RENOVATING LONDON

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 130, 6 June 1929, Page 11

RENOVATING LONDON

OLD LANDMARK TO GO

AS CITY REBUILDS

London has always been changing, more or less, _but .since the war the changes have gone on at a tremendous rate, which leaves any old Londoner who attempts to keep up with them quite breathless. One side of Bloomsbury Square has" given way to a. huge block of insurance olnces (says the London correspondent of the Christian Science Monitor"). The site of Endsleigh Gardens, in Euston road, is covered by a dignified structure, beautiful m its simplicity, where the Society of Friends have their headquarters. The site of Dickens's old home in Tavistock Square is taken by the new home of the British Medical Association. Half a mile or so away, plans are being laid for a new theatre in Seven Dials. Seven Dials is not what it was. For generations it was one of the worst slums in London, but since Gilbert told us that Hearts just as pure and fair Way beat in Belgrave Square As m the lowly air Of Seven Dials, it ,has acquired a, certain respectability which, is now about to culminate in the new temple o£ dramatic art. Round and about Fleet street vast changes are impending which would make George Warrington and Pendennis rub their eyes with amazement. They relate chiefly to .1 newspapers, which find their present offices inadequate to their evergrowing circulations. The "Daily Express,", for instance, which has long been cooped up in Shoe' lane, is anxious for a shop window on the "street of ink," as Fleet street has been called,-and has obtained the old property at the corner of Shoe lane, in part of which "Ally Eloper's Half-Holiday" was once published, and where the "Morning Advertiser" now has its home. .. .., ; : But the greatest change of air in Fleet street, concerns the "Daily Telegraph." For more than two generations that great newspaper was associated with the Lawson family. They built it up. They, in association with Gordon Bennett, said to Stanley, "Find Livingstone," and Stanley found. They employed that erratic genius, George Augustus Sala, to write at large on any subject, from the coronation of a Tsar to French cookery, fr6m the launch of a lifeboat to the story of the Emperor Maximilian in Mexico. They smiled indulgently . when, the "young: lions" of Peterborough Court, as Matthew Arnold called them,' roared their approval or disapproval on subjects of the day. In time a new office for the "Daily Telegraph" '„ was built, and it was reckoned such a marvellous affair that the Prince of Waled {King Edward VII.) was induced to dine in the famous pillar, hall. AH this is to make way for a vast newspaper office which will rise high above the sky line, and spread east and: west and'northward, arid present such abeautiful facade to Fleet street as that ancient and grimy thoroughfare has never known. Sound the corner,. too, in Bouverie street—where the "Daily News" has its headquarters, the house wreckers are busy in demolishing the offices of "Punch/ to make way for larger premises more in keeping with the expanding and expansive humour of that familiar and merry little figure..' . " . . It is in the Courts and alleys off Fleet street, on either side, that much history may be sought and where history is being made. Turn up Fetter lane, and then turn down a narrow entry, and you will find yourself in Nevill's Court. What Nevill? Ralph Nevill, Bishop of Chichester from 1222 to 1244J who owned property in Chancery lane, and has also given his name to the neighbouring Chicaester Rents. , Until a year or so ago Nevill's Court measured only from four to seven feet in width, and was full of mean buildings and some large houses, dating back to the seventeenth century; which, had fallen from their high, estate. The City Corporation now proposes to turn the Court, into a neat street, 35 feet wide, which.,will make possible a new thorougbfai-e for traffic from Shoe lane on the west to Chancery lane on the east. It is a thoroughfare badly needed in the neighbourhood. Already most of the houses and shops on the north side of Nevill's Court have been demolished, and others will go. But it is a source of satisfaction to know that everything of historical value in and about the new street will be carefully preserved. This particularly applies to No. 10, a delightful double-fronted red-brick house dat: ing from thr reign of Charles 71. There is an air or fallen splendour about the buildings, but little would be required to render it back into its original condition —and then how glad some of us would be to live there! Here, in 1801, C. J. La Trobe, first Gdv ei-nor of Victoria, was born; and here a.t an earlier date both. Whitefield and Wesley; preached. • Most of the Court on the south 'side, it is understood, belongs to the Moravian Church, that old place (still standing) which began with secret meetings for Bible readings in a saw-pit, where Richard Baxter held weekly meetings, and where "Praise God Barebones" delivered himself o£ a • sermon which afterwards cost him a fine of £50. The Moravian Chapel is safe; so is the Moravian ministers' house, equally old; and when the new Btreet is completed it will probably be found that everything of historical value has been preserved. London is being rebuilt, rising to a finer, nobler city from the debris of its own bricks and mortar, and in this particular instance the transformation is being carried out without any of the vandalism that bo often accompanies such. & change.