A Gazetteer by Donald Greene Late of the University of Southern California
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Newsletter_41.3 EVELYN WAUGH NEWSLETTER AND STUDIES Vol. 41, No. 3 Winter 2011 Evelyn Waugh’s Central London: A Gazetteer by Donald Greene Late of the University of Southern California "I believe the parallelogram between Oxford Street, Piccadilly, Regent Street, and Hyde Park encloses more intelligence and human ability, to say nothing of wealth and beauty, than the world has ever collected in such a space before." So said Sydney Smith, whose exuberant wit matched Waugh’s, and who, like Waugh, was domiciled during the later years of his life in the village of Combe Florey, Somersetshire, where he was the rector. Both were ambivalent about the delights of country living, and seized many opportunities of fleeing from it to London. Waugh, like Frank Churchill in Jane Austen’s Emma, used to travel there regularly to have his hair cut, at Trumper’s in Curzon Street. Smith had a better excuse: as a canon of St Paul’s Cathedral, he had to spend a certain amount of the year in residence there. Smith’s parallelogram (Mayfair) is of course only a tiny section of “Greater London.” Waugh’s London also includes outlying areas such as Mortlake, where Virginia Troy and Uncle Peregrine were buried, and East Finchley, site of Lord Copper’s frightful mansion. The ancient “City of London,” founded in Roman times, lies to the east of Mayfair. The City of Westminster began much later, in the eleventh century, when King Edward the Confessor decided to build, on the marshy bank of the Thames, the abbey called the “west minster” (the “east minster” being St Paul’s in the old City, still the cathedral of the diocese of London). Though it is known as “the West End,” innumerable Londoners have to travel east to see a popular show. It is still the center of British government, society, and the arts. The old “City” (of London) is devoted almost exclusively to business and finance, and did not hold much interest for Waugh. Many of the names of districts (“Soho,” “Pimlico,” “Belgravia”) are simply popular ones with no official standing, and some belong to governmental entities other than Westminster, such as “The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea” (“royal” because the royal palace of Kensington stands on the western edge of Kensington Gardens). The gazetteer confines itself, for the most part, to streets and edifices mentioned in Waugh’s writings. Some special notes: Railway Stations. Unlike many modern American cities, whose expansion did not take place until after the development of great railway networks, the older London does not have stations in the middle of the built-up area, but on its periphery. Various privately owned companies served various parts of Britain. The Great Western Railway, serving the West of England, terminated at Paddington Station, and carried undergraduates such as Waugh to Oxford University. The London, Midland, and Western, terminating at Euston, took him to his job at Arnold House, Llanddulas, North Wales. It is important in British novels that the various London stations be correctly identified: in a letter to Nancy Mitford, 1952, Waugh writes of replying to a friendly critic who complained of his having “made a character go to Salisbury from Paddington” with “Many thanks for your valuable suggestion.” The correct station would have been Waterloo. See below: Charing Cross, Euston, Liverpool Street, Marylebone, Paddington, Victoria. Hotels. See below: Claridge’s, Dorchester, Ritz, Savoy. Oddly perhaps, Waugh doesn’t mention in his fiction the hotel where he most often stayed in London, the Hyde Park Hotel in Knightsbridge, run by his army friends Basil Bennett and Brian Franks, where he once thought his son Auberon might have a career in hotel management (Letters 441). See also “Casanova” and “Shepheard’s.” file:////uol.le.ac.uk/...ocuments/Evelyn%20Waugh/Evelyn%20Waugh%20Studies/Newsletters/March%2014%20additions/Newsletter_41_3.htm[26/03/2014 10:54:09] Newsletter_41.3 Clubland. Chiefly centered on Pall Mall and St James’s Street. English clubs originated in the seventeenth century primarily as places for drinking and gambling, and were named after the innkeepers who founded them. The oldest surviving one is White’s (established 1693), which became recognized as the “Tory Club” (see below: Brown’s and Bellamy’s). The great “Whig Club” was Brooks’s, founded 1764, of which Charles James Fox was a member and where he gambled heavily. They came to have much social prestige; generally they are still exclusively male. See Athenaeum, Beefsteak, Bratt’s, Carlton, Garrick, Greville, Senior, Travellers’, Turtle’s, Wimpole. It is pleasant to follow Ludovic’s route from Westminster Abbey, along Victoria Street, to Sir Ralph Brompton’s flat in Ebury Street to the front of