An Almanac of the Exhibitions and Amusements of London:

Today, we are returning to The Picture of London for 1809; (being a Correct Guide to all the Curiosities, Amusements, Exhibits, Public Establishments, and Remarkable Objects, in and near London; with a Collection of Appropriate Tables; Two Large Maps, and several other engravings.)

On February 22 of this year, we looked at The Picture for January and February. Now we'll see what March held, and what delights April will bring.

March seemed to be the month for anniversary dinners:

1   Saint David's-day, Anniversary of the Welch Charity, which after service at St. Andrew's church, Holborn, dines at the Crown and Anchor.

1   Anniversary of the Westmoreland Society

4   Ditto of the Marine Society, at the London Tavern.

17 Ditto of the Benevolent Society of St. Patrick at the Crown and Anchor.

30 Ditto of the Asylum, for Female Orphans, at the Freemason's Tavern.

Three notes accompanied the March listings:

 Maunday Thursday. His Majesty's bounty is distributed to the poor at Whitehall-chapel, by His Majesty's Almoner.

 Towards the end of this month, and during most of the spring and summer, are to be seen reviews, and other military spectacles, in Hyde Park, generally two or three mornings in the week. Notice of these may be had at the offices of the Commander-in-Chief, or of the Adjutant-general, at the Horse-guards, Whitehall.

Every morning a pleasing spectacle is displayed on the Parade, behind the Horse-guards, about ten o'clock, where the stranger will likewise be entertained with a charming concert of martial music.

 from Walks Through London 1817

April shows the beginnings of the social season, and hints of the spring and summer activities to come. There are still anniversary dinners:

1   Anniversary Dinner of the Literary Fund for the relief of authors in distress, at the Freemasons Tavern.
7   Ditto of the Freemason's Charity, for educating Female Children, at the Crown and Anchor.
5   Ditto of the Society for the Refuge of the Destitute.
10 Ditto of the Institution at Bermondsey, for the Education of the Deaf and Dumb, where they are taught to speak and read articulately, write, etc., held at the London tavern.
27 Anniversary of the Society of Friends of Foreigners in Distress, City of London Tavern.

Easter, with its variable dates, brings a variety of events.

Easter Monday and Tuesday, are days of great frolic and revelry, in Greenwich-park, and there are scenes deserving of notice.

On Easter Monday and Tuesday, the Lord-mayor, Aldermen, etc. go in state to Christ-church, and attend divine service; after which on Monday, a grand dinner is given at the Mansion-house, and a splendid and numerously attended ball in the evening Tickets to be had of the Lord-mayor.

"Easter Term begins the third Wednesday after Easter Sunday, and lasts twenty-six days." and again there is celebration:

In the first Sunday of Easter Term, the Lord-mayor, Sheriffs, and Judges, go in state to St. Paul's Church, and afterwards partake of a grand dinner.

But the arts are stirring:

Easter Monday, the following Summer Theatres open: Sadler's Wells, Ampitheatre of Arts (Astley's), The Royal Circus.

From the 18th of April:

Exhibition of the Painters in Water Colours, Old Bond-street.
Ditto of the Associated Artists in Water Colours, No. 20, Lower Brook-street.

And finally, the great display of the Beau Monde is underway:

In this month, and during the summer, every day, but particularly on Sunday, from two o'clock till five, Hyde Park is a great resort of persons on foot, on horse-back, and in carriages. Kensington-gardens form also, during the same time, a great fashionable promenade, unequalled in any part of the world.

Kensington Garden Promenade Dresses June 1806

Happy Spring!
'Til next time,

Lesley-Anne

The Churches of London

It seems appropriate, on this Easter weekend, to discuss churches. Well, not really to discuss them, so much as illustrate them.

I've been researching with a great many Regency books and magazines, and have found many, many marvelous pictures of London in the early 1800's. Churches, in particular, are beautifully represented in these publications, the engravings detailed and quite stunning.

Here are a few of my favourites:

 Above is St. Martin's in the Fields on Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster. It was completed in 1724.

 Bow Church above in Cheapside, is more properly known as St. Mary le Bow, and is home of the famous Bow Bells.

 Shoreditch Church is actually St. Leonard's, on Hackney Road, and dates from about 1740. (My apologies for the uncorrected crookedness!)

St. Bride's in Fleet Street designed by Christopher Wren in 1672 is probably the seventh church built on this ancient site.

St. Clements Danes is another Wren church, with a steeple added to the tower in the early 1700s. St. Clement is the patron saint of mariners, and the Danes of the name were a sea-faring people many of whom settled in London in the 9th century.

The above engraving of St. Dunstan's in the East, halfway between London Bridge and the Tower of London, must have been made just before the church was discovered in 1817 to be unsound and was demolished. It no longer exists but for the tower and steeple. (Yes, there is a St. Dunstan's in the West.)

In 1133 the first St. Michael's Church was built in this location; it was destroyed by the Great Fire of London. The building in the above engraving was begun in 1672. It underwent many alterations in the Victorian era.

The Dutch Church in this engraving was a medieval building, built originally as part of an Augustinian Priory. At the dissolution this church was turned over to the immigrant Dutch/Walloon community, and remains the oldest Dutch language Protestant church in the world. The church still exists but this building was destroyed during the blitz of WWII.

