1345.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



Ill 



stpps, G inclips rise ; thickness of wnll at bottom 2 ft. 5 in. for about 

 two-tliirds of its licig'if, at top 1 ft. 10 in.; exterior ilianieter, bottom 

 22 ft. 8 iu., top 11 ft. 3 in. ; the top is finished with a stone dome. 



O.T. 

 <S/. Pirn's, Nen)castk-o)i'Tyne. 



WESTMINSTER IMPROVEMENTS. 



THORNEY ISLAND ET TOUT LE CHAMPS. 



Thorney Island, et tout le champs, is the ancient designation of that 

 district of the metropolis called Westminster, bounded on one side by 

 Pall Mall and the Green Park, and on the other sides by the Thames 

 and the Aye-bourne or Ty-bourne. 



Thorney Island is about 470 yards long and 370 yards broad, washed 

 on the east side by the Thames, on tlie soutli by a rivulet running 

 down College-street, on the north by another stream wending its way 

 to the Thames down Gardener's-lane : this and the College-street 

 rivulet were joined by a moat called Loug-ditcli, forming the western 

 boundary of Tliorney Island, along the present line of Prince's and 

 De la Hay streets. This island was the Abbey and Palace precinct, 

 which, in addition to the water surrounding it, was further defended 

 by lofty stone walls (part of which still remain in the Abbey-gardens) : 

 in these walls were four noble gates, one in King-street, one near New 

 Palace-yard (the foundations of which I observed in December 1S38, 

 when excavating for a new sewer), one opening into Tothill, and one 

 at the mill by College-street. The precinct was entered by a bridge, 

 erected by the Empress Maud, at the end of G irdener's-lane in King- 

 street, and by another bridge, still existing, though deep below the 

 present pavement, at the east end of College-street. 



On the spot thus powerfully defended St. Edward founded his 

 celebrated abbey ; and as at Athens from the aroa PaaiXmri, where the 

 Archon Pa<ri\(vs presided, the whole building derived its name, so the 

 church of the Confessor's abbey gave nimie to the great city which in 

 process of time grew up around it and extended itself so considerably 

 to the northward and eastward, that in an ancient charter preserved in 

 the British Museum, the boundaries of the City and Liberties of West- 

 minster are thus defined. 



" First up from the Thames, along Merfleet to Pollen-stock, so to 

 Bulinga fen : afterwards from tiie fen, along the old ditch toCowford : 

 from Cowford up along Tyburne to the broad military road : following 

 tlie military road to the old stock of St. Andrew's Church : then 

 within London fen, proceeding south on Thames to mid stream ; and 

 along the stream, by land and strand, to Merfleet." 



Thorney Island et. tout le champs ! who would imagine that from 

 hence is derived the puzzling appellation Tot-hill Street. Tot-hill 

 Street, says one, is evidently a misnomer, for it is quite low and fiat, 

 without any hill at all, but when we find " Aiguille et Fit" corrupted 

 into "Eagle and Child," or the "Satyr and Bacchanals" converted 

 into the "Devil and Bag of Nails!" we may without any very great 

 stretch of imagination suppose tout le champs as the Norman-French 

 spoken at Court became mixed with the language of the people, 

 easily altered to tout le fields, and contracted to toutle, " touthull" or 

 "tothill." 



Although Thorney Island, for a period of seven or eight centuries, 

 has continued to be the seat of the legislature, government, and law, 

 as well as the place where the solemn compact between sovereign 

 and people must be ratified, circumstances necessarily demanding the 

 attendance of a vast number of persons, it excites our astonishment to 

 find that the open space around the ancient Palace and the Abbey, 

 and the site of Great George-street presented until lately the ill-as- 

 sorted compound of architectural gTandeur, human misery, and filth, 

 which had grown up from the magriiticence and the ill-judged bene- 

 volence of St. Edward. The only access for carriages to the precinct, 

 during all these centuries, was through King-street, then in so misera- 

 ble a state that faggots were thrown into the cart-ruts to facilitate the 

 passage of the state coach on the days on which the King went to 

 parliament; and, little as King-street may be thought of now, it was 

 then a superb street iu comparison with the others on Thorney Island, 

 which consisted chiefly of narrow dirty streets lined with wretched 

 dwellings, and of numerous miserable courts and alleys, situate in the 

 environs of the palace and abbey; where in the olden time the nume- 

 rous lawless characters claiming sanctuary found shelter; aud so great 

 had been the force of long custom, that the houses continued to be re- 

 built, century after century, iu a miserable manner, for the reception 

 of similar degraded outcasts. 



In accordance w ith various Acts of Parliament for the Improvement 

 of Westmiiisler, Thorney bland has been cleansed of these •' niiserable 



courts and alleys," and it is now that a similar clearing away of such 

 places as Gardener's-lane, Snow's-renls, St. Ermin's-hill, &c. in tout- 

 le. champs is requisite. 



