Old and New London, A Narrative of its History, its People and its Places. Illustrated with Numerous Engravings from the Most Authentic Sources. vol 3
Thornbury, Walter
1872-78
Chapter VI: The Strand (Northern Tributaries).-Drury Lane and Clare Markets.Ancient Houses--Drury Court
Chapter VI: The Strand (Northern Tributaries).-Drury Lane and Clare Markets.Ancient Houses--Drury Court
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says the , The character of this region may be inferred from the words which follow:
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Pennant remarks it as a singular occurrence that this lane should receive its name from a word which, in the language of Chaucer, had an amorous signification:
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Drury House, from which the lane originally took its name, stood at the west end of . It was built by Sir William Drury, who is reported to have been not only the head of a great family, but Knight of the Garter. He held a command in the Irish wars in the reign of Elizabeth, and showed great ability as an officer. He unfortunately fell in a duel with a Sir John Burroughes, about a foolish quarrel for precedency. The house deserves to be remembered as the place where the rash friends of the Queen's favourite, the Earl of Essex, | |
p.37 | devised those wild schemes which led to the ruin of himself and his adherents. The to which we have so often referred, speaks of it as adds the writer, At the back of the house was a handsome garden. says Allen, in his
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The services rendered by Lord Craven to London, his native city, are worthy of being recorded here. He was so indefatigable in preventing the ravages of fire, that it is said He and Monk, Duke of Albemarle, stayed in London throughout the visitation of the Great Plague in , and at the hazard of their own lives preserved order in the midst of the horrors of the | |
p.38 | time. Allen adds that there used to be in Craven Buildings a very good fresco portrait of this hero in armour, mounted on a white horse, and with his truncheon in hand, and on each side an earl's and a baron's coronet, with the letters (William Craven). This painting, though several times recoloured in oils, has long since perished; but an engraving of it is preserved in Smith's
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It deserves to be recorded of Sir Robert Drury that he for some time entertained, as a welcome and honoured guest at his mansion in , the amiable and learned Dr. John Donne, afterwards Dean of , when he was young and poor, having contracted marriage with a young lady of high connections, against the will, or at all events without the consent, of her relatives. It is added that he not only gave him and his wife the free use of apartments, but also was Such friends, no doubt, were rare then; as rare, perhaps, as now-a-days; but it is a pleasure to record such an act of genuine friendship. | |
The exact date of the removal of Lord Craven's family from to their real town residence at Bayswater, where now is , is not known; but it must have been just before the close of the century. Craven House itself was taken down early in the present century, and the site is now occupied by the Olympic Theatre, as stated in the last chapter. | |
was once the a name still preserved in , as already mentioned. Then the great family of the Druries built in it a country house, and the Earls of Craven and Clare followed. It became a Belgravia. Here lived Archibald, the famous and ill-fated Marquis of Argyle. Here, too, close to Cradle Alley, Arthur Annesley, Earl of Anglesey, and Lord Privy Seal under Charles II., had his town house. Here, too, in the heyday of her glory, lived Nell Gwynne, the whom Pepys saw Here also resided John Lacy, the comedian, and Sir William Alexander, the poet, afterwards Earl of Stirling. | |
At the same period was residing here a relative of the staid Mr. Evelyn, who, after recording in his that he attended the marriage of his niece to the eldest son of Mr. Attorney Montagu, at Southampton Chapel, and eulogising the magnificence of the entertainment, adds,
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It was in , not very far from the steps of the Olympic Theatre, that Lord Mohun made his unsuccessful attempt to carry off the beautiful and much-wooed actress, Mrs. Bracegirdle, as we shall presently show. | |
By the time of Steele, had changed its character, and its narrow, close, and filthy courts were rising into existence. | |
All that is now left of is its memory of past glories. The shades of the persons above mentioned, as well as those of the pretty Mrs. Bracegirdle, the fiery Lord Mohun, and of the quarrelsome Carlo Fantom, the Croatian, who challenged his man and killed him, haunt it still. On the west side is a small burial-ground, unknown to Stow or Strype, to most of the map-makers, and to Peter Cunningham. It lies between and . For many years it had exhibited a most desolate and miserable aspect; indeed, it had become a sort of During the year , however, the authorities of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, to whom the ground. belongs, at some considerable expense had the graveyard levelled and converted into a garden with walks and shrubberies. A neat brick wall separates the grounds from the public street, and on side a brick building has been erected, to be used as a mortuary. | |
Towards the lower end of , nearly opposite to Drury or Craven House, is a quaint old gabled house, with its pents still remaining. A quarter of a century ago it was known as the but more recently as It is said that the region to the north, leading up towards , was once known as but antiquaries are divided on the question as to whether they were so called from the house, or the house from them. Whichever may be the case, it is certain that the as a sign, is but a travesty of a chivalric legend, which Douce thus explains:-- From to the transition was easy and obvious. | |
