Transcriber’s Note:
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
LONDON
AND ITS
ENVIRONS
DESCRIBED.
CONTAINING
An Account of whatever is most remarkable for Grandeur, Elegance, Curiosity or Use,
In the City and in the Country Twenty Miles round it.
COMPREHENDING ALSO
Whatever is most material in the History and Antiquities of this great Metropolis.
Decorated and illustrated with a great Number of Views in Perspective, engraved from original Drawings, taken on purpose for this Work.
Together with a Plan of LONDON, A Map of the Environs, and several other useful Cuts.
VOL. IV.
LONDON
AND ITS
ENVIRONS
DESCRIBED, &c.
London, the metropolis of GreatBritain, and one of the largest andrichest cities upon earth, is of such antiquitythat it is impossible to give any certainaccount of its origin. It probably existed inthe time of the ancient Britons, before theart of writing was brought into England,and when there were no other monumentsof ancient facts, than what werefound in the songs of the bards, whichwere preserved only by memory.
It would be ridiculous therefore to layany stress on the fabulous tales of Geffryof Monmouth, who pretends that it wasfounded by Brutus, the second nephewof the famous Æneas, and called Trinovantum,or New Troy, and that it wasat length walled by King Lud, whenit obtained the name of Caer Lud, or2Lud’s Town. Upon which suppositionssome of our later historians have had theweakness to compute, that it had its origin1107 years before the birth of Christ;600 years before the fall of the Assyrianempire by the death of Belshazzar, and350 before the building of Rome.
But to leave these fabulous tales. Camdensupposes that this city derived thename of London from the British wordsLlhwn a wood, and Dinas a town; bywhich ety