UNNOTICED LONDON [Illustration: CHEYNE ROW] UNNOTICED LONDON BY E. MONTIZAMBERT [Illustration] WITH TWENTY-FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS 1923 LONDON & TORONTO J. M. DENT & SONS LTD. NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO. FIRST EDITION _March 1922_ REPRINTED _May 1922_, _May 1923_ _All rights reserved_ PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN PREFACE The following brief account of a few of the things that have interested me in London is not intended for the use of the inveterate sightseer, for whom so many admirable and complete fingerposts to the study of old London have been written, by such experts as Mr. Bell, Mr. Wilfred Whitten, Mr. E. V. Lucas, Mr. Ordish and Mr. Hare. It is meant for the people who do not realise one-eighth of the stories packed into the streets of London, the city which, as Sir Walter Besant, that great London lover, once said, has an unbroken history of one thousand years and has never been sacked by an enemy. For, in talking about the extraordinary beauty of London, I became aware of a vast public who have eyes and see not, who thoroughly dislike the idea of sight-seeing yet acknowledge their pleasure in a chance discovery made _en route_ to tea at the Ritz,--people who are appalled at the very idea of entering a museum. Then there are the travellers who say vaguely that when they can find time they really mean to see something of London, but they turn their backs on the greatest city of the world without having seen much more than Bond Street, because they are obsessed by the idea that to see London requires some occult store of knowledge and energy, and their eyes are sealed to the interest and beauty that lie around their path. Finally there are people like the old lady who, when she heard I was writing a book about old London, asked with astonishment, “Is there anything old left in London?”