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The London Society's Map, with Its Proposals for the Improvement of London Author(S): Aston Webb Source: the Geographical Journal, Vol

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The London Society's Map, with Its Proposals for the Improvement of London Author(S): Aston Webb Source: the Geographical Journal, Vol The London Society's Map, with Its Proposals for the Improvement of London Author(s): Aston Webb Source: The Geographical Journal, Vol. 51, No. 5 (May, 1918), pp. 273-287 Published by: geographicalj Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1780069 Accessed: 19-06-2016 23:58 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), Wiley are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Geographical Journal This content downloaded from 140.211.127.19 on Sun, 19 Jun 2016 23:58:48 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms The Geographical Journal Vol. LI No. 5 May 1918 THE LONDON SOCIETY'S MAP, WITH ITS PRO? POSALS FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF LONDON Sir Aston Webb, R.A. Read at the Meeting of the Society, n Febniary 1918. IAM misgivings, here this for evening while atI know the invitation you are accustomed of your President, to take the with whole some world under your purview, as is shown on your seal, I am going to ask you to-night to give attention to a small piece of land hardly any of it more than 15 or 20 miles from where we now are, yet so full of interest that I shall not be able to do more than just touch the fringe of my subject. Perhaps its very propinquity has been the cause of the casual and unconsidered growth of London. Roads are necessarily the backbone or main structure of any city, and so I will take the main arterial roads of London first. Their main scheme we owe to our conquerors, the Romans; and the lines they laid down still remain, though their surface has risen as much as 15 to 20 feet. From south to north is Watling Street, leading from Dover through Rochester to London, crossing the site of the present parks, and joining up with Edgware Road to Ghester. Another Stone Street from Chichester crossed Watling Street before reaching the Thames, and then joined Ermine Street, the great Northern Road to Lincoln and York. Thirdly, the great Western Road connected Silchester with Colchester and Harwich. The convergence of these great trunk roads on London is entirely due to the constructive genius of the Romans; but after the Romans, chaos fell on the development of London's roads, and chaotic it has ever since remained. In Saxon and Norman times the divisions of the kingdom tended to a local rather than a national view of roads. Religious houses took up the care of roads, and made local roads from one monastery to another ? and so things went on in a casual haph'azard way until 1666, when a great disaster came to London in the Great Fire, which destroyed nearly the whole of that portion of it within its walls, but also brought to London a great opportunity of reconstruction on fine lines. The very man was available and willing?Sir Christopher Wren?who prepared a noble plan This content downloaded from 140.211.127.19 on Sun, 19 Jun 2016 23:58:48 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 274 THE LONDON SOCIETY'S MAP, WITH ITS approved by both King and Parliament; but owing to the opposition o the citizens it was unfortunately never carried out. This plan proposed two main thoroughfares through the City, both starting from Fleet Street, one passing to the north of St. Paul's past the Royal Exchange to the Aldgate, and finally joining up with the Colchester Road; the other pass? ing south of St. PauFs and leading to the Tower; a great cross road from Cripplegate to the Thames was also suggested. A civic centre was to be formed round the Exchange, including the Bank, the Post Office, the Mint, the Excise Office, the Goldsmiths, etc. The Thames was to have been embanked the full length of the city, and the great City companies were to have had their halls upon the embankment facing the river. But the opportunity was lost, and the City was rebuilt on its old bad lines. About this time the alarming state of the roads throughout the country caused Charles II. to instruct his cosmographer John Ogilvy to survey and measure the roads of England and Wales, and the results were pub? lished 1675. There were then eight main or trunk roads out of London, all in a deplorable state. About this time a small tax was imposed by Parliament to keep the North Road in repair, and it encountered much opposition; the roads generally remained in much the same condition until 1750. In 1737 the king's private roads were taken over, including the private way from Whitehall to Hampton Court, vid King's Road, Chelsea, and Putney. About 1750 the first systematic attempt to im- prove the roads was made by the introduction of turnpikes, no less than fifteen hundred Turnpike Trusts being approved in the next sixty years. During that time many irregularities occurred. In 1763 the House of Commons appointed a Committee to inquire into the application of the money derived from these Turnpike Trusts; and in 1773 a general Turnpike Act was passed. Constant complaints were made of the de? plorable and almost impassable condition of the roads, and innumerable and unsuccessful remedies were proposed. In 1809 Sir John Sinclair, apparently in desperation, reported that the great roads of the metropolis were so perpetually pressed, harassed, and torn in every direction, that the only way to obtain a firm road in winter would be to pave them; and the Committee reported in favour of it. Up to this time the only material used for making roads was gravel, laid on the yielding clay, which soon sank and was lost. Happily at this moment (1810) Mr. McAdam came upon the scene with a remedy of broken granite coalesced under pressure and the action of water; this was proved to provide an excellent and durable road surface, which has been and still is extensively used. And so Mr. McAdam has achieved immortality, though perhaps it is not always recognized in talking of macadam to whom we are indebted for our macadam roads. With this improved road surface naturally came increased traffic and the rapid expansion of London, together with the necessity for increased communication across the Thames. Up to 1736 London Bridge stood This content downloaded from 140.211.127.19 on Sun, 19 Jun 2016 23:58:48 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms PROPOSALS FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF LONDON 275 alone; but Westminster Bridge was completed in 1750, Blackfriars in 1755, Richmond in 1774, Vauxhall in 1809, Waterloo in 1817, and South- wark Bridge in 1819. All were built of inadequate width, contour, and waterway; and all have been rebuilt since, excepting Waterloo, which remains and is admittedly the finest bridge across the Thames. The Corporation of the City of London freed London Bridge from toll in 1767, and since that time the whole have been freed. But the improvement in the condition of the roads proceeded slowly. The Kensington high-road to Brentford was not lighted or paved with macadam until 1833,anc* up to that time, less than one hundred years ago, we read that the road was not safe after dark; people going out from London to the country church of Kensington and returning after dark had to make up parties to return together as a protection against footpads. In 1833 a Select Committee strongly urged the consolidation of the Road Trusts; but railways were then rapidly coming in, and one by one these roads were handed back to the local authorities, in whose hands they remain; and so these main roads out of London are still without any central authority to direct or control them, and the last state of control of these roads is as bad as ever. The necessary street improvements in London have been carried out in much the same piecemeal and haphazard manner. Some great land- owners like the Crown, and public authorities like the City of London and London County Councii, have carried out splendid improvements; but they are necessarily invertebrate, and form no part of a general scheme. In 1756 the great new Marylebone and Euston Road was formed : a most useful road, and one which the County Councii are very desirous to extend both east and west. About the same time, possibly stimulated by this new street, John Gwynn in 1766 published a book entitled ' London and Westminster Improved,' in which he forcibly urged the importance of some general scheme for the extension of London, and himself made some very comprehensive suggestions in this direction, many of which have materialized; but as in 1666 so in 1766 no general scheme was attempted. His proposed widening of Swallow Street is certainly the germ of Regent Street; the prolongation of the Haymarket would have been invaluable; Trafalgar Square is suggested; the Embankment of the river, and the widening of the approaches to Covent Garden Market, greatly wanted. In the City Moorgate Street is suggested as subsequently carried out, and a much-needed widening of St.
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