The interiors of the London churches are not neglected either in the Regency publications I've been reading:

The Priory Church of St. Batholomew the Great above possesses the most significant Norman interior in London. Situated in West Smithfield, it survived both the Great Fire and the Blitz.

This handsome interior from St. Stephen's Walbrook is by Sir Christopher Wren.

St. George's in a handsome engraving of 1787

St. George's Church, Hanover Square, in Mayfair, is the church Regency readers hear about the most. And it remains a popular sight for society weddings. But the Londoners of the Regency would have known all the churches shown above, and many, many more.

Happy Easter!

'Til next time,
Lesley-Anne

These illustrations (except for St. George's) are taken from:
Repository of Arts February 1815
Walks Through London 1817
London and Middlsex: An historical, commercial, and descriptive history...1815
All are available for download from Google Books

Pancakes, and Football, and Eggs, Oh My! Oddities of a Regency Easter By Guest Blogger Regina Scott

When I suggested to Lesley-Anne that I might endeavor to write a post on Easter customs during the Regency for her marvelous blog, she said something that stuck with me: Easter during the Regency was both a holy day and a holiday. So, let’s look at it from both perspectives.

In the Anglican church, then as now, Easter was proceeded by 40 days of Lent. The Book of Common Prayer used during the Regency states that it is a time of fasting or abstinence. During the Regency, this apparently meant that a lady or gentleman should refrain from indulgence foods like cakes or pastries on Monday through Saturday and from meat on Friday.  Sundays were not considered part of Lent. Now, how widely this tradition was applied is highly in question. Few period diaries mention any undue concern with diet. That might mean diet was taken for granted and therefore not recorded or that the custom simply wasn’t practiced!

Lent begins with a church service on Ash Wednesday. However, the day before Ash Wednesday is Shrove Tuesday. In the early Christian church, Shrove Tuesday was the day to confess your sins to the priest or get “shriven.” This was also the last day to eat the foods prohibited during Lent, a fact that resulted in Mardi Gras and Fat Tuesday in other cultures.


In Britain, you instead have Pancake Tuesday, which is a more modern name for Shrove Tuesday.  Since Lent was to be a time of fasting and abstinence, the lower classes generally attempted to empty the house of any rich foods before Lent.  These foods included milk, butter, eggs, and fat.  Thus, pancakes made from milk, butter, and eggs plus wheat flour and spices were fried in the fat and eaten.

These pancakes were also used in pancake races.  At the sound of a pancake bell, often the bell from the local church, women ran a course carrying a frying pan with a pancake in it. They had to successfully flip the pancake at least three times before they reached the goal. Some communities held pancake parties, with people dressed up the Protector of the Pancakes, First Founder of the Fritters, Baron of Bacon-flitch, and the Earl of Egg-baskets. Towns that have pancake races dating back to the time of the Regency or earlier include Newbury and Hungerford (Berkshire), Olney (Buckinghamshire), Ely (Cambridgeshire), Northfleet (Kent), Liverpool (Lancashire), Thorpe Abbots (Norfolk), Lichfield (Staffordshire), and Bodium (Sussex).

Another popular custom on Shrove Tuesday was street football or hurling.  In street football, goals are placed at least a mile apart, and two groups of any number of men square off in the middle.

These opposing groups may be merchants against gentry, country dwellers against city dwellers, one town against another, or one guild against another. Some unlucky soul threw a round ball of stuffed leather about the size of an inflated pig’s bladder up in the air and ran for his life while the two sides converged. The objective was to throw, kick, roll, or otherwise shove the ball through the opposing team’s goal.  Teams of up to 1,000 were not uncommon, and sides did not have to be equal. Any land between the goals was far game for the playing field, including church yards and cemeteries.

After the 40 days of Lent comes Easter Sunday, the celebration of Christ’s resurrection from the dead. It is a holy day of obligation in the Church of England, which means parishioners must attend church and receive communion. Churches were often decorated with lilies, and there might be more singing than usual, for those churches where the minister favored singing.

But it wasn’t all services and sentiment on Easter Sunday. While no Easter bunny as we know him today was in evidence, some families did dye Easter eggs (hard-boiled eggs) to use in a variety of children’s entertainments. Colors included red, blue, and violet. I could not find a mention of yellow, though certainly they had access to onion skins, which make a fine yellow dye. The colors may have had religious significance—red for the blood of Christ, blue for water of baptism, and purple for royalty. Children would roll the eggs down a plank or hillside to see which reached the bottom first. Or they might host “egg wars” and smash the things together to see which remained uncracked. And then it was in for a fine dinner of ham or lamb.

May your upcoming Easter be as interesting!

~~

Regina Scott is the author of twenty-four works of Regency-set romance. You can learn more about her work at www.reginascott.com, learn more about the Regency at the blog she shares with young adult author Marissa Doyle at www.nineteenteen.blogspot.com, or get to Regina better on her Facebook page at www.facebook.com/authorreginascott.

Her March release, The Heiress’s Homecoming, received a Top Pick from RT Book Reviews and was mentioned in USA Today’s Happily Ever After blog.