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LONDON’S MARKETS
COVENT GARDEN.
ARKET time here is very early. The carts begin to arrive
M about midnight. Great wagons laden with fruit and vegetables
coming into town from the gardens and orchards that surround
London. On arrival each wagon occupies its customary station in the
market. About four o'clock the buying and selling begin. All is rush
fusion, pandemonium in the heart of sleeping London ! Such is market
day at Covent Garden. Towards eight o'clock the tumult diminishes,
and when the ordinary citizens of London make their way along the
Strand very little is to be seen of the busy scenes of an hour or so before.
Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays are market days. In Floral
Hall the big consignments of Colonial and foreign fruit are sold.
Nearest Station, Covent Garden.
BILLINGSGATE.
Thames Street was the quay-side of ancient London, and Billings-
gate, conveniently situated below bridge, the landing place for fish.
Billingsgate is not a market that has sprung up in a day, but an
ancient institution of London. .
Any time between five and eight o'clock in the morning is early
enough to see the market, which is held daily. There is just the same
noise, just the same rush, and the same bustle as at Covent Garden, and
much to repay the visitor for the journey.
As soon as one reaches the City end of London Bridge the where-
abouts of Billingsgate becomes evident, for there is fish in the air, fish
in the streets, above and below, from Cannon Street to Tower Hill, and
white-smocked porters wearing padded hoods carrying trunks of fish on
their heads in every direction. Within the Market Hall rows upon
rows of stalls, laden with every kind of fish that comes from stream and
sea the river are seen the Dutchmen’s eel boats at their moorings,
which they have had the right of using since their ancestors helped to
quell the Great Fire.
Monument is the nearest Station.
IELD.
By Underground to Farringdon Street.
From an architectural point of view Smithfield is the finest of all
the London markets, and the display of dressed meat on the thousand
stalls within is in keeping with the magnificence of the buildings.
The round of life begins early at Smithfield, the carts with supplies
swing. Not the least interesting feature of the market are the salesmen,
in their white or drab coats and straw hats, for it is an unwritten law at
Smithfield that the latter must be worn all the year round.
Beneath the Meat Market tensi Id st chambers, where
large stocks are held in reserve.
CATTLE MARKET, CALEDONIAN ROAD.
B
land. The animals begin to arrive at
midnight, coming from all parts of the United Kingdom. At dawn the
dealers and butchers comein, and by six o'clock business is in full swing,
lasting until well after mid-day. On Fridays, from ten to five, the
great square is given over to vendors of seemingly every article that the
skill and ingenuity of man have fashioned, and here one may
anything, from a silver teapot to a pair of second-hand boots, On
this day, too, horses and donkeys, carts and harness are sold.
Nearest Station, Caledonian Road.
THE TEMPLE.
RIGINALLY the Temple was the headquarters of the English
O branch of the Poor Knights of Christ and of the Temple of
Solomon. The church built by the Knights Templars seven
centuries ago still exists, as do their gardens. Wedged in between
London and Westminster cities, the Temple owes civic tribute to neither,
for itis a precinct apart, with ancient privileges.
The itinerary is best commenced by way of the Embankment Gate,
and the short walk thence affords a charming prospect of the Library
and the old Hall of the Middle Temple, seen across the terraced lawns
of the Gardens. Somewhere in these Gardens long ago took place the
scene when the red and white roses of the Temple became the symbols
of thirty years’ strife in Eugland.
An archway leads into Middle Temple Lane, The Agnus Dei
(the Lamb. with nimbus and banner), an emblem borne by the
Knights Templars in the Holy Land, is the insignia of the Middle
Temple, and meets the eye at every turn as one passes through. The
badge of the Inner Temple is the Pegasus, or winged horse, which is
likewise displayed on the buildings of that Inn.
Fountain Court, built 1570, with its fountain, is the most pleasing
corner in the Temple. Readers of Martin Chuzzlewit will recall that
the fountain was the rendezvous of Tom Pinch and his sister Ruth, and
also of Ruth and John Westlock. Facing stands Middle Temple Hall.
ickens laid many of his scenes in the Temple, and Pip and
Magwitch, Mr. Stryver and Sidney Carton, Sir John Chester, Black
Hugh, and Simon Tappertit are among others of his characters who
act parts here. On the north some steps lead up to New Court. To the
right a passage runs through into Essex Court, whence Middle Temple
Lane is reached again.
Here are.the Queen Anne houses known as Brick Court. In an
upper chamber of No. 2, marked by a tablet, Goldsmith died on April 4,
1774. Thackeray had chanibers on the lower floor. Across the way
are the toppling stories of the Elizabethan houses against Middle Temple
ateway.
Below Brick Court is Pump Court, still with the pump whence it
takes its name. In Pump Court Fielding and Cowper had chambers.
At the end are the Cloisters, with the old wig-maker’s shop in the
corner, and a glimpse of the Church in the Inner Temple be
teems with features of interest, notable among them being the nine stone
effigies of recumbent mail-clad knights in the Round, while among the
other effigies are those of William Marshall, the great Earl of Pembroke,
An archway beneath Inner Temple Hall leads out to Crown Office
Row. Inner Temple Hal! and Library stand on the site of the Templars’
refectory.
Mitre Court, leads through to the old “Mitre” of Johnson.
A visit to Prince Henry's room in the gabled house over Inner
Temple Gateway, a parting sight of Wren's Gateway from Fleet Street,
and the tour of the Temple is ended.
MEANS OF ACCESS.
The Temple Station of the Underground is only a short distance
from the Embankment Gateway of the Temple; Aldwych Station,
ient.
on the Strand side, is also convenien’