Crown Court, Cheapside

On the south side of Cheapside, a little way beyond Bow Church, is a narrow opening leading to Crown Court. It is said that the passageway was once the private entrance for the king to Crown Fields where “joustings and other shows” took place.⁽¹⁾ The open field has long since disappeared and became the busy Cheapside area, but Crown Court is still there.

1799 Horwood map

Crown Court was (and still is) situated between numbers 64 and 65. In the Horwood map, the passage does not seem to be covered over, but by 1839, when John Tallis brought out his Street Views, number 64 had been extended over the passageway. Number 64 was occupied by Mary Eddels and number 65, first by Rigge, a perfumer, but by 1847 by John Bennett, the famous clock maker. In 1859, Bennett extended his business to include number 64, so that his business straddled Crown Court. Nowadays, the passage is closed at night by a fence, but in 1870, that was not the case and to allow passers-by to see the stock in the watch and jewellery shop, gratings had been inserted in the shutters. One night, the watchman in the shop heard a noise, but thought it was a drunk who had fallen against the shutter and he went to sleep again – some watchman! The thieves bent two of the bars and cut a hole in the glass of the shop window through which they reached in and pulled out some gold chains that were hanging nearby. One of the chains caught on something and fell between the glass and the shutter. That noise woke the watchman again and he rushed out to catch the thieves, but he was too late and they had disappeared. The newspaper report suggested that there were three of them; one to keep an eye out for the police, one to watch the sleeping guard and one to do the actual theft.⁽²⁾ As far as I know, they were never caught.

Ordnance Survey map 1893 with Crown Court and its covered passageway

Entrance to Kennan’s Hotel (Source: Collage, ©City of London)

In Crown Court itself, the Golden Fleece Hotel could be found, which later became Kennan’s Hotel (sometimes spelled Keenan’s). It was completely rebuilt in 1885 and all the furniture, beds, carpets, chimney pieces, washstands, and pianos were sold by auction on the premises on 5 March 1885.⁽³⁾ In an advertisement for the Limited Company that was formed to run the hotel after the rebuilding, it was stated that the hotel “had been established for upwards of half a century”.⁽⁴⁾ The advertisement – meant to generate interest in the new company’s shares – also said that the hotel had outgrown its original building and guests had to be turned away, especially since the closure of the Queen’s Hotel at St. Martin-le-Grand which had been bought by the government to house the Post Office. How much of that is true and how much bluff to lure the shareholders is hard to say, but Kennan’s seems to have been a popular hotel.

Part of the advertisement in The Morning Post of 11 November 1886

The Philatelic Record, 1896

Many functions organised at the hotel made it into the papers and journals, such as meetings of The City of London Philatelic Club and a luncheon provided for the Annual sales of the Middle Park Yearlings by Messrs. Tattersall. In 1872, Mr. Townend, the proprietor of the hotel “who had been so long and favourably known for his excellent catering”, had “a trying time” providing the food for the yearling salesmen “owing to the intense heat of the weather”, “but he fully maintained his well-earned reputation”.⁽⁵⁾

The Sunday Times, 7 October 1917

In 1917, Kennan’s Hotel reached the end of its life and the freehold, along with the leasehold of the extension, was sold by Toplis and Harding. The Sketch: A Journal of Art and Actuality said that there “must be very few City men, or friends of City men, who have not lunched at Kennan’s Hotel, in Crown Court, Cheapside, and wide interest will be taken in the announcement that this historic freehold is to be offered under the hammer”. A few weeks before the advertisement of the sale was published, The Sunday Times had written about the hotel’s demise and in that article they noted the “calm, monastic seclusion” once you entered the Court and that is still a valid observation today. Turn from busy Cheapside into Crown Court and you could be in another place altogether; shady and still. You will no longer find a hotel at the end of the passageway, but a multi-business office building. However, with a bit of imagination, you can see the 19th-century guests arrive with their trunks, being greeted by a liveried porter. The paper reported that, although the hotel had “temporarily closed, the licence is being maintained” and they thought that it was likely that a new proprietor could easily make it into a profitable business again, although they conceded that it could also “be put to more profitable use as offices, for which purpose it is admirably adapted without any considerable alteration”.⁽⁶⁾

And offices it became. Nothing now reminds one of the hotel, but the passageway is still there. According to the National Recording Project, the metalwork grill above the Court’s entrance and the fencework in the passageway, were designed by the architects M.E. & O.H. Collins and added in 1992.⁽⁷⁾ The photo I took of the grill on the outside of the building did not turn out very well, so I have borrowed one from Datwyler, but the other photos are mine.

