ed new methods in the treatment of prisoners, gained a contract
from the Government for the erection and management of the new prison.
He, however, greatly exceeded the terms of his contract, and finally
withdrew, and supervisors were appointed. The prison was a six-rayed
building with a chapel in the centre. Each ray was pentagonal in shape,
and had three towers on its exterior angles. The whole was surrounded by
an octagonal wall overlooking a moat. At the closing of the prison in
Tothill Fields it became the sole Metropolitan prison for females, "just
as," says Major Griffiths, "it was the sole reformatory for promising
criminals, the first receptacle for military prisoners, the great depot
for convicts _en route_ for the antipodes."

In 1843 it was called a penitentiary instead of a prison. Gradually, as
new methods of prison architecture were evolved, Millbank was recognised
as cumbersome and inadequate. It was doomed for many years before its
demolition, and now, like the prison of Tothill Fields, has vanished.
Even the convicts' burial-ground at the back of the Tate Gallery is
nearly covered with County Council industrial dwellings.

Further northward in the Grosvenor Road, Peterborough House once stood,
facing the river, and this was at one time called "the last house in
Westminster." It was built by the first Earl of Peterborough, and
retained his name until 1735, when it passed to Alexander Davis of
Ebury, whose only daughter and heiress had married Sir Thomas Grosvenor.
It was by this marriage that the great London property came into the
possession of the Grosvenor (Westminster) family. The house was rebuilt,
and renamed Grosvenor House. Strype says: "The Earl of Peterborough's
house with a large courtyard before it, and a fine garden behind, but
its situation is but bleak in winter and not over healthful, as being
too near the low meadows on the south and west parts." The house was
finally demolished in 1809.

Beyond, in the direction of the Houses of Parliament, there are several
interesting old houses, of which the best specimens are Nos. 8 and 9,
offices of the London Road Car Company, and No. 10. In the first a
well-furnished ceiling proclaims an ancient drawing-room; in the second
panelled walls and a spiral staircase set off a fine hall. This house
has a beautiful doorway of the old scallop-shell pattern, with cherubs'
heads and ornamental brackets decorating it. In the third house a
ceiling is hands