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In this age of Improvement and increasing population, a situation which, notwithstanding
the advantages above spoken of, possesses the advantage of vicinity to the River as well as to the seat
of Government, could not escape the observation of that Class of Builders to whom every uncovered
spot presents itself as a field for Speculation. __
The fate of the few Buildings that were got up, out of a considerable number that had
been intended to be erected, in the form of a Square encompassing Deans-Yard (a situation possessed)
of one of the above advantages, viz: vicinity to the River in an equal degree, and of the other in a
much superior degree) has been registered for these forty Years in the ruins that have been the melancholy
result of it. The ill success of this great project (of which more will come to be said a little farther on)
did not quench the busy spirit of the Adams's who in 1760 or within a year or two afterwards, while
the new built Houses were seeking in vain for Tenants, came forward with a much greater project, according
to which the whole of Tothill Fields (excepting a small area reserved for the recreation of the Westminster
Scholars) was to have been divided into Streets lined with Capital Houses. This plan, pregnant with
magnificent Ideas, and emblazoned in brilliant colours, so far engaged the attention of the Dean and
Chapter of that Day, that in the Year 1764, an advertisement appeared in several of the Public Papers,
inviting Builders and others to take the Ground in Tothill Fields upon Building Leases. The
advertisement had not long been in print, before it gave birth to a counter advertisement from the
Vestries of the United Parishes, warning the Persons invited against listening to the invitation. In the
case of an ordinary proprietor, the natural result of so adverse a proceeding would have been an application
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