THE SURVEY OF GREATER LONDON.—VOL. I.
A Survey of London : the First Volume of the Register of As Committee for the Survey of the Memorials of Greater London containing the Parish of Bromley-by-Bow. E lited by C. le Ashbee, and printed under the auspices of the London County Council. (Ring and Son.)—This is an excellent piece of work. The London County Council were made aware that a hundred and ninety - two parishes lay under their rule, and that in these all kinds of good old buildings are con- stantly pulled down and disappear without a soul knowing what is going to happen. Manor homes, old palaces, alms- houses, town halls, churches, gardens, inns, tithe barns, and other monuments of social history disappear yearly. Perhaps as good, or bad, an instance of what happens took place in Bromley, the subject of the volume here reviewed. There stood a fine old palace, built, it is believed, by John of Padua. It was bought by the School Board, and pulled down before any one on the Board knew what was being done. Much of the interior ornament was so good that it found a place in South Kensing- ton Museum. The Council have therefore begun to compile a record of London as it is to-day, in order that the public may know what memorials of the past still remain standing. It is beautifully illustrated and admirably written. The street scenes are from photographs. The goof houses and archi- tectural details are given in black and white, in photogravure, and from architects' plans. The selections strike us as admirable, perfectly true, and full of interest. As this volume will probably serve as a model for others, its form is important. It contains first a large plan of the parish. The hideous regular masses of industrial and workmen's dwellings of Bromley are set out equally with the lines of the good old High Street and the sites of the once fine houses and gardens. The buildings of special interest remaining are marked in red, and will be scheduled with others elsewhere, of the contemplated destruction of which it is hoped that the Council will always have notice before it is too late. Some were actually demolished while this register VMS being prepared. Of Bromley Palace, built on the lines of Monte cute and Hardwick, we read :—" It was demolished by the London Scheel Board at the beginning of the compilation of this register. On the eve of its destruction the house was in admirable repair, the timbers perfect, the fitments and interior panelling for the most part preserved. The early Jacobean carving on the mantelpiece was still crisp and new, and the plaster work of the ceilings of much thickness and sound consistency. The original .oak staircase in the southern part of the house, with its massive moulded newels, handrails, and balusters, was also in perfect preservation." The Survey gives plates of all these lost items. It also furnishes for any one who is at all eenstructive a very good notion of what the main features of this old and swamped bit of London were once like, its old shops, churches, inns, and merchants' houses. Everything new there is poor, mean, had, and dull, and grows duller as the old memorials are cleared off. The history of the manors, cf which there were two, a the church of St. Mary, of the tombs, and of the palace is given clearly and well. The general purpose which the Survey Cone mittee sets before it is stated at length, on pp. 25-35, by Mr, C. R. Ashbee. Amateurs must help, but he believes
£10,000, gathered by subscription and placed at the Committee's disposals would give a complete survey, as good as that now made of Bromley, for every parish in London in tea years. It may possibly be done by private enterprise before that time.
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