The corner of Waterloo Road and York Road was formerly known 'in the profession' as 'Poverty Corner,' the morning rendezvous of disengaged actors and music-hall performers awaiting appointments with the agents in York Road and Stamford St., but the name is no longer appropriate. The Victoria Hall stands at the corner of the New Cut, which runs east to Blackfriars Road, while its line is continued west to Westminster Bridge Road by Lambeth Lower Marsh. In this thoroughfare is one of the largest and most characteristic street markets of London, with wares of every kind (including second-hand books) offered for sale on the stalls and barrows lining the road. WESTMINSTER BRIDGE ROAD leads west to Westminster Bridge, passing Christ Church, a handsome chapel built in 1876 for the congregation of Surrey Chapel. The tower of this church, on which appear the stars and stripes, was built by subscriptions from Americans as a memorial to President Lincoln. In 1881 the body of Rowland Hill was removed from Surrey Chapel and interred beneath this tower. His pulpit is shown in the church. No. 61 in this road is the Morley College for Working Men and Women, opened in 1889 beside the 'Old Vic'. In Westminster Bridge Road was once situated Astley's Circus, a famous place of entertainment described in Dickens's 'Sketches by Boz' and in Thackeray's 'Newcomes.'
