Whitehall Historical and Architectural Notes (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Whitehall Historical and Architectural Notes

Richmond Terrace. Westminster claimed that the Terrace was within the boundaries of St. Margaret. The Terrace claimed that it was extra - parochial, as being on part of the site of the palace of Whitehall. The counsel for Westminster was able to show that Whitehall had been private property before the reign of Henry VIII., and that neither he nor any one else had made it extra-parochial. The verdict, therefore, was in favour of the parishioners of St. Margaret.

We may return to this interesting and instructive report, with its wealth of ancient evidence, and interrogate that much more ancient document, the face of the country. Strange to say, a great deal of that country remains as it was in, say, the reign of Henry III. The green fields and the water - courses are there, though the Abbot in 1250 could no longer look across his own land all the way from Westminster. The divided Tyburn wandered over the green expanse, untroubled with bridges. Two or three small brooks formed here a kind of delta. On the south, one of them ran through Westminster Abbey and divided Thorney Island from Tot Hill. Another ran through the district we call Whitehall. The land between was low and marshy, and even at the present day, when there has been so much levelling up, the statue of Charles I. Is upon ground ten feet higher than Parliament Street. If, standing on the future site of Whitehall we looked to the westward, we saw nothing but a vast tract of low green meadow-land. If we looked to the south, we might have seen the new buildings of Westminster Abbey, unless when the Danes had been on the warpath. If we looked to the eastward, we found that the Thames washed up close to our feet.

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