Facing the river near the Putney Steamboat Pier is a big hotel, the Star and Garter, for long a landmark at Putney, and recently rebuilt in all the splendour of red brick and gilt. Beyond this formerly stood a number of old houses--Clyde House, Riverside House, Thanet Lodge, Laburnum House, Windsor House, and Point House; these had tiled roofs and bay-windows, and formed a picturesque group. They have recently been replaced by large mansions, called Star and Garter, and University Mansions. In Spring Gardens was formerly a curious collection of the cottages of watermen and boatmen, but these have now vanished. The lane has been paved and the whole district altered.
West of this as far as the common many alterations have taken place in the last few years, and now the market-gardens and fields are covered with street after street of small two-storied cottages stretching in straight lines from the Lower Richmond Road to the river. The same applies to the district between here and the Upper Richmond Road as far west as the London boundary at Northumberland Terrace. Here stood until recently prolific gardens and orchards, but now the site is covered with streets arranged as closely as possible, and filled with a rather better style of dwellings than those to the northward.
Passing west, we come at length to the gateway of the Ranelagh Club at Barn Elms. From this entrance, with its large gates and porter's lodge, the private road runs over the Beverley Brook, and, swerving to the west, enters the park proper. This manor was given by Athelstane to the Canons of St. Paul's, and is still held by them. The mansion of Barn Elms was formerly in the possession of Sir Francis Walsingham, and here in 1589 he entertained Queen Elizabeth. Pepys and Evelyn both make mention of this place in their diaries, and it was here that the duel was fought--January 16, 1678--between the Earl of Shrewsbury and the Duke of Buckingham. The meetings of the Kitcat Club were held here in a room specially built for the purpose by Jacob Tonson, the bookseller, who lived in a house formerly known as Queen Elizabeth's Dairy, and died there November 25, 1735. At present Ranelagh rivals Hurlingham as a social outdoor club, and the merits of the respective grounds are a matter of opinion.