A MRS. DALLOWAY
WALK IN LONDON
A MRS. DALLOWAY WALK FROM DEAN’S
YARD, WESTMINSTER, TO REGENT’S PARK
NEAREST TUBE STATION: WESTMINSTER
This walk combines Mrs Dalloway’s, from her house to Bond Street where
she buys the flowers and hears the car backfire, with Rezia’s and Septimus'
(who also hear the car at the same time) from there to Regent’s Park. I think I
am now convinced by Bradshaw’s MDA (see n. to p. 123) that Mrs.
Dalloway is set on an imaginary Wednesday in June 1923, as neither the 13th
nor the 20th quite fits some of the references.
START IN DEAN’S YARD NEXT TO WESTMINSTER ABBEY OFF VICTORIA STREET
[Richard Dalloway] entered Dean’s
Yard ... approaching his door: MDA 129
TURN L INTO GREAT COLLEGE STREET (Daiches [p. 88] suggests
this is the street where the Dalloways may have lived)
TURN R INTO BARTON STREET (Wilson [p. 196] suggests this is the street
where the Dalloways may have lived, but she is wrong in stating that Woolf was
admiring a house here in January 1923 [it was in 1915])
AT THE END OF BARTON ST, TURN L INTO COWLEY ST, R & R AGAIN INTO GREAT PETER
STREET; R
INTO PERKINS RENTS, CONTINUE OVER INTO ABBEY ORCHARD STREET TO VICTORIA STREET
Big Ben strikes. There! Out it
boomed ... the hour [10am] ... [Clarissa] crossing Victoria Street: MDA 6
CROSS TO DEAN FARRAR STREET, CONTINUE OVER INTO DARTMOUTH STREET, L INTO QUEEN ANNE’S GATE
WHERE QUEEN ANNE’S GATE TURNS SHARP L, TURN R TO CROSS BIRDCAGE WALK
INTO ST. JAMES’S PARK
coming along with his back against
the Government buildings [from, say, the Foreign Office] Hugh Whitbread: MDA 7
FOLLOW PATH TO CROSS BRIDGE [regrettably built in the 1950s in place of
the previous 1857 iron suspension bridge] OVER LAKE
in the middle of St James’s Park on
a fine morning: MDA 9
CONTINUE ALONG PATH TO THE MALL;
TURN L
& THEN R UP QUEEN’S WALK
[Clarissa] reached the Park gates
... looking at the omnibuses in Piccadilly: MDA 10
Devonshire House, Bath House, the house with the china
cockatoo ... walking towards Bond Street:MDA 11
Devonshire House was immediately opposite the top of Queen’s Walk,
between Stratton and Berkeley Streets (it was demolished in 1924: see Woolf’s
paragraph commencing ‘Coming back to London .. a battered cottage ... has
replaced Devonshire House Nation & Athenaeum, 14 March 1925, pp.
812-13; reprinted in The Essays, Vol. 4). Bath House, 82 Piccadilly, is
on the corner of the next street to the L, Bolton Street; in the 1920s it was
owned by Lord and Lady Ludlow; it was demolished in 1960; the present building
is occupied by the Ministry of Defence (Showalter’s MDA, n. 6; Beja’s MDA,
p. 148; Bradshaw’s MDA, n. to p. 7). No. 1 Stratton Street, which
incorporated 80 Piccadilly, was the home of Baroness Burdett-Coutts (1814-1906)
who kept in the window a china cockatoo which indicated that she was in
residence (Beja’s MDA, p. 148; Bradshaw’s MDA, n. to p. 7).
AT PICCADILLY TURN R & L INTO OLD BOND STREET (detour
further along Piccadilly to Hatchard’s [note placing of the apostrophe
(Bradshaw’s MDA, n. to p. 8)] if wished)
looked into Hatchard's shop window
... walked back towards Bond Street ... waiting to cross: MDA 12
CONTINUE UP OLD BOND STREET
stopped to look at a Dutch picture
... flags flying ... one roll of tweed in the shop ... a few pearls ...: MDA 13
J and E Atkinson Ltd, 24 Old Bond
Street (Beja’s MDA, p. 148; Bradshaw’s MDA, n. to p. 12) - see
below; no. 24 is at the top of Old Bond Street on the R
CONTINUE INTO NEW BOND STREET
... at the window of a glove shop:
MDA 13
Possibly A. Bide Ltd, Glovers, 158A New Bond Street (Bradshaw’s MDA,
n. to p. 9): on L; or perhaps the London Glove Co., 83 New Bond Street (Beja’s
MDA, p. 148): on R, near Oxford Street
... salmon on an iceblock ...: MDA
13
Almost certainly the window of Gilsons Ltd, 121 New Bond Street
(Bradshaw’s MDA, n. to p. 9): on L
up Bond Street to a shop where they
kept flowers for her ... Mulberry’s: MDA 14-15
Most likely based on G. Adam and Co., florists and fruiterers to HM the
King and HRH the Prince of Wales, 42 New Bond Street (Bradshaw’s MDA, n.
