From the middle of the eighteenth century London expanded in a fitful and almost feverish manner according to a cycle
of profit and profiteering. The metaphor of fever was taken up by Henry Kett who, in 1787, suggested that
`The contagion of the building influenza ... has extended its virulence to the country
where it rages with unabating
violence ... The metropolis is manifestly the centre of the disease ... Mansions daily arise upon the marshes of Lambeth,
the roads of Kensington, and the hills of Hampstead ... The chain of buildings so closely unites the country with the
town that the distinction is lost between Cheapside and St George's Fields. This idea
struck the mind of a child, who lived at Clapham, with so much force, that
he observed, "If they go on building at such a rate, London will soon be next
door to us."' By the time he grew to be a man, his words had come to pass.
The `hills of Hampstead' were in part threatened by the `New Road' from Paddington to Islington, upon which work
began in 1756; it acted as a bypass, avoiding the congerie of narrow and unpaved roads which led to the centre of
the city, and for a while was considered to be a northern perimeter road, acting as a barrier between the city and
the country - or, rather, between the city and the assortment of brick-fields, tea gardens, orchard gardens, cow-yards,
tenter-grounds, allotments and sodden marsh-like fields which were always a feature of the land immediately surrounding
the capital. But then the city, almost in a bound, travelled to its other side with the erection of Somers Town and
Pentonville, Camden Town and Kentish Town. The new road became a road within, rather than outside, the city; and as
such it remains.
The `marshes of Lambeth' were invaded by a more deliberate act of policy, designed to increase the speed of
business within the city and to open up the capital to its outer regions. Until 1750 only London Bridge acted as a
conduit between the northern and southern areas of the Thames; the river itself was at the centre of all traffic.
But the construction of Westminster Bridge over a period of twelve years entirely changed the relationship between
the northern and southern sections; instead of being isolated and apart, almost like different countries sharing the
same border, they became interrelated. A new road was built from the bridge into Lambeth for some half a mile, where
it then -touched existing roads which were in turn extended and widened ::-order to create a free-flowing route
`for promoting the intercourse and commerce' between both parts of the city. In the process both Kent and -Surrey
became so accessible that much open country disappeared beneath streets and squares.
The experiment was so profitable that four other bridges followed at Blackfriars, Vauxhall, Waterloo and Southwark.
London Bridge itself was stripped of its houses and shops in order to render it suitable for the faster movement of
a new age. Everyone was going faster. Everything was going faster. The city was growing faster, too, and the traffic
within its bounds was moving ever more rapidly, starting a momentum which has never stopped. By the latter half of the
eighteenth century the evidence of London's commercial power, and future imperial status, was already present. It was
about to burst its bounds completely, and become the first metropolis of the world. So almost by instinct the old
boundaries and gateways were destroyed; in a symbolic act of relinquishment, London prepared for its future.
The `roads of Kensington' then found the city to be advancing upon them. In the early eighteenth century the
area of Mayfair, south of Oxford Street and east of Hyde Park, was established in a series of streets and squares; in its immediate vicinity the Portland estate laid out the territory north of Oxford Street. Cavendish Square, Fitzroy Square and Portman Square arose. Grosvenor Square was completed in 1737 and, at a size of six acres, remains London's largest residential square. It was followed by the building of Berkeley Square only three streets away, so that the entire area was given a uniform discipline and appearance. The idea of the square and its surrounding streets took possession of London. The Bedford estate in Bloomsbury moved beyond its origin in Covent Garden to establish Bedford Square in 1774, and twenty-five years later this was succeeded by Russell Square, Tavistock Square, Gordon Square, Woburn Square and their network of interconnecting terraced streets. In its turn the Portman estate established Dorset Square, Portman Square and Bryanston Square. Square upon square, giving London its now familiar appearance.
But the city did not stop there. The districts of Shoreditch, Whitechapel and Bethnal Green in the east continued
their steady growth, while south of the river areas such as Southwark, Walworth, Kennington and St George's Fields
grew up beside the new thorough-fares. Fields were filled with terraced streets rather than corn. The population
itself expanded to meet London's demands, so that a figure of 650,000 in 1750 had reached over a million fifty years
later. It was not until 1790 that baptisms exceeded burials, but from that time forward the momentum could not be
stopped. In each of the five succeeding decades, after 1800, the population would rise by 20 per cent.
Extract from “LONDON The Biography”, by Peter Ackroyd. Published by Vintage, 2001.
