L

The site was afterwards occupied by the Eagle Tavern and Grecian Theatre. At the opposite corner is St. Luke's Workhouse, rebuilt on a larger scale in 1871 for the Holborn Union. The fields on either side of the walk (now a broad street) have been built over, and a district church, Holy Trinity, erected in the walk itself. Here are Lumley's Almshouses, erected in 1672 in Pest House Field by the Viscountess Lumley for six poor women of the parishes of Aldgate and Bishopsgate.

Sherborne Lane, CITY- King William Street to Abchurch
Here is the City Carlton Club.

Lane.

Langborne Ward, so called of a long bourne of sweet water, which of old time breaking out into Fenchurch Street, ran down the same street and Lombard Street, to the west end of St. Mary Woolnoth's church, where turning south and breaking into small shares, rills, or streams, it left the name of Share-borne Lane or Southborne Lane (as I have read) because it ran south to the river of Thames.-Stow, P. 75.

Scire-burne (scir, a share; scrir-an, to divide) is the more likely etymology.

All those that will send letters to the most parts of the habitable world, or to any parts of our King of Great Britaine's Dominions, let them repaire to the Generall Post-Master Thomas Withering at his house in Sherburne Lane, neere Abchurch.The Carrier's Cosmographie, by John Taylor, the Water Poet, 4to, 1637.

Sherrard Street, GOLDEN SQUARE. [See Sherwood Street.] Sherwood Street, GOLDEN SQUARE, from Brewer Street to Glasshouse Street. Built circ. 1679,1 and so called after "Esquire Sherwood," who lived in Brewer Street in 1680. In the last century it was commonly called Sherrard Street. Many of Walpole's early letters to George Montagu are addressed to Sherrard Street.

After Mr. Dryden's decease, the Lady Elizabeth, his widow, took a lesser house in Sherrard Street, Golden Square, and had wherewithal to live frugally genteel, and keep two servants to the day of her death.—Mrs. Thomas (Wilson's Memoirs of Congreve, 8vo, 1730, pt. 2, p. 9).

Ship, at CHARING CROSS, a long established tavern and coach office over against Scotland Yard. Part of it, with property in Spring Gardens, 3250 feet, was sold June 1874 for £30,000 to Messrs. Drummond for their new banking premises.

Ship Court, OLD BAILEY, west side, near Ludgate Hill; now absorbed in the Railway Companies' and carriers' yards and stables. Richard Hogarth kept a school in this Court, and here most probably his son William, the celebrated painter, was born.

Ship Yard, in the STRAND, without TEMPLE BAR. It led past the Ship Tavern into Little Shire Lane. It was particularised as "Without Temple Bar," to distinguish it from another tavern of the same sign within the Bar. In the London Gazette of September 8, 1666, the first issued after the Great Fire is the following:

1 Rate-books of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields.

Mr. Thomas Nevil, Comptroller of the Petty Customs in the Port of London, who formerly dwelt at the Crown in St. Paul's Churchyard, is now removed to the Ship, between Temple Bar and Chancery Lane End, over against the hither Temple Gate.

In 1571 an Inn near Temple Bar called the Ship, lands in Yorkshire and Dorsetshire, and the Wardship of a minor, were granted to him [Sir Christopher Hatton].-Life and Times of Sir Christopher Hatton, by Nicolas, p. 7.

Faithorne now set up in a new shop, at the sign of the Ship next to the Drake, opposite to the Palsgrave's Head Tavern, without Temple Bar, where he not only followed his art, but sold Italian, Dutch, and English prints, and worked for booksellers.-Walpole, ed. Dallaway, vol. v. p. 132.

A tavern token exists of "The Ship without Temple Bar," with the date upon it of 1649. In Wilkinson's Londina Illustrata is a "south-west view of an ancient structure in Ship Yard, Temple Bar, supposed to have been the residence of Elias Ashmole, the celebrated antiquary." Ashmole's house was in Shire Lane.

Shipwrights' Company, the fifty-ninth in order of the City guilds, was a fraternity by ancient prescription, and was granted ordinances for its government from the Court of Mayor and Aldermen in 1456, and a Patent of Incorporation from James I. in 1605. The Company has a livery but no hall. The hall it once possessed was at Ratcliff Cross.

