on a high healthy grazing-land beside the moor. There were to be seventy first-class, and sixty second-class houses; yet the calculations made by Richard and Rachel were so clear and complete, and cautious, that Mr. Fenwick, the attorney, was satisfied.
The Leazes Terrace and Crescent were soon built and occupied, and Grainger was a rich man.
It will not be interesting to readers unacquainted with Newcastle to follow the course of Grainger’s enterprises. It is enough to say that before he began to fulfil his own particular dreams about the Nunnery grounds, he had added to the town house property and public buildings to the value of nearly 200,000l. His name was now in everybody’s mouth, for good or for evil. It was difficult to find anything to say against him personally; but the owners of ricketty old houses and inconvenient old shops and warehouses complained of the diminishing value of their property. In the most crowded parts of the town, there were prophecies that dwellings would become a drug. Those who could find nothing else to allege, spoke of Richard’s badge-coat and his mother’s stocking-grafting, and tossed their heads at the idea of his having made so many thousand pounds, while they who used to bid him be a good boy had been working hard to make only as many hundreds. As a set-off against such remarks there were the facts of an increased importation of Baltic timber, and such a demand for better houses and shops as kept all the builders in the place busier than they had ever been before. There was a new briskness in all trades, and, in due course, a marked increase in the population of Newcastle.
The long-hoped-for day came at last. The twelve acres were in the hands of a proprietor willing to sell. Grainger was presently reported to have paid 50,000l. for the estate, and 45,000l. more for old property which lay between the estate and the busy parts of the town. It was some time before public curiosity could learn what was to be done; for Grainger’s plans were prepared at home; and his secrets were well kept. By the advice of his attorney, he now transferred his business to the office of the town-clerk,—because, not only of the magnitude of his concerns, but of the necessity of obtaining the good will of the Corporation. A meat-market and the theatre stood in the way of the meditated improvements. When the plans were exhibited, and public opinion was found to be in their favour, the Corporation surrendered the market, on Grainger’s promise to erect a new one, superior in all respects. The new market was opened with much jubilation, as the finest in the kingdom. The Green market, which soon followed, may be remembered by any of my readers who attended the British Association Meeting of 1838, when it was lighted up for the Promenade—its elegant fountains being wreathed with gaslights.
We hear from Paris of a discontented house-owner who had just appealed against the amount of compensation awarded to him, for a dwelling to be swept away in the course of improvements; and of his finding no traces of his house when he went to make one more survey of it, after having seen it in the morning. The incident reminded me of Grainger’s movements in the case of the other obstruction to his plans,—the theatre. The proprietors parted with it to Grainger, in exchange for a new one and 500l. Somebody, however, was dissatisfied, and was about to apply for an injunction to stop proceedings; but, within three hours from the signing of the contract, the chimneys were down; and before a letter could get to London no trace of the building remained.
This was Grainger’s way, as a crowd of people found who came into Grey Street one morning to see how he was getting on about a house which projected so as to spoil his scheme, and which the owners stood out about, as is natural in such cases. The house was gone! The purchase had been effected the evening before; the tenants were instantly removed to a dwelling where they found good fires, and everything comfortable; and the fires they left behind were still burning when the chimneys came down.
Grainger now found that he had to deal with anxieties and troubles of a kind which he had not anticipated. His excavations kept him awake at night, and filled him with anxiety all day,—the ups and downs of the land being so various and often so perverse. Over and above the levelling and embanking, for the mere digging and removing of surplus soil, he paid 21,500l. Yet he had made his mortar wherever he came upon sand, and bricks when he came to clay. A brick-field in the midst of his works was a common spectacle. In his economy he did not forget his old friends, and many a one of them has seen one of Grainger’s carts stop at the door with a load of firewood, when he was clearing his areas.
In five years he had built nine new streets, of varying lengths from eighty to above five hundred yards; wide and airy, and consisting entirely of houses and public buildings of polished stone in varied designs of most striking beauty. It is an astonishment to foreigners, arriving at Newcastle, to see such an architectural exhibition in a provincial town, formerly heard of only for its coal and glass. We used to be proud of Bath for its streets and crescents; and now Nottingham is putting on a new aspect, through the good offices of the Duke of Newcastle and his agent, with an enlarged area to work upon: but no improvements in our provincial places can ever reduce the marvellousness of Richard Grainger’s transformation of his dingy native town. The so-called “new town” of Newcastle will be his monument while Newcastle has a history. Between the time I have spoken of and his death—twenty years—he has done many great works; but I have not seen them, and cannot tell what they are. It is needless to remark that he must have had the command of much capital besides his own. Both patriotic and speculative citizens were doubtless glad to furnish the means for his enterprises. It was common to hear rumours of coming disaster, on the part of persons who had always prophesied the ultimate ruin of the ambitious charity-boy: but there was a general trust in his prudence and sagacity. His accuracy in accounting for Methodist pence when he was a collector in his boyhood helped him well when scores of thousands were