to p. 11): on R
The violent explosion ... came from
a motor car ... precisely opposite Mulberry’s: MDA 16
rumours were at once in circulation from the middle of Bond Street to Oxford
Street on one side, to Atkinson’s scent shop on the other: MDA 17 (see above)
J and E Atkinson Ltd, 24 Old Bond Street (Beja’s MDA, p. 148;
Bradshaw’s MDA, n. to p. 12). Note that Woolf uses the U-word ‘scent'
(it appears five times in Mrs. Dalloway), whereas the PO in Bradshaw’s
note uses the non-U word ‘perfumery'. Woolf usually writes ‘scent' and only
very occasionally ‘perfume'.
Septimus looked. ... ‘Let us go on,
Septimus,said his wife: MDA 18
omnibuses ... Clarissa on one side of Brook Street: MDA 20
glove shops and hat shops and tailorsshops on both sides of Bond Street: MDA 21
CROSS OVER OXFORD STREET
‘Now we will cross,[Rezia] said:
MDA 19
CONTINUE INTO VERE STREET, R INTO HENRIETTA PLACE, L AT CAVENDISH SQUARE
& CONTINUE UP HARLEY STREET
CROSS OVER MARYLEBONE ROAD (also called ‘Regents Park Road' at this
point) AND TURN R OPPOSITE THE TUBE STATION ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE
ROAD
Both Peter Walsh and Rezia see and hear an old woman singing what has
turned out to be a translation of Hermann von Gilm’s poem ‘Allerseelen' (‘All
Souls' Day') which was set to music by Richard Strauss (Beja’s MDA, p.
154; MDA 90-2).
TURN L INTO PARK SQUARE EAST, L INTO THE OUTER CIRCLE,
& R UP
THE BROAD WALK
bells struck eleven times: MDA 24
the stone basins, the prim flowers: MDA 30
Lucrezia Warren Smith, sitting by her husband’s side on a seat in Regentr’s
Park in the Broad Walk: MDA 25
elm trees: MDA 26 [most elm trees succumbed to Dutch Elm Disease in the early 1970s]
‘I am going to walk to the fountain and back,[Rezia] said: MDA 26
[Rezia] by the fountain (staring at the Indian and his cross): MDA 28
AFTER REACHING THE ‘READY-MONEYFOUNTAIN (see Whitworth), HEAD DIAGONALLY
R
ALONG PATH TO GLOUCESTER GATE.
near the Zoo: MDA 29
WALK OUT OF GLOUCESTER GATE AND TURN L
[Peter Walsh] remembered Regent’s
Park; the long straight walk; the little house where one bought air-balls to
the left; an absurd statue with an inscription somewhere or other: MDA 62 [see
also MDA 39]
The OED gives a quotation from 1869: ‘the India-rubber coloured
air-balls, which are sold at fairs presumably balloons. Whitworth suggests that
the ‘absurd statue' is the Ready-Money fountain, but Beja’s MDA (p. 153)
and Bradshaw’s MDA (n. to p. 47) suggest that it may be the statue
called ‘Matilda' (1878) by Joseph Durham: the fountain was donated by Matilda
Kent to the parish of St Pancras which is to the East of Regent’s Park. The
text would seem to support Whitworth - unless one had had the bright idea of
the Matilda, which after all is outside the park near the Gloucester Gate; on
the other hand, Matilda is a statue, whereas the fountain is not. Where was
‘the little house where one bought air-balls Nowadays you buy drinks from a
‘little house' to the left of the Broad Walk near the Ready-Money Fountain, and
it’s obviously been there since before 1923. There isn’t an natural replacement
word in English for ‘litttle house'; ‘kiosk' wouldn’t have been used much
before the War, and, in any case, ‘kiosk' suggests a stall with a roof,
something more temporary.
THIS IS THE END OF THE WALK
IF WISHED, CONTINUE ALONG PARKWAY TO CAMDEN TOWN TUBE STATION (may be
closed at weekends)