Source: Datwyler

(1) David Long, Hidden City: The Secret Alleys, Courts and Yards of London’s Square Mile (2011), pp. 56-57.
(2) The Sheffield & Rotherham Independent, 1 July 1870.
(3) The Standard, 21 February 1885.
(4) The Morning Post, 11 November 1886.
(5) The Oriental Sporting Magazine, ns.v.5 (1872). Richard Hamilton Townend had been the proprietor since at least 1861 when the census found him there, along with his wife, daughter, 14 servants and 12 guests. Townend died in 1888.
(6) The Sunday Times, 16 September 1917.
(7) http://www.pmsa.org.uk/pmsa-database/347/

Honey Lane

Tags

market

Walking along Cheapside and having to divert slightly because of building work going on, I noticed an interesting keystone above a little alleyway. As the builders’ hoarding was blocking the entrance, I could not go through to see what lay behind, but the name of the alley and the design of the stone said it all. This was Honey Lane, once leading to Honey Lane Market – or so I thought.

But when I did some research on the old market, I noticed that the Ordnance Survey map of 1893 had the alley further to the west. The blue arrow is roughly where I saw the alley, the red arrow is where the OS-map situates Honey Lane. Although there appears to be a walkway, possible covered, on the OS-map marked by the blue arrow, it would be unlikely that both lanes were called Honey Lane. More research was obviously necessary. Let’s first look at the old market. The OS-map mentions Honey Lane Market, but just as part of a street. If you compare it with Horwood’s 1799 map, you will see that the market used to cover a far larger area. What the OS-map calls Honey Lane Market is just the southern side of the market in Horwood’s map and the whole area between Russia Row and Honey Lane Market appears to have been built upon sometime in the century that lies between the two maps, obliterating the original market.

Ordnance Survey map 1893-1895

Horwood’s 1799 map

And that is exactly what happened. Honey Lane Market had been established after the 1666 Fire on the site of some private houses and the churches of All Hallows Honey Lane and the adjoining St. Mary Magdalen Milk Street. Although the name suggests that the market was primarily for selling honey, much in demand as sugar was still an expensive commodity and also used in large quantities by the apothecaries, it had a far more varied range of produce on offer. There was a market house in the centre with warehouse space in the cellar and on the first floor, and there were over a hundred butchers’ stalls in the square, besides those for the sale of fruit, vegetables and herbs. The area would also accommodate sellers who brought their wares in baskets.⁽¹⁾

In 1834, an Act of Parliament established the City of London School which set its sights on the Honey Lane Market area. The neo-Gothic building was designed by the City architect James Bunstone Bunning (1802-1863). The first stone for the school was laid on 21 October 1835 by Henry Lord Brougham and Vaux and it opened its doors in 1837. The grand doorway and porch were on the western side of the building in Milk Street.

Engraving by J. Woods of the City of London School. Original steel engraving drawn by Hablot Browne after a sketch by Robert Garland, published in The History of London Illustrated by Views in London and Westminster (1838) (Source: Wikipedia Commons)

According to the British Almanac for the Diffusion of Knowledge of 1836, the school was to be “divided into seven or eight classes, and there [would] be a spacious lecture room, twenty-seven feet high, capable of containing from 400 to 500 pupils”. There would also be “a large writing room, a library, &c.” Hmmm, wonder what the &c. was. Spacious as this may all sound, the number of students soon outgrew the space available and a further Act of Parliament in 1879 allowed the school to seek larger premises which they found on the Victoria Embankment. The school moved hence in 1883.⁽²⁾.

The Honey Lane site was redeveloped after the Second World War and nothing now remains of the market or the school building. A birds-eye view of the area will show one large building reaching from Cheapside to Russia Row. According to Keene and Harding, Honey Lane was moved during the reconstruction and “now lies some 140 ft. (42.67 m.) to the E. of the original lane”.³ Alright, that explains the discrepancy between my observation and the Ordnance Survey map. Mystery solved. In the Google Earth View below, Honey Lane lies between the large building fronting Cheapside and the construction site (red arrow).