Buckingham Palace, where the guards on duty saluted Peter Pastmaster in his officer’s uniform (POMF 1:6); to smile at old Ryder’s jape in pretending that Jorkins is a visitor from America, when he lives only a few steps away in Sussex Square (Brideshead 1:3). The best thing is to make such expeditions on the actual sites. But if this is not possible, the links may be a useful substitute. Please note that once you have linked to a map, you can zoom in or out, or move in any of four directions. An asterisk (*) indicates a fictitious name. All the rest are real. Abbreviation Work Abbreviation Work BM Black Mischief OGP The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold BR Brideshead Revisited POMF Put Out More Flags BSRA Basil Seal Rides Again Sc Scoop DF Decline and Fall SKME Scott-King’s Modern Europe HD A Handful of Dust US Unconditional Surrender LO The Loved One VB Vile Bodies MA Men at Arms WS Work Suspended OG Officers and Gentlemen Titles of other works are given in full. Where available, a chapter (or book) number is given, followed by the number of the section within it. Academy: see Royal Academy. Albemarle Street. Daisy’s restaurant is there (HD 2:2). Albert Hall: see Royal Albert Hall. Arlington Street. A short street running south from Piccadilly and bordering the east side of the Ritz Hotel. Margot’s second-best Hispano-Suiza waits there to take Paul Pennyfeather to their wedding (DF 2:6). Mrs. Stitch’s small car turns the corner from it into the traffic jam in Piccadilly (Sc 1:2). Arthur Box-Bender, at the outbreak of World War II, moves into a luxury flat in it (MA, Prologue, 2). Athenaeum Club. Founded 1824. Members in “Literature, Science, Public Service, and the Arts.” Prestigious, though stuffy. At the southwest corner of Pall Mall and Waterloo Place. Charles Ryder’s father (BR 1:1) and John Plant’s (WS 2) are members. Philbrick (DF 1:1) pretends to be one. Bayswater. A somewhat stodgy middle-class residential district north of Hyde Park; readers may remember it from Galsworthy’s Forsyte Saga. Charles Ryder’s father lives there (BR 1:3). file:////uol.le.ac.uk/...ocuments/Evelyn%20Waugh/Evelyn%20Waugh%20Studies/Newsletters/March%2014%20additions/Newsletter_41_3.htm[26/03/2014 10:54:09] Newsletter_41.3 Bedford Square. An elegantly preserved eighteenth-century square in Bloomsbury, chiefly occupied by offices of publishers and expensive lawyers. Waugh satirically reports a contribution of three unused penny stamps to the leftist cause in Ishmaelia by “a little worker’s daughter” living there (Sc 2:1). The site of the elegant office of Mr. Bentley, the publisher (POMF 1:7). Beefsteak Club. Founded 1876. On Irving Street, just off Leicester Square. Sir Joseph Mainwaring (later “Mannering”) frequents it (POMF 1:2). Belgrave Square. “Old Ruby” once lived and entertained there (US 1:4). As her original, Emerald, Lady Cunard, did in Grosvenor Square. Belgravia. Along with Mayfair, the most expensive and fashionable residential district in London. There are references to it in many novels, as in “Interlude in Belgravia” (DF 2:2). In the seventeenth century the property came into the hands of the Grosvenors, later Dukes of Westminster, and many of the names of streets and squares are associated with that family. Engineer Garcia calls the Duke “a man of great propriety.… London is his propriety” (SKME). *Bellamy’s Club. In St James’s Street. Mentioned frequently in later novels. Guy Crouchback and Box-Bender are members (MA 2), as is Gilbert Pinfold (OGP 1). No doubt stands for White’s Club (see “Clubland” above), of which Waugh was elected a member in 1941. Berkeley Square. Paul Pennyfeather and Margot walk across it from *Pastmaster House, which is then in Hill Street (DF 2:5). Gunter’s, a fashionable restaurant and confectionary, was there (BR 1:5). Bethnal Green. A working-class district. Mrs. Stitch is frustrated by the traffic in her attempt to drive to a carpet shop there (Sc 1:1). *Blight Street. Off Edgware Road. “A place of lodging houses and mean tobacconists.” The name is clearly symbolic; Virginia Troy goes in search of an abortionist there. The site of the office of Dr. Akonanga, the witch-doctor, where he casts spells on Hitler and Ribbentrop (US 2:4). Bloomsbury. The “intellectual” and not very fashionable district, site of the British Museum and many branches of the University of London. Adam Fenwick-Symes, as “Mr. Chatterbox,” unsuccessfully attempts to make temperance hotels there fashionable (VB 7). Dr. Kakophilos lives at an “obscure address” there (“Out of Depth”). Ambrose Silk and Mr. Bentley are employed in the Ministry of Information, housed in the University of London’s Senate House, also frequented by Basil Seal and the mad bomber (POMF 1:7). Bond Street. The fashionable main shopping street of Mayfair. “Our Lily” is a manicurist there and meets a rich protector (VB 9).