Unnoticed London
Elizabeth Montizambert
9781465663320
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
The following brief account of a few of the things that have interested me in London is not intended for the use of the inveterate sightseer, for whom so many admirable and complete fingerposts to the study of old London have been written, by such experts as Mr. Bell, Mr. Wilfred Whitten, Mr. E. V. Lucas, Mr. Ordish and Mr. Hare. It is meant for the people who do not realise one-eighth of the stories packed into the streets of London, the city which, as Sir Walter Besant, that great London lover, once said, has an unbroken history of one thousand years and has never been sacked by an enemy. For, in talking about the extraordinary beauty of London, I became aware of a vast public who have eyes and see not, who thoroughly dislike the idea of sight-seeing yet acknowledge their pleasure in a chance discovery made en route to tea at the Ritz,—people who are appalled at the very idea of entering a museum. Then there are the travellers who say vaguely that when they can find time they really mean to see something of London, but they turn their backs on the greatest city of the world without having seen much more than Bond Street, because they are obsessed by the idea that to see London requires some occult store of knowledge and energy, and their eyes are sealed to the interest and beauty that lie around their path. Finally there are people like the old lady who, when she heard I was writing a book about old London, asked with astonishment, “Is there anything old left in London?” I hasten to add that I have not tried in the following pages to tell of every interesting place or even of all there is of interest in the places visited,—only enough, I hope, to make people go and see for themselves and have the pleasure of discovering the rest. I am not afraid that if they once go to the Chapter House they will miss any of its beauties: my dread is lest they fail to go there, from the vision of a plethora of things they think they have no time to see. For I want more than anything else to prick the curiosity of the travellers up and down the streets of the city who miss so much pleasure that they might have so easily, because they are not alive to all the interesting and unexpected things that wait for their coming just round the corner. A little further afield there are so many other treasures waiting to be noticed,—Hogarth’s pleasant house in Chiswick, that, like many another London visitor, I am promising myself to see the first time I have a free Monday, Wednesday or Saturday;—Eltham, with its sunk garden surrounding the remains of the old palace of the English kings, where John of Eltham, Edward II.’s son, was born;—Southwark, with its cathedral and the remains of the Marshalsea Prison that not everyone knows how to find;—and Islington, with the Canonbury Tower and the house in Duncan Street, No. 64, where Lamb lived for four years. But these I must leave regretfully for another day.
