Wanderings in London, Piccadilly, Mayfair, and Pall Mall
9781465683212
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
Dr. Johnson in one of his rhetorical flights said that Charing Cross was practically the centre of the universe. “I think,” he observed to Boswell, on a celebrated occasion, “the full tide of human existence is at Charing Cross.” Theodore Hook, on the other hand, considered that that small area in St. James’s, bounded by Piccadilly and Pall Mall, St. James’s Street and Waterloo Place, was the acme of fashion, and contained within itself all that was best worth cultivating in the Metropolis. Like all generalizations, neither of these dicta will bear the test of logical analysis. Hook’s favourite quarter has undergone many a change, and its present day equivalent is more likely to be found in that larger area known to all the world as Mayfair. Similarly, although much of the tide of human existence still flows past the spot where Queen Eleanor’s body rested for the last time, on its way to the Abbey, that tide flows as fully and with as much noisy vehemence past half a hundred other crowded spots in London. It is probable, however, that at no one point does it surge and rage (to carry on the metaphor), with greater force than at the spot where Piccadilly and Bond Street join. At this spot stands “Stewart’s”—famed all the world over. I say “Stewart’s,” as I should say in Venice, “Florian’s,” or in New York, “Delmonico’s”; for there are certain famous establishments in all great cities which require no more specific designation. Who is there, indeed, that knows not Stewart’s? It has been presiding over this corner for the last two hundred years and more. It must be the oldest baker’s and confectioner’s business in London, beside which even such ancient houses as “Birch’s” or “Gunter’s” are comparatively modern. To day it bears upon its rebuilt front, the date of its establishment—1688, and the massive foundations and old brickwork, which were brought to light during the recent rebuilding, fully support the theory that this was one of the original buildings erected by Sir Thomas Bond on the site of Clarendon House, when he laid out the street which bears his name. Let us take this shop, as characteristic of many others, and try to recall what it may have witnessed in the lapse of years. In its early days it was, no doubt, too much occupied with its own affairs to take much note of great personages or historic events; but after it had settled down, so to speak, and had become, as it did, the purveyor of the staff of life to the Coffee houses that had sprung up around it, it may be supposed to have given an eye, now and then, to the interesting men and beautiful women who passed by, or who made it a rendezvous while some of them waited for those who were spending or making fortunes in the gambling hells of St. James’s Street hard by.
