Surrey: Painted by Sutton Palmer; Described by A.R. Hope MoncrieffMoncrieff, A. R. Hope (Ascott Robert Hope)
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Surrey: Painted by Sutton Palmer; Described by A.R. Hope Moncrieff
Moncrieff, A. R. Hope (Ascott Robert Hope)
Surrey (England) -- Description and travel
The next steamboat stage is by Battersea Reach, where it takes an
artist's eye to catch the points of beauty dear to Turner. Battersea
Park faces the restored dignity of Chelsea. A huge railway arsenal
covers the site of those Nine Elms that have long gone to make coffins
for the dancers in Vauxhall Gardens. Doulton's pottery works look across
to the Tate Gallery. Lambeth Palace is passed, then St. Thomas's
Hospital stares from wakeful eyes at the House of Parliament. Below
Westminster Bridge, Surrey is to give a site for the _Hôtel de Ville_ of
our County Council; but as yet the bank here makes a shabby contrast to
the clubs and hotels of the Middlesex side. St. Paul's looks down upon
Southwark, which has now a Cathedral Church of its own in St. Saviour's,
with its old monuments and new memorial windows. This lies at the end of
London Bridge, beyond which the tanneries of Bermondsey have hidden the
very site of its once famous Abbey, opposite the Tower of London. The
last Surrey parish is Rotherhithe, where Captain Lemuel Gulliver could
find a pleasant retreat after his voyages, when it was known as Redriff;
but now the name of its Cherry Orchard pier seems a mockery, till one
searches out the groves and garden-beds of Southwark Park, hidden behind
a front of wharves and warehouses. A dull change this from the green
meads of Egham or the slopes of Richmond. But a painter in words, too
early lost to his Surrey home, George W. Steevens, can show colour,
life, and romance in those avenues of dingy buildings and naked masts.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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