4. PLACENTIA, THE OLD PALACE AT GREENWICH

15. THE FIRE OF LONDON

16. ST. PAUL'S FROM THE RIVER

_Sketch map of Norman London_

_Old St Paul's_

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[Illustration: NO. 2. PART OF THE BUILDINGS OF THE OLD CHARTER HOUSE
SCHOOL, ITS CHAPEL AND PLAYGROUND. (See p. 28)]

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STORIES OF LONDON

I.

SOME VERY OLD STORIES

The first story of London should tell who built it, and when, and why.
But London is old, very old; it began before its builders had even
thought of making books, and so its earliest history is written in the
ground on which it stands, in its hills and valleys, its rivers and
river-beds; and this is a kind of history which, if only we know how to
read it, always tells the truth. Perhaps you are saying to yourself,
"There is only one river in London, and that is the Thames; and there
are no hills,--London is flat; and as for the ground, who has seen the
real ground on which London stands? Is it not all built over, or paved
with wood or stones or cement? How, then, can we learn anything from
it?" Sometimes old worn-out buildings have to be pulled down to their
very foundations so that new houses may be put in their places, or a
tube-railway or a tunnel has to be made, or gas-pipes or electric wires
have to be laid under the roads;--have you not seen navvies digging
deep into the earth to do all these things? Then the secret things
hidden in the ground are brought to light, and they teach us something
of the very old history of the land.

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Perhaps you know that the Hampstead and Highgate Hills lie four or five
miles north of the Thames; and at about the same distance south of it
are other hills, on one of which the Crystal Palace stands. Though we
call the land between these hills the Thames Valley, it is not flat;
and long ago, before London was built in it, it was much more uneven
than it is now; for the more level roads are the easier it is for heavy
carriages and carts to be pulled along them, so hollows have been
filled up and hillocks cut down to make the ground as flat as possible.
Even now, as you ride on the top of an omnibus through the long
straight road called Oxford Street, if you watch carefully you may
notice the rise and fall of the land,--a little hill, then a little
valley, and so on. Once through eac