Opposite to the above is the Tavern, which, from to , was kept by Mr. Robert Hales, the He was born in , near Yarmouth, where his father was a small farmer, and was of children, all far above the ordinary stature. He was exhibited by Barnum, in America, in , and was of the curiosities of London in the year of the Great Exhibition. In the April of that year he was presented to the Queen, who gave him a watch and chain; and also to other crowned heads. He stood upwards of feet in height. His death occurred in , at the age of . | |
Little is a narrow street, leading down from to in the Strand. Its eastern side is composed of a range of houses which have stood apparently more than centuries and a half. | |
It will be remembered that in the (No. ) Steele gives a picture of the morality of , describing it as a district divided into particular analogous to in other parts, Its character, too, as well in the present as in the past century, is delicately hinted at by Gay, in the lines quoted from at the head of this chapter. The a low public-house in this street, was known as the robbers' den; and nothing can confirm more clearly the character of the immediate neighbourhood, to which we have referred, than the fact that was the scene of the by Hogarth. | |
In was of the several or places reserved for cock-fighting, which a century ago or earlier were to be found scattered about London. Mr. John Timbs tells us that of our oldest theatres was called the namely, the in , and that the site of it is still to be traced in the name of Pit or Pitt Place, an abridgment of Place. Samuel Pepys thus describes in his a visit to of these places, not far from :--
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From Stubs's published in , it is evident that in the good old Tudor times Sunday was the day of all the week especially set apart for this amusement. As early as the reign of Henry II., according to Fitzstephen, cockfighting was the sport of school-boys in and around London on Shrove Tuesday; and from that time, though occasionally forbidden by some of our sovereigns, it has continued to exist among us, as we shall see hereafter. | |
At the beginning of the eighteenth century it would seem that had succeeded to a part at least of the reputation of Grub Street, as the residence of poor poets and hack rhymsters, as witness the words of Pope, in his -- And in like spirit wrote Oliver Goldsmith-
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as might have been expected, fared but ill during the austere tyranny of the Puritan faction. At the Restoration the survivors of the old actors naturally formed themselves into a company, and Downes tells us that they acted at the Tennis-court, in , , till a new theatre was built; and Guest is of opinion that both before and after that event they performed at the Cockpit in . The theatre in was opened , by Killigrew and Davenant, under a patent which allowed women to act the female parts, a practice till then unknown in England. | |
It was at this theatre that an unknown young lady was performing the character of Roxana, in the , who fell a victim to Aubrey de Vere, the last (and most unworthy) Earl of Oxford of the ancient line. This scion of a noble house, finding that he could secure his prey in no other way, brought to her lodging a sham clergyman and a sham marriage certificate; and she learnt to her cost, when it was too late, that she had no pretension whatever to style herself Countess of Oxford. | |
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It is clear that although the Puritans disapproved of plays , they tolerated mixed entertainments of a musical kind. Such an entertainment, we know from Evelyn, was given after the death of Oliver Cromwell, for he writes, in :-- That this entertainment was something different from a tragedy or comedy is clear from another entry by Evelyn in his in :--
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Mr. Peter Cunningham tells us that Laguerre, whose are immortalised by Pope, was a member of a club of who used to meet at a house in , and that he painted on its walls a Bacchanalian procession, which he presented to its members. But apparently the of this club was unknown to him. | |
It was in a low lodging-house in Lincoln Court, of the gloomiest purlieus on the eastern side of the upper part of , that in was discovered the infant son of a Mr. and Mrs. Hillrelatives of the Burdett family--which had been from its mother's charge at Rugby by its father. The story is thus told by a writer in of :-- | |
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The following brief extract from a daily paper in the present year of grace () tells its own sad story :--
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was inhabited, in the early part of the present century, by a still lower and rougher lot than now, if it be true, as stated on apparently good authority, that had seldom less than or fights going on upon a Sunday morning at the same time. | |
It should be added here that this street-or, at all events, a part of it-at time was called ; says Mr. Peter Cunningham,
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The thoroughfare known as , leading eastwards into , was so called in honour of the Earl of Clare, who lived adjacent. His name is inscribed as a parishioner of St. Clement Danes in the ratebooks of . In Howell's of we read :-- It is thus mentioned by Strype:--
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says Nightingale, in the volume of the
