Amongst County Councils the London County Council, viewed by good Conservatives as the home of all that is radical and wicked, stands almost alone in exhibiting any effective sympathy with the preservation of historic monuments. In 1890 the London Council obtained, by a provision of one of its Private Acts,[1] power to purchase, by agreement, buildings and places of historic or architectural interest, and the Reports of the Council recognise that it is the Authority in London for executing the Ancient Monument Acts. The Council has purchased an interesting specimen of an early Jacobean house in Fleet Street (opposite the end of Chancery Lane), at a cost of £20,000, and partially rebuilt it at an additional cost of about £7,000. The Council has also interested itself in obtaining an Inventory of the interesting buildings of London, and has borne the expense of printing an exhaustive—perhaps too exhaustive—survey of the Memorials of the Parish of Bromley-by-Bow. It has also taken over from the Society of Arts the work of indicating houses in London associated with historic events or distinguished individuals, and within the last couple of years more than a score of additional tablets have been affixed. Short accounts of the houses thus distinguished are prepared by the Council, and collections of such accounts published in booklet form at a nominal price. Further, when any open space is opened, or any new work inaugurated, such as the Tower Bridge or the great street from the Strand to Holborn (Aldwych and Kingsway), a most careful archaeological account of the neighbourhood,
- ↑ London County Council (General Powers) Act, 1898 (61 and 62 Vic. cap. ccxxi). The Council also requires promoters of Acts authorizing undertakings which involve excavations, to provide for the preservation of any movable relics which may be discovered (old coins, fragments of Samian ware and so on); see, for example, the Christ's Hospital Act, 1901 (1 Edw. VII., c. ccxiii). But the temptations offered by dealers to workmen go far to nullify these provisions.
