Bloomsbury (London, England) -- Description and travel; Holborn (London, England) -- Description and travel
The Hospital for Sick Children is a red-brick building designed by Sir
C. Barry. Within, the wards are lined by glazed tiles, and the floors
are of parquet. Each ward is named after some member of the Royal
Family--Helena, Alice, etc. The children are received at any age, and
the beds are well filled. Everything, it is needless to say, is in the
beautifully bright and cleanly style which is associated with the modern
hospital. The chapel is particularly beautiful; it is the gift of Mr. W.
H. Barry, a brother of the architect, and the walls are adorned with
frescoes above inlaid blocks of veined alabaster.
The Homoeopathic Hospital, which is on the same side of the street
nearer to the Square, is another large and noticeable building. This is
the only hospital of the kind in London. The present building occupies
the site of three old houses, one of which was the residence of Zachary
Macaulay, father of the historian. There are in all seven wards, two for
men, three for women, one for girls, and one for children. The
children's ward is as pretty as any private nursery could be. The
hospital is absolutely free, and the out-patient department
exceptionally large.
In Great Ormond Street there are also one or two Benefit Societies,
Manchester Unity Independent Order of Oddfellows for the North London
District, and many sets of chambers. This district seems particularly
favourable to the growth of charitable institutions.
Lamb's Conduit Street is called after one Lamb, who built a conduit here
in 1577. This was a notable work in the days when the water-supply was a
very serious problem. Thus, a very curious name is accounted for in a
matter-of-fact way. In Queen Anne's time the fields around here formed a
favourite promenade for the citizens when the day's work was done.
The parish of St. George, Bloomsbury, which lies westward of St. George
the Martyr, is considerably larger than its neighbour. The derivation of
this name is generally supposed to be a corruption of Blemund's Fee,
from one William de Blemund, who was Lord of the Manor in Henry VI.'s
reign. Stow and others have written the word "Loomsbury," or
"Lomesbury," but this seems to be due to careless orthography, and not
to indicate any ancient rendering.
The earliest holder of the manor of whom we have any record is the De
Blemund mentioned above. There are intermediate links missing at a later
date, but with the possession of the Southampton family in the very
beginning of the seventeenth century the history becomes clear again. In
1668 the manor passed into the hands of the Bedfords by marriage with
the heiress of the Southamptons. This family also held St. Giles's,
which, it will be remembered, was originally also part of the Prebendary
of St. Paul's.
The Royal Mews was established at Bloomsbury (Lomesbury) from very early
times to 1537, when it was burnt down and the mews removed to the site
of the present National Gallery (see _The Strand_, same series).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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