, streams, ponds and gardens. St. George's Fields, crossed by paths, are broad and open fields stretching out westward till they join Lambeth Marsh. St. Margaret's Church has long since vanished: he who knows the old maps can still put his finger on the site, but its burial ground has wholly disappeared. There are four old churches in Southwark proper: St. George's, St. Saviour's, St. Thomas's, and St. Olave's. On the east are the churches of Bermondsey and Rotherhithe, not to speak of Deptford: on the west is Lambeth Church: on the south are the churches of Newington and Kennington. As for other institutions, there are the two great hospitals St. Thomas's and Guy's almost side by side: and there are the prisons, that of the King's Bench, the Marshalsea and the White Lyon. They were all on the east side of the street until 1756, when the King's Bench Prison was removed across the road nearly opposite to St. George's. Some time after the Marshalsea was moved further south on the site of the old White Lyon and including that ancient Clink. The old{249} Clink on Bankside had vanished. But the Borough Compter was still flourishing—a grimy, filthy, fever-stricken place.
OLD HOUSE, STONEY STREET, SOUTHWARK OLD HOUSE, STONEY STREET, SOUTHWARK

At the back of the houses and narrow streets to east and west, the fields began with open ditches or sewers and sluggish streams. 'Snow's' Fields on the east were as well known as St. George's in the West. 'Long Lane' ran from St. George's to Bermondsey Church: it contained a few houses: Bermondsey Lane, commonly called Barmsie, ran from the old cross to the same church: it was already a street of houses. The most crowded part of Southwark proper was the street called Tooley or St. Olave's, the most ancient street in the Borough, originally built upon the Embankment, the Thames{250} Street of South London. Here, in the eighteenth century, there were no vestiges left of the former palaces: everything had gone except a crypt or a vault: at every step one came upon the entrance to a court, narrow, mean and squalid: these courts remain, also narrow, mean and squalid, to the present day. There were no places in London, unless in the neighbourhood of Hermitage Street, Wapping, where human creatures had to pig together in such horrible conditions. There was no water supply to these courts: there was no lighting: there was no paving, not even with the round cobbles which they still called paving.
ST. THOMAS'S HOSPITAL ST. THOMAS'S HOSPITAL
(From an old Print)
Some Ancient Houses in the Long Walk Bermondsey Some Ancient Houses in the Long Walk, Bermondsey
Jamaica House Bermondsey Jamaica House, Bermondsey

On the west side of the High Street, of which a map is{251} given on p. 85 of this volume, beyond St. Saviour's, the nave of which was fast falling into ruins, came Bankside. Alas! It was deserted: not a single theatre was left: not a baiting Place: not a Bear to bait: there was no longer a poet or an actor or a musician on Bankside: there were no more evenings at the Falcon: there was no longer heard the tinkling of the guitar, and the scraping of the violin. South of Bankside lay two broad gardens, side by side: one called Pye Garden; and the other, west of Winchester House, was called Winchester Park. Paris Gardens were no more. Blackfriars Bridge Road, in which there were as yet but few houses, had been cut ruthlessly right through the middle of the old Gardens; the trees, once so thick and close, had been laid low, but there were still kitchen gardens. South of the Gardens, with an interval of a few side streets, we come upon St. George's Fields, and on the west of these fields upon Lambeth Marsh, which was{252} cut up into ropewalks, tenter grounds, nurseries, and kitchen gardens. Where Waterloo Station now stands were Cuper's Gardens: there were half a dozen Pleasure Gardens, of which more anon: there were turnpikes wherever two roads met. But perhaps the most remarkable feature of this quarter in the last century was the immense number of streams and ditches and ponds: most of these were little better than open sewers: complaints were common of the pollution of these streams—but it was in vain: people will always throw everything that has to be ejected into the nearest running water if they can. One wants the map in order to understand how numerous were these streams. There was one murky brook which ran along the backs of all the houses on the east side of High Street—the prisoners of the Marshalsea and the King's Bench grumbled about it continually: another corresponding stream ran behind the west side of High Street.{253} Maiden Lane, now called Park Lane, rejoiced in one: Gravel Lane, more blessed still, was happy with a ditch or stream on each side: Dirty Lane had one: another ran along Bandy Leg Walk: other streams flowed, or crept, or crawled, across Lambeth Marsh and St. George's Fields. Where there were no houses, and therefore no pollutions, the streams of this broad marsh, lying beneath and between the orchards, fringing the gardens, and crossing the open fields, were a pleasant feature, though they had no stones to prattle over, but only the dark peaty humus of the marsh: and the water channels necessitated frequent little rustic bridges which were sometimes picturesque. Some of the streams again were of considerable size, especially that called 'The Shore' by Roques. It was also called the Effra. Along the banks of this stream stood here and there cottages, having little gardens in front and rustic bridges across the stream. But whether these streams ran or whether they crawled, behind{254} or beside the crowded houses they were foul and fetid and charged with all the things which should be buried away or burned way: they were laden with fevers and malaria and 'putrid' sore throat.
QUEEN ELIZABETH'S FREE GRAMMAR SCHOOL QUEEN ELIZABETH'S FREE GRAMMAR SCHOOL
ANCIENT BUILDINGS, HIGH STREET, BOROUGH ANCIENT BUILDINGS, HIGH STREET, BOROUGH
(From a Drawing by T. Higham, 1820)
THE FALCON TAVERN, BANKSIDE THE FALCON TAVERN, BANKSIDE

