Westminster | Page 8

lived here. In Old Pye Street a few squalid houses with low
doorways remain to contrast with the immense flats known as
Peabody's Buildings, which have sprung up recently. In 1862 George
Peabody gave £150,000 for the erection of dwellings for the working
classes, and to this he subsequently added £500,000. The first block of
buildings was opened in Spitalfields, 1864. These in the neighbourhood

of Old Pye Street were erected in 1882. Pye Street derives its name
from Sir Robert Pye, member for Westminster in the time of Charles I.,
who married a daughter of John Hampden. St. Matthew Street was
Duck Lane until 1864, and was a very malodorous quarter. Swift says it
was renowned for second-hand bookshops. The Westminster Bluecoat
School was first founded here.
St. Ann's Street and Lane are poor and wretched quarters. The name is
derived from a chapel which formerly stood on the spot (see p. 37).
Herrick lodged in the street when, ejected from his living in the country
in 1647, he returned with anything but reluctance to his beloved
London. He had resumed lay dress, but was restored to his living in
1662 in reward for his devoted loyalty to the Stuarts. The great
musician, Henry Purcell, was born in St. Ann's Lane. Seymour, writing
in 1735, says: "Great St. Ann's Lane, a pretty, handsome, well-built and
well-inhabited place." St. Matthew's Church and Schools were built by
Sir G. A. Scott in 1849-57.
Great Peter Street is a dirty thoroughfare with some very old houses.
On one is a stone slab with the words, "This is Sant Peter Street, 1624.
R [a heart] W." This and its neighbour, Little Peter Street, obviously
derive their names from the patron saint of the Abbey. Strype describes
Great Peter Street pithily as "very long and indifferent broad." Great
Peter Street runs at its west end into Strutton Ground, a quaint place
which recalls bygone days by other things than its name, which is a
corruption of Stourton, from Stourton House. The street is thickly lined
by costers' barrows, and on Saturday nights there is no room to pass in
the roadway.
Before examining in detail the part that may be called the core and
centre of Westminster, that part lying around the Abbey and Houses of
Parliament, it is advisable to begin once more at the west end of
Victoria Street, and, traversing the part of the parish on the north side,
gather there what we may of history and romance.

PART II
NORTH OF VICTORIA STREET.
The United Westminster Schools, constituted 1873, stand on the east
side of Palace Street. These comprise Emanuel Hospital, Greencoat
School (St. Margaret's), Palmer's (Blackcoat School), and Hill's
Grammar School. The building in Palace Street stands back from the
road behind a space of green grass. Over one doorway are medallions
of Palmer and Hill, and over the other the Royal arms, and the structure
is devoid of any architectural attractiveness. The beauty which
belonged to the older buildings has not been revived, but replaced by a
hideous utilitarianism. Watney's Brewery occupies the ground opposite
to the school. The schools of St. Andrew are in this street, and beyond
is the Roman Catholic Church of St. Peter and St. Edward. Stafford
Place is called after Viscount Stafford, on the site of whose garden wall
it is said to have been built. This wall formed the parish boundary, and
a boy was annually whipped upon it to impress the bounds upon his
memory.
Tart Hall, built 1638, stood at the north end of James Street. It was the
residence of Viscount Stafford, to whom it had come from his mother
Alethea, daughter and heiress of the seventh Earl of Shrewsbury. Lord
Stafford was the fifth son of the Earl of Arundel and Surrey, and was
made first a Baron and then a Viscount by Charles I. He was
condemned for high treason on the manufactured evidence of Oates and
Turberville, in the reign of Charles II., and was beheaded on Tower Hill,
December 29, 1680. After his execution the house was turned into a
museum and place of public entertainment. The gateway under which
he passed to his death was never again opened after that event, but it
was left standing until 1737. Among the notable residents in the street
were Dr. White Kennet, Bishop of Peterborough, an indefatigable
collector of MSS., and Glover, the poet.
The present street contains many pleasant, picturesque houses,
especially at the northern end. At the corner of Castle Lane is the
Westminster Chapel, the largest Independent place of worship in the

Metropolis excepting Spurgeon's Tabernacle. It seats 2,500, and has
two galleries, one above the other, running round the whole interior. It
was opened in 1865 to replace a smaller chapel which had previously
stood on