OLD MEMORIES

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 112, 7 November 1935, Page 20

OLD MEMORIES

SQUARES OF LONDON

HISTORY AND ROMANCE

VOYMT- GAEDEN FIEST

Italy has its piazzas, Paris its boulevards, ■ and London its squares, says a writer in the Melbourne "Age.", The square, like many other good things in this world, was in a great measure an accidental invention. The oldest squares in the world are in London, and they go back only to .the seventeenth century. The oldest; square in London is"Covent Garden,, and it was begun by the fourth' Earl of Bedford in the reign of Charles I. The earl contemplated a piazza, Italian"" in fashion as well as in name. Inigo Jones was employed as his architect, and commenced the erection of a piazza, one side of which was to be formed by a church, two : more by houses with an open arched pathway in front under their >first storeys, and the fourth in all probability by the earl's garden wall—if- he did not contemplate a stately palace fronting;to the piazza. By one of those strange perversions of foreign designations so common in ' all languages, the name piazza,came, to be applied exclusively to the covered pathway, and the open space was called the square, until the superior importance of the market and the desertion of fashionable inhabitants degraded it to Covent Garden market. The square of Covent Garden, though commenced so early, was probably not completed till after the. Restoration, as the names .of some,of the streets abutting on it seem to belong to that later era. In 1657 the Earl of Bedford and John and Edward Russeir were abated £7000 from : the amount of-the fines ithey had incurred under the Act to prevent the increase of buildings in and near' London in consideration of the great expenses which the family had • incurred: in erecting" the chapel and improving the neighbourhood. .Hogarth's Club had its meetings in a house in the. square, and the, Old Hurnmums-was long' the favourite resort of the subaltern heroes of . the Peninsular ..War, while the adventures of the neighbourhood supplied matter for thee«pens of Congreveiand Fielding. The Old Hummunis was the scene of what Johnson regarded as the best ghost story he had ever heard.; The ghost, -that of^Ford, the parson of* Hogarth's "Midnight Mddern Conversation," appeared .'.-to the waiter,,and as the scene was the cellar, and the ghost said nothing, possibly it had been purloining beer and was too drunk .to ,speak.. : , -~,: -^ . ,; ,: .... ;r^,ai::;THEm- START. ■: ■■;•:,:"'.■•■"., The age of Charles II was one in which the:erection; of; squares took a decrdedv'starti; rand Inn's Fields owe their origin as squares •t6.I"tt'at;-j^ripd.r:jt.:^as'.then'-:that---S6hp Square 'in to? existence; and that handsome llarry Jeraryn, (^M^ though a coxcomb"; and exposed: to i have his ,head';;:turned byi ; the;love.of a-queen, appears to :have;ha'd as steady; an eye to the main.chance as any Cubitt of his age, laid foundations of St. James's Square. Panton Square, Bridgewater Square, ~ and Queen Square date from that reign. Wren, Evelyn, and other kindred spiritsterideavbured to promote the taste"f6f' this innovation. The learned would have given them finer names, but the most, sovereign citizens of London were^re/ solved that they should be,-: simple" squares ; and nothing . but '■'squares. Makers of books waged'r war ('against the word, but without avail. .■Maitland, in 1732, gave-up the attempt to 'call the squares quadrates. "'./,:>, By-the time London had one/iiuhdred.; squares they 'were classified into four gfand divisions—;those where the fashionables lived, -those which, while; bearing traces of faded greatness, had become the-haunts of busy trading life; those which were -inhabited •■ by the aristocracy of the law; and the purely city squares. Charterhouse Square was built upon' the spot^where knightlypenitents ;sought cohsolatiori from;its cloistered owners when the •.neighbouring Smithfield, instead of beingl a'receptacle for meat and poultry, was the' scene of tournaments. Devonshire Square was the spot on which lingered the last lady of rank, who clung to .her ancestral abode in the city. Gough Square is still haunted,by the Eidolon of Johnson,-- and Richardson's ghost, nervous and coy, as in life, revisits the glimpses of; the moon1 in Salisbury, Square...; •■, ■"->, ■'- .'v.'.v ■■ :. •■ -.; ■ NEXT IN ORDER, The-square of Linc'olri^s Inn Fields is second an poiht of antiquity. It-was the 'haunt of highwaymen when, in 1659, James Cooper, Robert Henley, Francis Finch, and other owners of, "certain parcels of . ground.- in the Fields were exempted ;from all "forfeitures and- penalties they might incur in regard to any new buildings they might erect on three sides of the same fields previously to October 1 of that year;, provided ,that they paid for the' public service one year's full value forevery such house within one month of its erection; and provided that they should convey the residue of the said Fields to the Society' of .'Lincoln's Innfor laying the:' same into walks for common use. arid benefit; whereby the annoyan6es that formerly have been In the same Fields will be taken away,and passengers there for . th^ future better secured." Fronting', on.'; the square was Newcastle House, ' Where lived the Duke of Newcastle, the most eccentric statesman Britain has ever known. Soho Square, which arose during the reign of Charles 11, was once called Monmouth Square, the Duke of Monmouth inhabiting _a house in it. There is a tradition that on the death of the duke his admirers changed the name to Soho, the watchword at th ■ battle of Sedgmoor. An attempt was made to force the name of King Square upon it, but failed. About the time of the accession of George 111 Soho was the gayest square, in London. Here were Cornely's masquerades and balls the suppers of which were alleged to be more elegant than abundant. One mansion witnessed the confidential orgies of George IV, when Prince of Wales Here lived also Sir Joseph Banks, who was prominent in early Australian discoveries. LEICESTER HOUSE. Leicester House, from which Leicester Square derived its name, was the "pouting place" of the first Prince of Wales of the Hanoverian dynasty Hogarth lived there, and also Sir Joshua Reynolds and Sir Charles Bell, who made there his discoveries repecting the nervous system. Leicester Square, however, will probably ever be remembered as the scene of Wordsworth's moon-gazers. Russell Square, once a fashionable region, was (he home of the Bedford family, and Horace Walpole visited there. Lord Mansfield's, house was on the adjoining corner, and it was here that occurred one of the most destructive bursts of the ferocious mob led by Lord George Gordon. Lord and Lady Mansfield narrowly escaped with their lives. In. St. James Square is Norfolk House, where George 111 was born, and next door lived the Bishop of London. Berkeley Square dates back to the r.eign of Queen Anne, and there lived in 1765 the favourite Bute, and. after-