The High Street of Southwark is now a crowded thoroughfare, because it is the main artery of a town containing{255} a population of many hundreds of thousands. In the last century it was quite as animated because it was one of the main arteries by which London was in communication with the country. An immense number of coaches, carts, waggons, and 'caravans' passed every day up and down the High Street, some stopping or starting in Southwark itself; some going over London Bridge to their destination in the City. The coach of the first half of the century can be restored from Hogarth. That of the latter half of the{256} century was in all respects like the revived coaches of the present day, adapted for rapid travelling along a smooth road. The carts were carriers' carts on two wheels with a tilt or cover; they carried parcels and small packages, and on occasions, but not always, one or two passengers. The waggons, which carried heavy goods and passengers not in a hurry, were also covered with a tilt; their broad wheels and capacious interior can be restored, as well as the coach, from that most trustworthy painter of his own time. As for the caravans, I am in some doubt. I suppose, however, that a{257} caravan was then what it is now, in which case it was an elementary Pullman's car, in which people and their effects were drawn slowly along the road, in a four-wheeled covered cart. Perhaps the passengers slept in the car at night, drawn up by the roadside, like the gipsies. But of this theory I have no kind of proof.
AN OLD MILL, BANKSIDE AN OLD MILL, BANKSIDE
JOHN BUNYAN'S MEETING HOUSE, BANKSIDE JOHN BUNYAN'S MEETING HOUSE, BANKSIDE

From the Borough alone, without counting the vehicles which passed through to or from the City, there were sent out, every week, one hundred and forty-three stage coaches: one hundred and twenty-one waggons: and one hundred and ninety-six carts and caravans. And, of course, the same number came back every week. There was a continual succession of departures and arrivals; all day long, one after the other, the stage coaches came galloping up each to its own inn; while they were still far away the people of the inn knew when their own coach was coming by the tune played{258} on the guard's bugle: the High Street, in fact, was like a railway terminus, where trains are arriving and leaving all day long.
THE OLD TOWN HALL SOUTHWARK The Old Town Hall, Southwark

I am quite sure that we have no idea at all of the life and animation at a London inn when the stages were started and when they arrived. With as much method, and as quickly as the railway porters clear out the luggage and get rid of the train, the horses were taken out: the passengers got down: the coachman looked inside for his perquisites in the{259} shape of anything forgotten and left behind: the luggage was laid out: the porters seized it and carried it off to the hackney coach outside: the passengers followed their luggage: and the courtyard was ready for the next coach. Outside the courtyard there hung about, all day long, whole companies of thieves waiting for the chance of carrying off something unconsidered or forgotten. Generally, they stood in with the stable boys and the porters, who, for a trifle, were good enough to shut their eyes. If a trunk was seen to lie unclaimed, one of them came bustling in. 'Give us a hand, Jack,' he cried to one of the porters, as if he had been ordered to call for and bring away that trunk. A confederate or two stood at the door to trip up a pursuer or a proprietor, if there was one, and in a moment man and box would be lost to sight in a neighbouring court. Pickpockets as well abounded about the courtyards: outside were houses filled with disorderly folk of all kinds waiting to entrap and to tempt and to rob the country bumpkin. There was the couple ready with the confidence trick: the generous and hospitable{260} gentleman to welcome the country lad: there was the lady of the ready smile: and the taverns with the doors open to all. The numbers of coaches and waggons I have given refer to Southwark alone, and to the conveyances which belonged to the inns up and down in the High Street. But a great many more came across the bridge from the City daily. Now, if we are considering the traffic and animation of the roads leading to the City, remember that the High Street, Borough, was only one of many main lines of traffic. There were, besides, the roads to the North: to the Eastern counties: to the Midlands: to the West: and to the Northwest. Day and night the roads all round London were thronged with these coaches, carts, caravans, and waggons: but these vehicles were for ordinary folk only: for tradesmen, attorneys, clergymen, farmers, riders (that is, commercial travellers) and servants: a nobleman or a country gentleman scorned to travel in a public conveyance: he came up to London, if not in his own coach, then in a post-chaise, of which there were thousands on the road. Add to these the horsemen, of whom there were an immense number riding from place to place: add, further, the long droves of cattle, sheep and pigs: the cattle, however, to save their feet and to keep them in condition, were mostly taken along 'drives' by the roadside, where the ground was soft. One of these can still be seen on the other side of Hampstead. Pedestrians there were also by thousands: soldiers: sailors: gipsies: strolling actors: tinkers and tramps—the land was full of tramps: in a word the roads near London were crowded and animated and full of adventure, character, incident, and picturesqueness: indeed, the dismal and deserted condition of the modern road makes it difficult for us to realise the crowds and the life of the road in the eighteenth century.
Old Houses in Ewer Street Old Houses in Ewer Street

Of society in the Borough there is little information to be procured. The place had, however, its better class. One infers so much from the fact that there were Assembly Rooms{261} in the High Street, and that a Borough Assembly was held during the winter on stated days, at which the fashion and aristocracy of the place were gathered together. I have gathered one anecdote alone concerning this Assembly. It is of an accident.
COURTYARD OF THE DOG & BEAR INN Courtyard of the Dog & Bear Inn

The company were assembled: the Minuets had begun: the orchestra was in full play: the ladies were dressed in their finest: hoops were swinging: towering heads were nodding: the gentlemen were splendid in pale blue satin and in pink, when suddenly the doors, which stood on the level of the street, were pushed open, and a dozen oxen came running in one after the other. The company ............