Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
A crowded art exhibition in Somerset House with pictures crammed in-
to every space and hung right up to the ceiling in the fashion of the time.
This was a major social event during the Season, an excuse to see and be
seen.
The Royal Navy occupied one wing throughout the Napoleonic wars, so Jane's brothers
Charles and Frank would have known Somerset House well. Cross the courtyard to leave by
the Strand entrance.
The Strand is an ancient thoroughfare, dating back to the Normans, but constant redevel-
opment has left virtually nothing from before the mid-nineteenth century. It was a major
shopping street during the late Georgian period, and one Jane would have been familiar with
- in daylight, at least, because it had a very disreputable nightlife.
One of her letters records her intention to buy gloves from T. Remnant's shop at No. 126
and she ordered tea from Twining's, whose shop at the eastern end of the Strand we visit in
Walk 8.
The view east along the Strand in 1809 to St Mary's in the Strand, with
the front of Somerset House on the right.
Turn left and walk along to the entrance to the Savoy. Just beyond, the Savoy Buildings
cover the site of the Coal Hole tavern, a popular drinking house for actors and, at one time,
a private theatre. Edmund Kean formed the Wolf Club drinking society, which met here. Re-
putedly it was for husbands whose wives did not permit them to sing in the bath!
Also under the Savoy Buildings is the site of Rudolph Ackermann's Emporium at 101,
Strand. Ackermann was a highly successful publisher, coach designer and enterprising re-
tailer. He sold prints and artists' materials and he published the iconic journal,
The Reposit-
ory of Arts, Literature, Fashions etc
(1809-29). It contains some of the most vivid images of
Regency society, including many of the prints in this topic. His was the first shop in London
to be lit by gas in around 1807.
