Bloomsbury (London, England) -- Description and travel; Holborn (London, England) -- Description and travel
As this is no guide-book, no attempt is made to classify the departments
of the Museum or to indicate its riches. These may be found by
experiment, or read in the official guides to be bought on the spot.
On the east is Montague Street, running into Russell Square.
Southampton House, the ancient manor-house, celebrated for the famous
lime-trees surrounding it, stood on the ground now occupied by Bedford
Place. Noorthouck describes it as "elegant though low, having but one
storey." It is commonly supposed to have been the work of Inigo Jones.
When the property came into the Bedford family, it was occasionally
called Russell House, after their family name. Maitland says that, when
he wrote, one of the Parliamentary forts, two batteries, and a
breastwork, remained in the garden. The house was demolished in 1800,
and Russell Square was begun soon after. A double row of the lime-trees
belonging to Bedford House had extended over the site of this Square.
All this ground had previously been known as Southampton Fields, or Long
Fields, and was the resort of low classes of the people, who here fought
their pitched battles, generally on Sundays. It was known during the
period of Monmouth's Rebellion as the Field of the Forty Footsteps,
owing to the tradition that two brothers killed each other here in a
duel, while the lady who was the cause of the conflict looked on.
Subsequently no grass grew on the spots where the brothers had planted
their feet.
Southey, in his "Commonplace Book," thus narrates his own visit to the
spot:
"We sought for near half an hour in vain. We could find no steps at
all within a quarter of a mile, no, nor half a mile, of Montague
House. We were almost out of hope, when an honest man, who was at
work, directed us to the next ground, adjoining to a pond. There we
found what we sought, about three-quarters of a mile north of
Montague House, and 500 yards east of Tottenham Court Road. The
steps are of the size of a large human foot, about three inches
deep, and lie nearly from north-east to south-west. We counted only
seventy-six; but we were not exact in counting. The place where one
or both the brothers are supposed to have fallen is still bare of
grass. The labourer also showed us where (the tradition is) the
wretched woman sat to see the combat." Southey adds his full
confidence in the tradition of the indestructibility of the steps,
even after ploughing up, and of the conclusions to be drawn from
the circumstance (_Notes and Queries_, No. 12).
A long-forgotten novel, called "Coming Out; or, The Field of the Forty
Footsteps," was founded on this legend, as was also a melodrama.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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