Catalogue of a collection of early drawings and pictures of London: With some contemporary furnitureBurlington Fine Arts Club
History
Catalogue of a collection of early drawings and pictures of London: With some contemporary furniture
Burlington Fine Arts Club
Art -- Exhibitions; London (England) -- Pictorial works -- Catalogs
Portion of view shown in No. 87, but dating from near the end of
Charles II’s reign. It will presently be pointed out that No. 96
is a still earlier picture of almost the same subject, so to avoid
repetition this has not been reproduced. Here the Banqueting Hall
is prominent; other important buildings are as follows: To extreme
left in background a louvred structure is the Great Hall, Whitehall,
more clearly visible in Wijck’s view from the river, No. 91. Facing
park we see the old Guard House as in No. 87. The upper portions of
Holbein Gate-house and of a battlemented structure are also visible;
for description of the latter and of the great staircase see note
on No. 96. A large brick building some distance to right preceded
Kent’s Treasury, both occupying the site of Henry VIII’s Cockpit,
which still remained when No. 96 was painted. Little is known about
the brick building; it appears in views by Kip, 1710 and 1720, and
in an illustration for J. T. Smith’s “Antiquities of Westminster,”
from a picture resembling this. There are also slight sketches of
it in vol. ii of Lond. Top. Society’s Records, illustrating a paper
by the late Mr. Walter B. Spiers, Soane Curator, who made a special
study of Whitehall. In foreground of our view, among bewigged and
gaily-apparelled figures, a black woman and a black page are prominent.
_Lent by Mary, Countess of Ilchester._
90 OLD LONDON BRIDGE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY FROM SOUTHWARK.
Oil picture. 41 by 27½ in.
View of old London Bridge, of City of London, and part of Southwark,
before the Great Fire. In foreground, beginning on west or left
side, the following playhouses are shown in their order: the Swan,
destroyed about 1633, the Hope or Bear Garden, and the second Globe.
The turreted building below the Swan was the old Manor House of
Paris Garden. In the reign of Charles I it got a bad reputation, and
was called Holland’s Leaguer from a woman who occupied it. The next
important building is the hall of the Bishop of Winchester’s house.
Then St. Saviour’s, originally church of Priory of St. Mary Overy,
and now Southwark Cathedral. Passing bridge, on right, is the church
of St. Olave, Tooley Street, replaced by present structure (lately
closed) in 1737-39. On Middlesex side, old St. Paul’s has lost its
spire, fatally injured by lightning in 1561.
There is no space to describe bridge in detail. Before removal of
houses under Act of Parliament 1756, it was most picturesque, but with
its many arches, several blocked by mills and waterworks, it checked
flow of water, hence freezing of Thames above bridge, frost fairs,
and danger of passing through in boat, or “shooting the bridge.” On
central pier, projecting to east, was chapel of St. Thomas-à-Becket,
with crypt beneath. In foreground is Southwark gatehouse (afterwards
rebuilt), with heads of traitors above parapet, a display originally
over building farther north, destroyed in 1577.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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