[Illustration: ST. THOMAS'S HOSPITAL (_From an old Print_)] [Illustration: Some Ancient Houses in the Long Walk, Bermondsey] [Illustration: Jamaica House, Bermondsey] On the west side of the High Street, of which a map is given on p. 85 of this volume, beyond St. Saviour's, the nave of which was fast falling into ruins, came Bankside. Alas! It was deserted: not a single theatre was left: not a baiting Place: not a Bear to bait: there was no longer a poet or an actor or a musician on Bankside: there were no more evenings at the Falcon: there was no longer heard the tinkling of the guitar, and the scraping of the violin. South of Bankside lay two broad gardens, side by side: one called Pye Garden; and the other, west of Winchester House, was called Winchester Park. Paris Gardens were no more. Blackfriars Bridge Road, in which there were as yet but few houses, had been cut ruthlessly right through the middle of the old Gardens; the trees, once so thick and close, had been laid low, but there were still kitchen gardens. South of the Gardens, with an interval of a few side streets, we come upon St. George's Fields, and on the west of these fields upon Lambeth Marsh, which was cut up into ropewalks, tenter grounds, nurseries, and kitchen gardens. Where Waterloo Station now stands were Cuper's Gardens: there were half a dozen Pleasure Gardens, of which more anon: there were turnpikes wherever two roads met. But perhaps the most remarkable feature of this quarter in the last century was the immense number of streams and ditches and ponds: most of these were little better than open sewers: complaints were common of the pollution of these streams--but it was in vain: people will always throw everything that has to be ejected into the nearest running water if they can. One wants the map in order to understand how numerous were these streams. There was one murky brook which ran along the backs of all the houses on the east side of High Street--the prisoners of the Marshalsea and the King's Bench grumbled about it continually: another corresponding stream ran behind the west side of High Street. Maiden Lane, now called Park Lane, rejoiced in one: Gravel Lane, more blessed still, was happy with a ditch or stream on each side: Dirty Lane had one: another ran along Bandy Leg Walk: other streams flowed, or crept, or crawled, across Lambeth Marsh and St. George's Fields. Where there were no houses, and therefore no pollutions, the streams of this broad marsh, lying beneath and between the orchards, fringing the gardens, and crossing the open fields, were a pleasant feature, though they had no stones to prattle over, but only the dark peaty _humus_ of the marsh: and the water channels necessitated frequent little rustic bridges which were sometimes picturesque. Some of the streams again were of considerable size, especially that called 'The Shore' by Roques. It was also called the Effra. Along the banks of this stream stood here and