It is in these narrow streets, and in these close and insalubrious 

 lanes, courts, and alleys, that squalid misery and poverty struggle 

 with filth and wretchedness, where vice reigns unchecked, and in the 

 atmosphere of which the worst diseases are generated and difi'used. 

 That uncleanness aud impurity are an unerring index, pointing out the 

 situation where the malignancy of epidemics more or less exists, is a 

 truth known and admitted from the earliest ages. It is in these 

 situations, where matter of all kinds in a state of decomposition is 

 allowed to remain, that the atmosphere is ever tainted with putrid 

 exhalations, malaria that creates miasmata; here it is that we so 

 often find the inhabitants afllicted with some contagious malady or 

 other, and that a strong predisposition to receive infection exists, and 

 a germ arises whence may emerge those overwhelming pestilences 

 which often involve a whole community in their fatal consequences. 



Nor let the higher classes imagine they are safe from the effects of 

 the abominations in their vicinity ; the germ of disease is wafted in at 

 their windows, and they find their health injured in various ways by 

 indigestion, low spirits, debility, &c., from this cause, although un- 

 aware of if. The history of the middle ages shows that it was in such 

 low lying districts as the one under consideration that the plague and 

 sweating sickness made the greatest ravages, and tliat the frightful 

 mortality of these "visitations," as they were termed, depended in a 

 great measure on malaria generated from uncleanliness and from defi- 

 cient sewerage and drainage, while modern experience testifies 

 that these are the real causes of the destructive effects of the cholera. 

 The epidemics of the middle ages, arose almost solely in consequence 

 of the deficient architectural arrangements of the towns, and the want 

 of cleanliness. Had the cholera of 1832 been one-half so fatal as the 

 black death of 1349, or even of later epidemics, the frame-works of 

 society would have been loosened, and the empire in danger of being 

 broken up. Those acquainted with the social effects of these scourges 

 upon the thinly scattered population of the middle ages, would anti- 

 cipate no less than this, from the destruction of five or six millions of 

 persons in England within a few months. The utter depreciation of 

 property, terror, despair, and a total abandonment of all social ties 

 would have been the consequence. 



Sir Robert Peel, with the wisdom so characteristic of that eminent 

 statesmau, has appointed a Commission for Metropolitan Improve- 

 ments, and great is the responsibility which devolves on that Com- 

 mission. We are now two millions, in about .50 years we shall be four 

 millions ; the present great metropolis will only be the centre of the 

 then greater one, and as the political danger of destructive epidemics 

 increases with the population, it becomes an imperative ^uty to ascer- 

 tain whether we are 5«;tesa/e from the recurrence of epidemic scourges, 

 and if not whether we have the means of placing ourselves beyond 

 their reach. The state of Westminster declares we are not safe ; but 

 by the combined ett'ects of an improved system of public hygiene and 

 medical science, the awful "visitations" may be rendered innoxious. 

 Delay, however, is dangerous : for we may infer, from the experience 

 of preceding epidemics, that the cholera will break out again, and its 

 secoud advent may be with such a coincidence of atmospherical phe- 

 nomena as to eqnal in destructiveness the most virulent of the pesti- 

 lences recorded in history. We may hope this will not be the case, 

 but hope alone will not do, we must try and prevent it, and proceed 

 to examine how far the improvement of Westminster will assist in 

 producing this desirable result. 



The two bridges I have mentioned, the foundations of the walls of 

 the passage along which St. Edward passed from the Palace to the 

 Church, which still remain, and the Cock public house in Tothill 

 Street, all evidence that the surface of Thorney Island has been con- 

 siderably raised in the course of ages, and that both St. Margaret's 

 Church and the Minster were ascended by lofty flights of steps, such 

 as we observe attached to many of the continental churches. The 

 great extent of land over which the tidal waters of the Thames for- 

 merly freely flowed having been nuich diminished by various embank- 

 ments from time to time, the river in consequence reaches to a much 

 greater vertical height tlian it did in ancient times; land which was 

 heretofore high and dry would now be submerged but for the banks, 

 which must have been repeatedly raised, as well as the ground on 

 which habitations have been erected in the immediate vicinity of the 

 river, hence, in Westminster, the further we recede from its banks the 

 lower the ground becomes ; the street in front of Canning's statue is 

 5 ft. 2i in. above high water mark, the east end of Tothill Street 2 ft. 

 Si in., aud the west end 'J inches only, while New Tothill Street is 

 3i- inches and Palmer's Village 12^ inches below high water mark. 



It thus appears, that with the existing levels, it is impossible to 

 remedy the evils complained of. Tlie sewers which have lately been 



15* 



