



Produced by Al Haines









[Illustration: Cover art]




[Frontispiece: A YOUNG PRINCE WATCHING THE SCOTS GUARDS FROM
MARLBOROUGH HOUSE]




  PEEPS AT MANY LANDS

  ENGLAND

  BY

  JOHN FINNEMORE



  CONTAINING TWELVE FULL-PAGE
  ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR



  LONDON
  ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK
  1908




  CONTENTS

  I. IN LONDON TOWN--I.
  II. IN LONDON TOWN--II.
  III. IN LONDON TOWN--III.
  IV. OLD FATHER THAMES--I.
  V. OLD FATHER THAMES--II.
  VI. IN A CATHEDRAL CITY
  VII. THROUGH WESSEX--I.
  VIII. THROUGH WESSEX--II.
  IX. THROUGH WESSEX--III.
  X. ROUND THE TORS
  XI. THE LAND OF SAINTS
  XII. IN SHAKESPEARE'S COUNTRY
  XIII. AN OLD ENGLISH HOUSE
  XIV. BY FEN AND BROAD
  XV. BY DALE AND FELL
  XVI. THE PLAYGROUND OF ENGLAND--I.
  XVII. THE PLAYGROUND OF ENGLAND--II.
  XVIII. HEROES OF THE STORM




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS LOI A YOUNG PRINCE WATCHING THE SCOTS
  GUARDS FROM MARLBOROUGH HOUSE... _Rose Barton_. _Frontispiece_

LONDON: ST. PAUL'S AND LUDGATE HILL... _Herbert Marshall_

BY AN ENGLISH RIVER... _Birket Foster_

TOMB OF THE BLACK PRINCE IN
  CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL... _W. Biscombe Gardner_

IN AN ENGLISH COUNTRY TOWN... _Walter Tyndale_

IN AN ENGLISH LANE... _Birket Foster_

SHAKESPEARE'S BIRTHPLACE... _Fred Whitehead_

AN ENGLISH COUNTRY HOUSE... _Walter Tyndale_

IN AN ENGLISH VILLAGE... _W. Biscombe Gardner_

AN ENGLISH COTTAGE... _Mrs. Allingham_

IN AN ENGLISH WOOD... _Stilton Palmer_

ON AN ENGLISH COMMON... _Birket Foster_ ELOI



[Illustration: SKETCH-MAP OF ENGLAND.]




ENGLAND


IN LONDON TOWN--I.

London is the greatest city in the world.  How easy it is to say that
or read it!  How very, very hard it is to get the least idea of what it
means!  We may talk of millions of people, of thousands of streets, of
hundreds of thousands of houses, but words will give us little grasp of
what London means.  And if we go to see for ourselves, we may travel up
and down its highways and byways until we are dizzy with the rush of
its hurrying crowds, its streams of close-packed vehicles, its rows
upon rows of houses, shops, banks, churches, museums, halls, theatres,
and begin to think that at last we have seen London.  But alas for our
fancy!  We find that all the time we have only been in one small corner
of it, and the great city spreads far and wide around the district we
have learned to know, just as a sea spreads around an islet on its
broad surface.

When we read or hear of London, we are always coming across the terms
West End and East End.  West and East of what?  Where is the
dividing-line?  The dividing-place is the City, the heart of London,
the oldest part of the great town.  Once the City was a compact little
town inside a strong wall which kept out its enemies.  It was full of
narrow streets, where shops stood thickly together, and over the shops
lived the City merchants in their tall houses.  The narrow streets and
the shops are still there, but the merchants have long since gone to
live elsewhere, and the walls have been pulled down.

Now the City is nothing but a business quarter.  It is packed with
offices, warehouses, banks and public buildings, and it is the busiest
part of London by day and the quietest by night.  It is a wonderful
sight to see the many, many thousands of people who work in the City
pour in with the morning and stream out at evening.  Every road, every
bridge, leading to and from the City is packed with men and women, boys
and girls, marching like a huge army, flowing and ebbing like the tides
of the sea.

In the centre of the City there is a famous open space where seven
streets meet.  It is famous for the buildings which surround it, and
the traffic which flows through it.  All day long an endless stream of
omnibuses, cabs, drays, vans, carts, motor-cars, motor-buses,
carriages, and every kind of vehicle which runs on wheels, pours by.
So great is the crush of traffic that underground passages have now
been built for people to cross from side to side, and that is a very
good thing, for only the very nimble could dodge their way through the
mass of vehicles.

Upon one side of this space there stands a building with blank walls,
not very high nor very striking in appearance.  But it is the Bank of
England, where the money matters of half the world are dealt with!  If
we went inside we should find that the Bank is built around a
courtyard, into which the windows look.  Thus there is no chance for
burglars to break in, and besides, the Bank is guarded very carefully,
for its cellars are filled with great bars of gold, and its drawers are
full of sovereigns and crisp bank-notes.

Upon the