Historic London: Its Teaching for the Child, Part I.
by D. L. Maguire, L.L.A.
Volume 12, 1901, pgs. 203-208
Read before the Dulwich Branch of the P.N.E.U.
We want to look at the matter from the child's standpoint, and consider how it can be adapted to a child's understanding, and therefore I must ask my readers to bear with me if I write very simply, and of things with which they are already acquainted.
Let us think out the question: has this great city of ours--have its stones, its ancient landmarks--any message for the children, carried down through the long ages? And if, through want of appreciation, or through ignorance, which is generally the cause of that want, they miss that message, will it make any different to them? Will they be the poorer for it in heart, in mind, and in character? In the past year we have seen a great revival of patriotism and loyalty; we have learnt the meaning of the word "citizenship," and we know how the children have shared in the enthusiasm.
It seems to me that just now is the best of times for leading them to take an intelligent interest in their own city and its history. The means for this are ready at hand; an ordinary walk through some of the oldest parts of London will be the object lesson; and I have thought that it would be most helpful for our purpose to imagine such a walk, with the accompanying plan of old London to help us. Now, suppose we have promised this walk to a child, say, of 10 or 12, of course a certain amount of preparation beforehand will make all the difference; but I think a very little will be enough. Not long ago, during a history lesson, a little girl said to me, "I don't like going to see old churches like Westminster Abbey--they're so dry." However, when we had talked over our lesson (the reign of William the Conqueror), and some of the characters of that period began to seem real to her, she admitted, "I think I would like to see the place where Lanfranc lived."
We want to awaken an interest in the subject before starting. First, let us help the child to picture to himself the very first beginning of London--long before there were any history-books--long before there were any English dwelling in the land. (Here, and all through, the vivid imagination of a child will be our greatest help.) See the river, the same old, old Thames of to-day, flowing steadily down to the sea between low, desolate, marshy banks, where not a single dwelling is to be seen--no city, no chimneys, no people. On the north side there are hills, clothed with thick forest to be seen in the distance, and close to the water (Ludgate Hill and Cornhill) the bank rises to a height; but, for the most part, the shores are flat, and when the tide comes up twice a day they are covered with water, and the river looks much broader than it does now. A lonely desolate scene, the haunt of the wild fowl; think of the contrast--the silence of that lonely spot.
At last--we cannot say when--wild fierce hunters came, and fixed their dwelling on the western hill. The Romans found a British fort there. They built their city on the hill to the east (Cornhill), and the little stream of the Walbrook flowed between. Then the wall was built, gates, and a bridge of wood. It will not be necessary to go into details with the child about the coming of the English, and the consequent desolation of London, as of other cities. But we explain at once how, long after, King Alfred (who is almost sure to be a favourite) built up the ruined walls and made a new London, almost exactly 1,000 years ago. It is always a great difficulty to get children to have the faintest realization of periods of time, but a definite landmark like this is a little help.
Some little plan of the city, no matter how rough, drawn on a slate or a bit of paper, and showing the course of the wall, and the gates--as we have them on our plan--would be a great help to the child, and I can imagine his delight when at any time on the Inner Circle he caught the names--Bishopsgate, Aldersgate, etc.--written up.
And now we are ready to begin our walk. We will suppose that we have arrived at Blackfriars Station, a name that carries us back in thought to the ancient Dominican Monastery, founded in the reign of Edward I. Notice how the course of the wall was changed at that time for the sake of the Friars, and made to run further west to the bank of the Fleet River. We make our way to Ludgate Cricus, where a bridge crossed the Fleet, and ascend the hill, passing over the spot where one of the old gates used to stand--Ludgate. It was at the top of the hill, whence there used to be a steep descent to the river. This old gate was decorated with various statues--Led, the fabulous British King, and others. Now we see in front the oldest part of London, and St. Paul's rising before us; here we are in the heart of the City, at the centre of its life. For on this spot, though not in the same building, Londoners have worshipped God for more than 12 centuries; always the same prayers have gone up, the same hymns have been sung. The child will be able to tell us how Old St. Paul's was burnt down in the Great Fire (it was much more like Westminster Abbey than like the present Cathedral), and will perhaps know the name of Sir Christopher Wren as the builder of the new St. Paul's. We don't enter the Cathedral to-day; to visit the interior would be one day's work in itself, and most likely that has been done already. We pass through St. Paul's Churchyard, fancying that we are back in the old days when it was part of the Cathedral precincts, and was shut in by a wall from the rest of busy London. Instead of the shops we now see were cloisters and chapels, but in Paternoster Row, outside the wall of the precincts, books were sold as they still are--books of prayers for the people going into the Cathedral. Paul's Cross, too, stood in the Churchyard.
Emerging into Cheapside, we find ourselves in what has always been the busiest part of London. Chepe was the old market-place; before there were any dwelling houses, the goods were set out on stalls and in booths. Each trade had its own part of the market, and so afterwards, when house came to be built in Chepe, still the streets belonged to different trades, as their names still tell:--Bread Street, Wood Street, Milk Street, Cordwainer Street, Ironmongers' Lane, The Poultry, etc. But we have no time to stop and imagine the bustle of the market, the shouting of the apprentices, or the gorgeous processions that often passed through Cheapside on the festival days of Guilds, and the tournaments that took place there; nor can we to-day visit the Guildhall.
