Page:The National Gazetteer - A Topographical Dictionary of the British Islands, Volume 2.djvu/696

LONDON. 688 LONDON. painted by Sir James Thornhill, and in the choir is some very fine wood-carving by Grinling Gibbons. Tho length of the building within is 500 feet, and its breadth at the entrance 100 feet, while its superficial area is 84,025 feet. It contains many fine monuments to cele- brated persons, such as John Howard, Dr. Johnson, Lord Nelson, Captain Cook, Marquis Cornwallis, Sir John Moore, Earl Howe, Sir Ralph Abercromby, and many others, and the tombs of Wren, Turner, Sir Thomas Lawrence, West, Fuseli, Reynolds, Nelson, Collingwood, Picton, the Duke of Wellington, and various eminent characters who have deserved well of their country. There is also a grand library, a geome- trical staircase, a model room, a whispering gallery, and two outside galleries. These, as well as the crypt, the vaults, the clock-room, and the interior of the ball and cross, are open to the inspection of visitors upon the payment of fees amounting in all to 3s. 2il. There are daily services at 8 and 9-45 a.m., and 3-15 p.m., and at certain periods during the year Sunday evening service is performed under the great dome at 7 o'clock ; and as the preacher is always some celebrity, great crowds are attracted. Here also the festivals of " the sons of the clergy" and of the united metropolitan charity schools are held annually, and at the latter the children perform selections of sacred music. On each of these occasions the cathedral is crowded, and presents a very wonderful and beautiful appearance. Westminster Abbey was founded about 615 by Sebert, King of the East Saxons. After him Edward the Confessor built a church there in honour of St. Peter, but only a very little of his work is left. Henry III. and his son, Edward I., built the eastern portion of the church as far as the first column in the nave, beyond the entrance to the choir, and carried the cloisters each as far as his respective work extended. Various abbots then continued the church, beginning with Abbot Langham, in 1350. During the reigns of Edward II. and III. the works were stopped, but they were resumed under Richard II., and continued down to Henry VII. 's time, when the nave, aisles, and cloisters were finished, and the W. window put in by Abbot Esteney. The western towers were commenced by Islip, who built Henry VII. 's chapel, but were left unfinished till Sir Christopher Wren completed them. The abbey is in the form of a Latin cross, in the pointed style of architecture, and its exterior length from E. to W., exclusive of Henry VII. 's chapel (which is 115 feet), is 416 feet, including the walls. Its interior length to the piers of Henry VII. 's chapel is 383 feet, and its breadth at the transept 203 feet. The height of the W. tower to the top of the pinnacles is 225 feet. It lies open to the street on three sides, but the S., where the public are admitted, is much blocked up by houses. Upon entering, the visitor passes through "Poets' Corner," thus called from its being dedicated to the memory of poets and those shining lights of literature and art whose works have shed a halo of glory round the land of their birth or adoption. Chaucer, Spenser, Shakspeare, Ben Jonson, Milton, Dryden, Campbell, Gay, Handel, Addison, Garrick, and Macaulay, have memorials here, and there is a beautiful monument to John Duke of Argyll. The view of the interior from the W. entrance is remarkably grand, as also are those from very many other points of the building. The choir is wainscoted, and before the altar-piece is a very fine specimen of Mosaic pavement. Behind the choir is the chapel and shrine of Edward the Confessor, and near them the coronation chairs, in the oldest of which is the celebrated " Scone stone," or the stone which Edward I. brought from Scotland, and is said to have been the stone upon which Jacob slept in the Holy Land. Round the chapel are tombs of various kings and queens, and in different parts of the church many fine busts and monuments. The most magnificent of the chapels is that of Henry VII., which is said to have cost a sum equal to about 200,000 of our present money. The gates are of brass, and the walls covered with sunk panels and mouldings. In the niches arc statues, angels