(1) Susan R. Henderson, The Public Markets of London before and after the Great Fire of 1666 (1977), p. 74-75.
(2) More on the history of the school can be found here.
(3) D.J. Keene and V. Harding, Historical Gazetteer of London before the Great Fire: Cheapside; parishes of All Hallows Honey Lane, St Martin Pomary, St Mary le Bow, St Mary Colechurch and St Pancras Soper Lane (1987), p. 3.

Heathcock Court

About twelve o’clock at night the public house known by the sign of the Heathcock in the Strand, fell down to the ground in a sliding manner, into an adjoining court, which was thought to be occasioned by some houses rebuilding on the other side. It so fortunately happened that all the company were just gone, though the mistress of the house who was in bed fell from the second floor into the court, but the bed falling under her, and the timber lying hollow, she got little or no hurt.⁽¹⁾

This unfortunate accident took place on 12 January, 1754, which is already earlier than what Bryant Lillywhite claims as the starting date for the Heathcock tavern in his book London signs. He gives the tavern a start in the 1760s, but it must have opened at least ten years earlier. Heathcock Court itself is even older than the tavern. John Stow in his Survey already mentions it and according to him it had “pretty handsome buildings”.⁽²⁾ According to E. Beresford, Heathcock Court takes it name from the Heathcock tavern⁽³⁾, but that seems to be contradicted by what Stow writes.

The entrance to the Court can be found on the left of the 415 Strand Nationwide building. It is sometimes closed by a fence, but is normally open during the daytime. As you can see in the Google View picture, the entrance is slightly set back into the building (it is that dark hole behind the man walking away towards the left) and as such does not stand out, but you can walk right through the court, turn left at the end, then right to find yourself in Maiden Lane. The Nationwide building dates from 1912, but has been redeveloped in more recent times by Brimelow McSweeney Architects (see here). If truth be told, Heathcock Court can hardly be called a court; it is more a narrow alley with a roof. The Strand entrance used to be graced by a heathcock in a shell canopy, and was, according to one Mr. Leland Weever, “the last existing sign in London giving its name to a court”.⁽⁴⁾ The heathcock sign was removed not long after Weever’s remark in 1844 and the modern replacement – nice as it is – unfortunately has no link at all to the origin of the name.

Source: Google Street View

Ordnance Survey map 1893-1895

Heathcock and hen by Edward Lear

Heathcock is just another name for black grouse (Tetrao tetrix in Latin), sometimes also called a blackcock. According to the RSPB “habitat loss and overgrazing have resulted in severe population declines which make this a Red List species”. And Wikipedia says that since late Victorian times, the tail feathers have been used to adorn the hats worn with Highland Dress in some areas and are worn since 1904 on the uniform of the Royal Regiment of Scotland. Hmmmm, I hope they just use the ones lost naturally by the bird, or even artificial ones, and that no bird is shot for their feathers!

Many businesses have been run from Heathcock Court itself, but for this post I will concentrate on the Heathcock Tavern. As can be expected, the tavern saw a number of proprietors during the course of the centuries and we know a few of their names from various sources. From an Old Bailey trial, for instance, we know that James Sedway was the publican in September 1763. It cannot have been Mrs Sedway, by the way, who tumbled down with her bed, as James Sedway said at the trial that he kept “the Heathcock in the Strand; this day 7 weeks”. From the Sun Fire Office insurance records we can list the following:

December 1792: Sorman
August 1794: Richard Kerrey
September 1809: Joseph Belshaw
August 1824: John Stonnell
June 1833: James Charles Chapman
June 1837: Harriet Hyatt

And from yet other sources, we have:
before 1816-1817: John Honner, father of Robert William Honner, the actor and theatre manager, who gave up his solicitor job to take over the Heathcock. Although the Wikipedia article on his son does not give a date for the take over, the land Tax records for Westminster list him there in 1816. Honner senior died in April 1817; the Heathcock is called a ‘chophouse’ in his will, so I assume one could eat as well as drink there.
Before 1840: Thomas Calvert, late Superintendent of the Heathcock Tavern … in the Fleet Prison. (London Gazette, Feb. 1840)

Yes, I know, the list of publicans is far from complete, but if I come across some more names, I’ll add them over time. Suggestions welcome.

(1) The Chronological Historian, or, a record of Public Events, volume 2, 1835.
(2) John Stow, A survey of the cities of London and Westminster, borough of Southwark, and parts adjacent (1598), volume 2 (ed. by R. Seymour = J. Mottley, 1735), p. 653.
(3) E. Beresford, The annals of the Strand, (c. 1912), p. 54.
(4) Fraser’s Magazine, vol. 29 (1844), p. 385.