Charles I. issued another license in , permitting Gervase Holles, Esq., to erect houses, a chapel, and to make several streets of the width of , , and feet. These streets still retain the names and titles of their founders, in , Denzil Street, , &c. was, probably, what is now called Bear Yard, and Gibbon's Bowling Alley was covered by the theatre erected by Sir William Davenant, whence he afterwards removed to . Here, during the administration of Sir Robert Walpole, in the reign of George II., John Henley, a disappointed demagogue, stood on a tub and vented his factious ebullitions, which he distinguished by the name of oratory. He is alluded to by Pope, in his but not in very quotable terms. Possessing some abilities, he was also obnoxious to Government by the publication of the and other papers on the politics of the times. A contemporary writer speaks of him as-
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On Henley's death in , his demise was thus announced in the ;--
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We learn from the that the City had a long lawsuit with Lord Clare for this property, but that at last the City yielded. It appears, also, from the same source, that the success of his lordship in obtaining a charter for his market led to important result, namely, the establishment of other markets round about the metropolis, some of which are now things of the past, such as Hungerford, Brooke, and Bloomsbury Markets, and that at , in , and St. James's and Newport Markets, which are still in existence. | |
Of the house of Holles, Lord Clare, whose family names are so perpetuated in this vicinity, no remains are left, nor is the precise site of it known. It was a large and stately mansion, shut in with a high wall, and its grounds joined on to the eastern side of those of Craven House. is mentioned in Strype's edition of Stow as while bears the reputation of being No engraving of old Clare House is known to exist, nor is any detailed description of the house to be found. All that we know is that the Earl of Clare, as we are told by Howell, lived in his here in a to which, we fear, the present aspect of the place presents a very marked contrast. | |
With the Earl of Clare, and other aristocratic denizens of St. Clement Danes, have passed away who used to supply these wealthy households. The merchandise at present exposed for sale in consists principally of dried fish, inferior vegetables, and such humble viands, suited to the pockets of the poor inhabitants of the narrow courts and alleys around. | |
The celebrated actress, Mrs. Bracegirdle, we are told, was in the habit of going often into , and of giving money to such poor basketwomen as were out of employ, thereby calling down many blessings on her head. | |
As lay between great theatres, its butchers and hucksters, as remarked by Mr. Timbs, were the arbiters of the galleries, and the leaders of theatrical rows, as well as the musicians at the marriages of actresses, and the chief mourners at players' funerals. In of the many publichouses which, as was natural, abounded here, Hogarth, in the days of his apprenticeship, was a frequent boon-companion of Joe Miller. | |
In Gibbon's Court, , was a small theatre, in which Killigrew's company performed for a short time. Pepys speaks of it as a handsome building, This, however, must have been an exaggeration. It soon passed away, and its remains were long used as slaughter-houses and carpenters' shops. The butchers of are now nearly extinct; but Mr. P. Cunningham tells us that so lately as from to sheep, and from to oxen, were slaughtered there. He adds,
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When Cromwell revived the prohibition of his predecessor against the erection of new buildings in and near London, imposing even a fine on its violation, an exception, we are told, was made in favour of the new buildings then scarcely finished, in . In consequence of this exemption, unfortunately for the healthiness of the locality, they were not made or
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The of which Hogarth was a | |
p.42 | member, used to meet at the Tavern in this market. Here also was the Inn, named after James Spiller, a well-known actor, where was held a club principally consisting of artists, authors, and actors connected with the Theatre. It was founded about the year , under the auspices of Colley Gibber, Tom D'Urfey, and many noted characters. Of Spiller, Mr. Diprose tells us, The success or failure both of actors and pieces appears in those days to have greatly depended on the verdict of the butchers of , whose approval was sometimes recorded by managers in their advertisements! |
To the pen of of these low patrons of the drama is assigned the following graceful elegy upon the death of James Spiller in :--
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In there appeared at a place of entertainment in , called afterwards known as
says a contemporary writer,
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has of late years been much improved by the establishment of a mission chapel and schools in its centre, around which other benevolent and charitable institutions have gradually been grouped, such as a soup-kitchen, a home for needlewomen, and a working men's club. | |
Adjoining are Holles and Denzil Streets, the latter as we are told by a mural tablet on of its houses, This Lord Holles, it will be remembered, was of the members of the whose person Charles I. made an ineffectual effort to seize. | |
, which runs into , was built in , and was called, like its neighbour Denzil Street, after Holles, Earl of Clare. | |
Of , which runs northwards parallel to , we know little except what Mr. Peter Cunningham has told us, namely, that in it numbered among its inhabitants Sir Thomas Lyttelton and also the poet Ogilby, who here disposed of his books by a lottery; and that in it stood Gibbon's Tennis Court, subsequently converted into a theatre by Killigrew. Of , in spite of its grand name, we have no interesting memories to record. | |
Footnotes: [] Malcolm's London, vol. iii., p. 292. |