4

Shire Lane (vulgarly SHEER LANE), TEMPLE BAR. In James I.'s time, as appears from a list of houses, taverns, etc., in Fleet Street and the Strand, it was known by the name of Shire Lane, alias Rogue Lane. Despite the name it had respectable inhabitants. In it lived Sir John Sedley, and here his son Sir Charles Sedley, the dramatic poet, was born. "Neere the Globe in Sheer Lane "2 lived Elias Ashmole, the antiquary; here Antony à Wood records his having dined with him ;3 and here Seth Ward, Bishop of Salisbury, sought him out in February 1677 to apprise him that Garter King-at-Arms was dead. At the upper end of Shire Lane Steele placed the residence of Isaac Bickerstaff, who dates many of his Tatlers from it. The Tatler Club met at the Trumpet in Shire Lane; and from it he led his company of Twaddlers on their immortal march. In Shire Lane is said to have originated the famous Kit-Cat Club, commemorated on Kneller's most famous canvases. [See Kit-Cat Club.] [See Kit-Cat Club.] But whatever Shire Lane may have been in its prime, in its later days it became utterly abominable. So disreputable a place had it become that at one time a man was employed to stand at the end of it, with a lanthorn lighted in broad day, warning passengers not to enter it. 1845, in the hope that by another name it would lose some of its evil fragrance, the name was changed to LOWER SERLE'S PLACE, as the Tempest for a like reason had altered its sign to the Duke of York. Under the supervision of the New Police there was some improvement, but it remained a disreputable place. Happily the last vestige of it was cleared away for the New Law Courts.

1 Harleian MS., 6850.

3 Lives of Leland, Hearne, and Wood, vol.ii. p. 234.

2 Hamper, p. 393.

In July

4 Tatler, No. 132.

Then hard by the Bar is another lane called Shire Lane, because it divideth the City from the Shire.-Stow, p. 139.

Shear Lane cometh out of Little Lincoln's Inn Fields, and falleth into Fleet Street by Temple Bar: the upper part hath good old buildings, well inhabited; but the lower part is very narrow and more ordinary.-Strype, B. iv. p. 72.

Even then at the same time he sounds another trumpet than that in Sheer Lane, to horse and hem in his auditory.-Andrew Marvell.

In this order we marched down Sheer Lane, at the upper end of which I lodge. When we came to Temple Bar, Sir Harry and Sir Giles got over; but a run of the coaches kept the rest of us on this side the street: However we all at last landed and drew up in very good order before Ben Tooke's shop, who favoured our rallying with great humanity.—Tatler, No. 86, October 25-27, 1709.

And oft repuls'd, as oft attack the great
With painful art, and application warm,
And take at last some little place by storm;
Enough to keep two shoes on Sunday clean,

And starve upon discreetly, in Sheer Lane.—Young, Sat. iii.

In the dwelling and spunging-house of a sheriff's officer of the name of Hemp in this lane, Theodore Hook, while under arrest for a defalcation in his accounts as Treasurer of the Mauritius, made the acquaintance of Dr. William Maginn.1 The time passed "pleasantly," he said, and there was "an agreeable prospect, barring the windows."

Shoe Lane, FLEET STREET, runs due north from Fleet Street into Holborn, by St. Andrew's Church. The earliest mention of Shoe Lane in the City records is in 4 Edward II. (1310), when a writ is sent from the King on the 8th of July commanding that "you cause to come before us, or the person holding our place, at the church of St. Brigit without Ludgate, on the Saturday next after the Feast of the Translation of St. Thomas the Martyr, eighteen good and lawful men of the venue of Scolane in the ward without Ludgate; to make inquisition on oath as to a certain tenement with its appurtenances in Scholane, which the Abbot of Rievaulx is said to have appropriated without leave of our Lord the King," etc.2 This writ was not in accordance with custom and was evaded by the City authorities. similar one was sent on the 10th of October, but the result is not recorded. The next notice is in the 19th of Edward III. (1345), when Thomas de Donyngtone is condemned to be hanged for stealing one furred surcoat and two double hoods, value 4s., and two linen sheets, value 40d., in Sholane near Holbourne. The name again occurs in the 21st of Edward III. (1347), when John Tournour of Sholane is ordered not to make his wine-measures for the future "of any wood but dried," and to stamp his name, or his mark, on the bottom of them. In this Shoe Lane, on the left hand [the east side] is one old house called Oldborne Hall; it is now letten out into tenements.-Stow, p. 145.3

A

1610.-Thomas Penkithman of Warrington, Co. Lancaster, has expended money in building houses in Shoe Lane, on the ground of the Earl of Derby. They have

1 Quarterly Review, No. 143, p. 86.

2 Riley, Memorials, p. 75.

3 See a view of the exterior (circ. 1800) in

VOL. III

same

Wilkinson's Londina Illustrata. The
work contains a chimney-piece and ceiling in
the old hall, the latter with the date 1617.

