A Walk from London to FulhamCroker, Thomas Crofton
History
A Walk from London to Fulham
Croker, Thomas Crofton
London (England) -- Description and travel
Returning from Hans Place to the Fulham Road through NEW STREET, No. 7
may he pointed out as the house formerly occupied by Chalon, “animal
painter to the royal family;” and No. 6 as the residence of the Right
Hon. David R. Pigot, the late Solicitor-General for Ireland, while (in
1824–25) studying in the chambers of the late Lord Chief-Justice Tindal,
for the profession of which his pupil rapidly became an eminent member.
BROMPTON was formerly an airy outlet to which the citizen, with his
spouse, were wont to resort for an afternoon of rustic enjoyment. It had
also the reputation of being a locality favourable to intrigue. Steele,
shrewdly writing on the 27th July, 1713, says:—
“Dear Wife,—If you please to call at Button’s, we will go together to
Brompton.
“Yours ever,
“RICHARD STEELE.” {38a}
Now is Brompton all built or being built over, which makes the precise
locality of crescents and rows puzzling to old gentlemen. Its heath is
gone, and its grove represented by a few dead trunks and some
unhealthy-looking trees which stand by the road-side, their branches
lopped and their growth restrained by order of the district surveyor; and
Brompton National School, nearly opposite to New Street, a building in
the Tudor style, was, in 1841, wedged in there “for the education of 400
children, after the design of Mr. George Godwin, jun.;” so at least the
newspapers of the day informed the public.
BROMPTON ROW on the north, or right-hand side of the main Fulham Road,
now consists of fifty-five respectable-looking houses, uniform, or nearly
so, in appearance; and, according to the statements in the ‘Gentleman’s
Magazine’ {38b} and Mr. Faulkner’s ‘History of Kensington’ {38c} here
died Arthur Murphy. But although this was not the case, in Brompton Row
have lived and died authors, and actors, and artists, whose performances
deserve full as much consideration from posterity.
No. 14 BROMPTON ROW was the abode for more than ten years (1820 to 1831)
of John Vendramini, a distinguished engraver. [Picture: No. 14 Brompton
Row] He was born at Roncade, near Bassano, in Italy, and died 8th
February, 1839, aged seventy. Vendramini was a pupil of Bartolozzi,
under whom he worked for many years, and of the effect he produced upon
British art much remains to be said. In 1805 Vendramini visited Russia,
and on his return to England engraved ‘The Vision of St. Catherine,’
after Paul Veronese; the ‘St. Sebastian,’ after Spagnoletti; ‘Leda,’
after Leonardo da Vinci; and the ‘Raising of Lazarus,’ from the Sebastian
del Piombo in the National Gallery.
No. 14 Brompton Row, in 1842, was the residence of the late Mr. George
Herbert Rodwell, a favourite musical and dramatic composer, who died
January 22nd, 1852.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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