with escutcheons, and Tudor rosca and fleurs-de-lis, and crowns. Tho Knights of the Bath are installed in this chapel, and their plates are placed in the stalls. There are also several saints' chapels in the church, and the great chamber in the abbot's house is that which is now known as the Jerusalem chamber. Besides these magnificent structures, there are several churches which are remarkable for the beauty of their architecture and their internal decoration, or the interest attaching to them. Of these the principal are, the chapels royal of St. James's and Whitehall, the Temple church, and All Saints', in Margaret-street, Cavendish-square. There are 156 parish churches in London, and so many district churches and chapels that it would be needless to enumerate them all. Those which principally attract the eye are St. Saviour's, Southwark ; St. Magnus the Martyr, Thames - street ; St. Dunstan's-in-tho-East, St. Dunstan's-hill ; St. Mary Woolnoth, Lombard- street ; St. Stephen's, Walbrook ; St. Mary-le-Bow, Cheapside ; All Hallows, Bread-street ; Christ Church, Newgate-street; St. Sepulchre's, Skinner-street; St. Andrew's, Holborn - hill ; St. Bride's, Fleet -street St. Dunstan's-in-the-West, Fleet-street ; St. Clement Danes, and St. Mary-le-Strand, Strand; St. Paul's, Covent-garden ; St. Martin' s-in-the-Fields, St. Martin's- lane ; St. James's, Piccadilly ; St. Margaret's, West- minster ; St. John the Evangelist, Milbank ; St. Mary's, Lambeth- walk ; St. Philip's, Regent-street ; St. George's, Hanover- square, at which the London marriages of the aristocracy are usually celebrated ; All Souls', Langham- place ; St. Marylebone and Trinity, New-road ; Christ Church, "Lisson-grove ; St. Pancras, Euslon-square, New-road; St. George's, Hart -street, Bloomsbury; St. Giles' s -in -the -Fields, High -street, Bloomsbury; St. Bartholomew the Great, West Smithfield, which is the oldest of the London churches ; and St. An- drew's, Wellj-street. Lambeth Palace, the London residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, stands on the S. bank of the Thames, nearly opposite the Houses of Parliament. The palace of the Bishop of London is at Fulham, and his London official residence in St. James's-square. The principal Roman Catholic place of worship is St. George's " cathedral," in the Westminster Bridge-road. It was built at a cost of upwards of 100,000, and will contain 3,000 people. In Bloomfield- street, Finsbury, stands St. Mary's, Moorficlds ; and in the Brompton-road is the Church of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, better known as the " Brompton Ora- tory." There are also Roman Catholic chapels in Warwick-street, Regent-street ; Spanish-place, Man- chester-square ; Sutton- street, Soho- square; Farm- street, Berkeley-square ; Westmoreland-place, Bays- water ; Duncan-terrace, City-road, and elsewhere ; and a magnificently decorated one in Great Ormond-street, Bloomsbury. The best attended Presbyterian churches are those in Crown-court, Drury-lane, and Regent- square. There are others in Halkin-street West, and at Chelsea, Islington, Millwall, and various other parts of the metropolis and the suburbs. There is but one Russo-Greek church in London, and that is inWclbeck- street, Cavendish-square. The Jews have City syna- gogues in St. James' s-place, Aldgate (the great syna- gogue) ; St. George' s-road, Southwark ; Church-row, Fenchurch-street (the Hamboro' synagogue) ; ]!evis Marks ; Crosby-square ; and Great St. Helen's (the new synagogue) ; and at the West End in Chichcster-place, Harrow-road ; Great Portland-street, Oxford-street ; Margaret-street, Cavendish-square ; St. Alban's-plar.o, Haymarket ; and Maiden-lane, Covent Garden. The Catholic Apostolic cathedral in Gordon-square is a fine pile of building ; but of all the Dissenting bodies which have separate places of worship, the most remarkable in that of the Baptists, called the " Metropolitan nacle," in Newington' High-street, and nearly opposite the Elephant and Castle tavern, which in olden time used to bo a famous house of call for stage-coaches on their way in and out of London, but is now best known as a rendezvous for omnibuses, which ply from hence to almost every part of the metropolis. Near this, passing St. George's cathedral, is Bethlehem (or, as it is