You may also like to read the post in my London Street Views blog on Thomas Warne who ran his business from Heathcock Court.

Waithman Street

On the east side and parallel to New Bridge Street lies Waithman Street. Not a busy thoroughfare, just a bit of pavement leading from the top of Pilgrim Street to Black Friars Lane. You can get to it from New Bridge Street, but that means climbing the stairs; it is easier to turn into Pageantmaster Court from Ludgate Hill, then right into Pilgrim Street and then left as you hit the bollards at the top. Google Street View is no help as the camera car apparently did not like to attempt the narrow street sections in the block, but here is the map to help you. Waithman Street is situated between the two blue markers.

And this is what you’ll see if you have managed to get to the end of Pilgrim Street.

The back of 100 New Bridge Street shows large tiled panels, designed and hand-made in 1992 by the artist Rupert Spira (1960-), the only tile commission of his in England; he did another one in a garden in Paris (in 1991), but went back after this short tile experiment to designing and making ceramics.⁽¹⁾ See for more information on his work his website here. The designs of the wall tiles remind me of the work by the Dutch artist M.C. Escher (official website here).

Waithman Street was named after Robert Waithman (1764-1833), linen-draper and councilman for the Farringdon Without Ward. I have not found out who proposed the naming of the street, but it was motioned in a Building Act Committee Report of a meeting on 30 July 1891 as item 66 “that the thoroughfare at the back of Ludgate-hill station between Pilgrim-street and Union-street be named Waithman-street”. It would seem from the wording that this stretch of road had no previous name. London County Council approved the motion on 29 September 1891⁽²⁾ and the approval was subsequently registered for 1891 in the List of Streets and Places within the administrative County of London [1901].

(1) Information from https://tilesoc.org.uk/tile-gazetteer/city-of-london.html
(2) London County Council, Minutes of Proceedings, p. 917 (Guildhall Library)

You may also like to read the two other posts on Waithman:
– Waithman’s obelisk
– Waithman & Co., linen drapers

Clare Market: from flesh and fish to art

Tags

art, market

According to Peter Cunningham in his Hand-Book of London (1850, p. 122), it was William Holles, created baron Houghton of Houghton, Nottingham, in 1616 and Earl of Clare in 1624, who had lived in the St. Clement’s Danes parish since 1617 and who created Clare Market on his London estate. Cunningham was, however, mistaken as the first Earl of Clare was called John Holles (1564-1637). Sir William Holles (1471?–1542) was his grandfather and long dead by the time the market came into existence. Strype in his Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster of 1720 says that Clare Market is “very considerable and well served with provisions, both flesh and fish; for besides the butchers in the Shambles, it is much resorted unto by the country butchers and higglers, the market days, are Wednesdays and Saturdays.”⁽¹⁾

Clare Market by T.H. Shepherd (1815)

Illustrated London News, September 1891. Source: View from the Mirror

By the nineteenth century, the reputation of the market had gone down considerably.

It is a market without a market-house; a collection of lanes, where every shop is tenanted by a butcher or greengrocer, and where the roadways are choked with costermongers’ carts. To see Clare Market at its best, it is needful to go there on Saturday evening: then the narrow lanes are crowded, then the butchers’ shops are ablaze with gas-lights flaring in the air, and the shouting of the salesman and costermonger is at its loudest. Nowhere in London is a poorer population to be found than that which is contained in the quadrangle formed by the Strand, Catherine-street, Long-acre, and Lincoln’s-inn and the new law courts. The greater portion of those who are pushing through the crowd to make their purchases for to-morrow’s dinner are women, and of them many have children in their arm. Ill-dressed, worn, untidy, and wretched, many of them look, but they joke with their acquaintances, and are keen hands at bargaining. Follow one, and look at the meat stall before which she steps. The shop is filled with strange pieces of coarse, dark-coloured, and unwholesome-looking meat. There is scarce a piece there whose form you recognise as familiar; no legs of mutton, no sirloins of beef, no chops or steaks, or ribs or shoulders. It is meat, and you take it on faith that it is meat of the ox or sheep; but beyond that you can say nothing. The slice of bacon on the next stall is more tempting, and many prefer a rasher of this for their Sunday’s dinner to the coarse meat which neither their skill in cooking nor their appliances enable them to render tender and eatable, or satisfactory to the good man who is at present drinking himself to a point of stupidity at the public-house at the corner, and spending an amount which would make all the difference in cost between the odds and ends of coarse meat and a wholesome joint. It is a relief to turn from the butchers’ shops to the costermongers’ barrows. Here herrings or mackerel, as the season may be— bought, perhaps, -a few hours before at Billingsgate —are selling at marvellously low prices, while the vegetables, equally cheap, look fresh and excellent in quality.⁽²⁾

