27. FROM BLACKFRIARS BRIDGE TO THE BANK OF ENGLAND.
STATIONS: Blackfriars, Mansion House, Cannon Street, and Monument on the District Railway. The Central London Railway, the City and South London Railway, and the Waterloo and City Railway each have a station at the Bank. OMNIBUS No. 76. TRAMWAYS to Blackfriars Bridge.
Blackfriars Bridge, at the east end of the Victoria Embankment, was built in 1865-69 by J. Cubitt (on the site of an earlier structure of 1760-69), and widened in 1907-8 from 75 feet to 105 feet Its total length is 1270 feet, and the largest of its five arches (in the centre) has a span of 185 feet. The view of the dome of St. Paul's is somewhat interfered with by the unsightly Blackfriars Railway Bridge and other structures.
The district of BLACKFRIARS was so called from the Dominicans who removed from Holborn (Lincoln's Inn) in 1278 and here, in the south-west angle of the ancient city of London (between Carter Lane and Queen Victoria St.), erected extensive monastic buildings, of which there are now no visible vestiges. The site was previously occupied by Castle Baynard and its appurtenances. In the Great Hall of the monastery, in 1382, an assembly of ecclesiastics condemned as heretical twenty-four Articles deduced from the teachings of Wycliffe. The monastery became important enough to be the meeting-place of several parliaments and the lodging of several royal personages. It was here that the decree of divorce was pronounced against Queen Catherine of Aragon (1529; 'Henry VIII.,' ii. 4). After the dissolution of the monasteries the house and precincts of the 'Friars Preachers' passed through various vicissitudes, and in 1596 James Burbage established, in part of the Great Hall, the first covered theatre in London, in which Shakespeare (who owned a house in the district) in all probability acted. 'Blackfriars Theatre' was demolished in 1655, but the name of Playhouse Yard and a tablet in the north-west corner of Printing House Square commemorate its existence. Ben Jonson dates the dedication of 'Volpone' from his house in Blackfriars, and used the district as the scene of 'The Alchemist.' In Stuart times it was the seat of a colony of artists, including Cornelius Johnson, Isaac Oliver (the miniature painter), and Van Dyck. The two last died and were buried in the parish.
Castle Baynard, which stood near the junction of the Fleet and the Thames, was built by and named after a follower of William the Conqueror. After 1278 another castle of the same name was built a little to the east, between Thames St. and the river, and was the scene of several important events (comp. 'Richard III.,' iii. 7). This castle, which was used also by Henry VII. and Henry VIII., was destroyed in the Great Fire. The name Castle Baynard survives in a ward and wharf of the City. Another follower of the Conqueror built the castle of Mountfichet or Mountfiquit, close to Castle Baynard and likewise on the site acquired by the Dominicans.
