Kensington, Notting Hill, and Paddington: With Remembrances of the Locality 38 Years AgoAn Old Inhabitant
History
Kensington, Notting Hill, and Paddington: With Remembrances of the Locality 38 Years Ago
An Old Inhabitant
London (England) -- History
On the site of the Trinity Schools in the Harrow Road was a public Maze,
a great resort for holiday people as it was then completely in the
country. Here too was a magic mirror, in which for twopence any young
lady might behold (?) her future husband.
In the Harrow Road, opposite the Vestry Hall, stood until 1860, the
oldest charitable buildings in the parish, a block of small almshouses.
They afforded shelter for about 16 poor old women. No doubt they felt
more independent in their actions than they would have done in the
Workhouse. It is doubtful if they were so well cared for as they would
have been in the larger house with its excellent Master and Matron, who
take a great interest in the comfort of all the inmates.
They are not answerable for the separation of old married couples,
against which separation I strongly protest.
It is not, however, every married couple who wish to live together; of
this I had a proof once when I asked a man if he would not be more happy
with his aged wife? After a moment’s consideration he answered “Thank
you sir, I have had enough of her.” This I think must have been a rare
exception.
Kensal Green Cemetery had in 1844 already received not a few bodies but
the majority have been interred since.
Members of Silver Street Chapel used to look with deep interest at the
tomb of John Colston, a much-loved Superintendent of their Sabbath
School. With the same deep interest many look upon the grave of a later
Superintendent of the School at Westbourne Grove Chapel, the highly
esteemed Thomas Faulkes, whose memory is still dear. How many a member
of the old and also of the new Westbourne Grove Chapel have gone with sad
hearts to that God’s acre. To mention names would be painful to both
reader and writer; I only add “Till He come.”
A few names of public men and women buried here will, perhaps not, be out
of place:—
Duke of Sussex, Sydney Smith, Anne Scott and Sophia Lockhart, daughters
of Sir Walter Scott, John Hugh Lockhart his grandson, Thomas Hood,
Thackeray, Calcott, Mulready, John Leach, John Cassel, The Princess
Sophia of Gloucester, Statesmen, Poets, Actors, Artists, Physicians and
Quacks. The rich and the poor have all found here one common resting
place, but amongst those unmentioned names how many an one whom the world
has not esteemed will be found in the end to be among the number of whom
the “world was not worthy.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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