Last of the bulk shops by H. Barton Baker from his The Stories of the Streets of London (1899)

The area with its narrow Elizabethan streets and toppling houses, overflowing with produce and people, declined gradually into what was called, the Clare Market Slum. Barton Baker called it “a murky district”, “that once notorious haunt of vice and misery”.⁽³⁾ But not long after he wrote his book, a lot of the streets were razed away in one sweeping development scheme when Aldwych and Kingsway were created. For excellent posts on the reconstruction of 1901-1905, see Peter Berthoud’s blog with lots of old photos and a map of the development, here and here.

The street name Clare Market still exists, although no longer a market, but a thoroughfare through the London School of Economics buildings. The school, although basically teaching politics and economics, is known for its promotion of the arts. If you walk through the area, do not forget to look up and around you to enjoy the various artworks on display. I will show you two, but there are more!

Baby Tembo

The small elephant, baby Tembo, on the steps of the Student Service Centre is a bronze sculpture by Derrick Stephan Hudson, and one of the more than ten statues donated by the Canadian businessman Louis Odette, who studied at LSE in 1944.⁽⁴⁾ Tembo’s mother and siblings can be found in Windsor, Ontario. If you run the sculpture slide show on the Windsor site, you may also recognise Yolanda Vandergaast’s Penguin that in London can be found across from Tembo at the entrance of Waterstone’s – where else? But there is more art than these two animals to be found around LSE.

On the corner of Clare Market and Portugal Street, above the big W logo of Waterstone’s bookshop is a mural by Harry Warren Wilson. According to the information panel “the motif represents ‘London’s river’ and illustrates subjects taught at the School”. Wilson exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1924 to 1952 and, besides making murals, also painted and worked with glass.

All in all, Clare Market is perhaps a little bit off the regular trail, but certainly worth a visit. 
 
 
 

(1) Book 4, chapter 7, p. 119. Higglers were apparently middlemen who traded in poultry and dairy products. They bought the produce from farmers by barter, hence haggle/higgle. See here.
(2) Charles Dickens (Jr.), Dictionary of London, 1879. Online here.
(3) H. Barton Baker, The Stories of the Streets of London (1899), pp. 154-155.
(4) For an overview see here.

Magpie Alley

Tags

book trade, Fleet Street, newspapers

Fleet Street is named after the river Fleet that flows from Hampstead Heath down towards the Thames, although for most of its way it is hidden underground as it became so polluted and clogged up over the years that it was no longer navigable. In the eighteenth century it was covered over in sections, except for the first part on Hampstead Heath, so that no water can now be seen for most of its course. Fleet Street and the area around it has been associated with publishing since Wynkyn de Worde, William Caxton’s apprentice, set up business near Shoe Lane at the sign of the Sun in the year 1500 or 1501.

Wynkyn de Worde’s device
Source: www.martinfrost.ws

More printers and booksellers followed and from 1702 so did the newspapers, starting with the Daily Courant, followed by, among others, the Morning Advertiser, the Daily Telegraph, and the Daily Express. Bouverie Street, leading from Fleet Street to the Thames, was the home of the News of the World for a while. The newspapers have all moved out of the City to larger premises on the Isle of Dogs or in Wapping, but a memorial to the hustle and bustle of the publishing days can be seen in Magpie Alley.

You need to go slightly off the beaten track, but it is well worth having a look. From Fleet Street, turn into Bouverie Street (opposite number 160, Bouverie House) and walk down towards the river. Please note the great view of the OXO building across the river you have from here. Keep an eye out for Magpie Alley on your left.

Magpie Alley entrance (from Google Maps)

The alley leads to Whitefriars crypt (see here), but now I just want to draw your attention to the tiled wall of the alley which tells the story of the association of Fleet Street with publishing and printing through the ages.

Alan Brooke has written a booklet: Fleet Street. The Story of a Street (2010) with a wealth of information if you want to know more about the street.

You may also like to read the post on the Daily Express building or the one on Ashentree Court and Northcliffe House.