Our walk takes us in the other direction, along Newgate Street, past Christ's Hospital. The child will be interested in the quaint dress of the boys of the Blue Coat School; they seem to have walked straight out of a portrait of the time of Edward VI. Perhaps our little companion can tell us that the school was founded by the boy King; but we must help him to imagine the first dwellers at Christ's Hospital--the Grey Friars and Franciscans. We tell him the story of their first coming to live there, when they were still endued with the spirit of St. Francis, and loved best to dwell among the poor, and to care for the sick and dying. It is no wonder they were loved as they were, and that kings, queens, and great nobles vied with one another in providing them not only with a monastery, but with a splendid church (which was afterwards destroyed in the Great Fire). One has to exercise a great deal of self-restraint in talking to an intelligent child; it is so easy to tell him too much, and such a temptation to do so. Of course our aim must be rather to draw out and make use of what he already does know. So here, in the case of Christ's Hospital, our difficulty is to choose out of all the many memories that cluster around it. Here we meet with an old and familiar friend of childhood--the Dick Whittington of the old fairy-tale--and we find him to be indeed "thrice" mayor--though not Lord Mayor--of London, in the 15th century, dying a rich man, and providing in his will for a splendid library for the Grey Friars' Monastery. And then the Blue Coat boys who became great men--by-and-by the child will know them too. Two stand out clear and distinct: Charles Lamb, who loved every bit of Old London, and, indeed, could never bear to be long away from it, and his contemporary, Coleridge, the poet full of dreams and fancies, even as a boy.
A little past Christ's Hospital is the spot where another of the old gates (Newgate) stood, through which Watling Street passed--now we are outside the walls again. We turn to the right, up a street which has an interesting name--Giltspur Street. It suggests to us the pictures of a gay cavalcade of knights, in full armour, with gilded spurs, mounted on splendid chargers; and often and often, in those old days of the 13th and 14th centuries, such knights might be seen passing this way, bound for the wide open space outside the walls, which was called Smithfield or Smoothfield, and where tournaments were often held. On our way up Giltspur Street we pass Pie Corner, the spot where the Great Fire was stopped in this direction; the child will tell us how it began at Pudding Lane.
Now we enter Smithfield, and find it still a large, open space, though much smaller than it was in the old days. Then it was the great playground of the citizens--not only of the prentice lads, but of the men too. We look up at the walls of St. Bartholomew's Hospital on our right, and then we see, built right into the houses facing us, an ancient-looking gateway. We pass through, and find ourselves in a churchyard--the path leading straight up to a church in front of us. This is St. Bartholomew the Great, the oldest church in London. We don't want to trouble children with much explanation about architecture, but as we enter the solemn shadow of the old Norman building, I think they can feel the beauty and the strength of the massive pillars supporting the rounded arches--all suggestive of power, and long-enduring steadfastness; the stone dark and stained with the decay of ages. Perhaps we have already told the child the beautiful story of the founding of the church and of the hospital we have just passed. If not, we tell it quietly now, resting in the shadow of the arches, with a calming, quieting influence of the Norman architecture upon us. It is the story of Rahere, the gay courtier of Henry I. The child knows the story of Henry's great sorrow; we will tell him now how the shadow of the king's grief fell upon the courtier, till he too grew serious and more thoughtful. How he showed his new earnestness after the fashion of those days by going on pilgrimage to Rome, and was struck down by malarial fever while visiting the scene of St. Paul's martyrdom. His vow to care for other sufferers by building a hospital in his native London: his dream of St. Bartholomew and the command to build a church as well--a "spiritual house" which "Almighty God should inhabit and hallow." This glorious church, or fragment of a church (for it really is only the chancel and crossing of the original building), is one part of the fulfillment of Rahere's resolution. He became the first Prior of the monastery of Black Canons which he founded here. We cross over to the east end of the church, and look quietly at the founder's tomb, and the recumbent stone figure, said to be a true likeness of Rahere in the dress of his order. He rests beneath carved tabernacle work of the 15th century. A crowned angel at his feet holds a shield bearing the arms of the Priory, and a monk kneeling at each side reads from a book how "the Lord shall comfort Zion: He will comfort all her waste places." We understand this when we remember that in Rahere's time Smithfield was a waste, marshy piece of meadow-land. When he had received the grant of land from Henry I., he drained it, and put it to the noblest uses, for here he built his Priory church and hospital (1123). We must remember as we pass out again through the churchyard, that before the Reformation the church extended right down to the outer gate--that here was formerly the nave. Outside in Smithfield again, we picture it as it was in the 13th and 14th centuries: a large, open, grassy space shaded by great elms, surrounded by the noble buildings of the church, monastery, and hospital.
We cannot leave Smithfield without some mention of Bartlemy fair, as it was called. The privilege of holding a fair in the precincts of the Priory was granted by the kings from the very beginning. It was held for three days: the Eve, the Feast, and the Morrow of St. Bartholomew. First of all, it was a fair of clothiers and drapers to sell their goods, and merchants from Flanders and Italy came to it. The little street of Cloth Fair, which runs up beside the churchyard (and which contains very old and quaint, though squalid, houses) keeps the memory of this. It was a motley gathering that used to be seen at the fair--the crowd of merry folk around or in the churchyard, where the stalls and booths were set up, not only for the sale of cloth, but very soon for more attractive wares as well. All kinds of people were there; sober traders and mercers, gay knights and ladies, foreigners come to buy or sell, the mayor and aldermen dressed in scarlet robes come to declare the fair open, and all the poorer folk come to enjoy a holiday.
After the dissolution of the Priory, the fair still continued to be held, but no longer as a cloth fair. It overflowed into Smithfield, and now lasted fourteen days instead of three. In the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries it was described as a very uproarious fair, where finery, ribbons and toys were sold in booths. Hogarth has left us a picture of Southwark fair, and this gives us a good idea of what Bartlemy fair also was in his time, and well into our own century. We see in it the acting, the puppet shows, performing dogs, dancing bears, etc., usual at fairs.
(To be continued.)
Proofread by LNL, May 2011