R

been taken possession of by one Shute under pretence, etc.-Cal. State Pap., 16111618, p. 132.

In the 17th century there was a noted cock-pit in Shoe Lane. It was sometimes visited by persons we should not have expected to meet there. Writing to his nephew from "St. Martin's Lane by the Fields," June 3, 1633, Sir Henry Wotton says: "This other day at the Cock-pit in Shoe Lane (where myself am rara avis) your Nephew, Mr. Robert Bacon came very kindly to me, with whom I was glad to refresh my acquaintance, though I had rather it had been in the theatre of Redgrave.' Thirty years later the company was less refined.

December 21, 1663.-To Shoe Lane to see a cocke-fighting at a new pit there, a spot I was never at in my life: but Lord! to see the strange variety of people, from Parliament man by name Wildes that was Deputy Governor of the tower when Robinson was Lord Mayor, to the poorest 'prentices, bakers, brewers, butchers, draymen, and what not; and all these fellows one with another cursing and betting. I soon had enough of it.-Pepys.2

About this time Shoe Lane appears to have been the centre for the designers of the rude woodcuts which figured at the heads of ballads and broad-sheets.

A ballad-monger is the ignominious nickname of a penurious poet, of whom he partakes in nothing but in poverty. . . For want of truer relations, for a need, he can find you out a Sussex dragon, some sea or inland monster, drawn out by some Shoe Lane man, in a Gorgon-like feature, to enforce more horror in the beholder.— Whimzies: or a New Cast of Characters, 1631.

The sign-painters, a busy race when every shop in London had its painted sign, also congregated here, and Harp Alley, Shoe Lane, was the great mart for ready-made and second-hand signs.3 Thackeray, in his Lecture on Steele, repeats a story "as exceedingly characteristic " of the men and times, narrated by Dr. John Hoadley, of his father, when Bishop of Bangor, being present by invitation "at one of the Whig meetings held at the Trumpet in Shoe Lane, when Sir Richard. [Steele] in his zeal rather exposed himself, having the double duty of the day upon him, as well to celebrate the immortal memory of King William, it being the 4th of November, as to drink his friend Addison. up to conversation pitch." But the meeting, if not fabulous, must be transferred to the Trumpet in Shire Lane, where the Tatler's Club met. [See Shire Lane.] George Colman makes Dr. Pangloss say—

I'm dead to the fascinations of beauty: since that unguarded day of dalliance, when being full of Bacchus,-Bacchi plenus-Horace-Hem! my pocket was picked of a metal watch at the sign of the Sceptre in Shoe Lane.-Heir at Law, Act iv. Sc. 3.

At the back of Walkden's ink manufactory an extensive range of vaulted cellars still remain. They belonged apparently to some large house which stood upon the spot.

Eminent Inhabitants.-John Decreetz (or De Critz), serjeant painter to James I. and Charles I. "Resolute " John Florio, author of the well-known Dictionary which bears his name. His house in Shoe Lane is

1 Reliq. Wottonianæ, p. 463.

2 See also Anecdotes and Traditions, by Thoms, p. 47.

3 Edwards, Anecdotes of Painting, p. 118.

mentioned in his will. In 1676 Praise-God Barebones was paying £25 a year for a house in Shoe Lane. He states himself to be eighty years of age, and to have resided twenty-five years in the parish of St. Dunstan in the West.1 In an obscure lodging, near Shoe Lane, died, in 1749, Samuel Boyce, the poet. When almost perishing with hunger he is said to have been unable to eat some roast beef that was brought for him because there was no ketchup. Oliver Goldsmith mentions Shoe Lane as though he had himself lived in it :-" Nor will I forget the beauties of Shoe Lane in which I myself have resided since my arrival."2

Observe.-No. 3, the Ben Jonson Tavern, with the poet's head for a sign. Nos. 103-105, the Standard newspaper printing and publishing office, a large and massive new building. On the site of Farringdon Market, on the east side of Shoe Lane, in what was once the buryingground of Shoe Lane workhouse (added during Hacket's ministry, and by Hacket's interest), Thomas Chatterton was buried. The northern half of Shoe Lane has been greatly changed in appearance by the construction of the Holborn Viaduct and its approaches, and Farringdon Market, or what remains of it, is destined to be cleared away as soon as the new City Fruit and Vegetable Market is completed. [See Bangor Court; Farringdon Market; Gunpowder Alley; Harp Lane.]

Shoemakers' Row, WEST SMITHFIELD.

Then at Smithfield Bars, 'twixt the ground and the stars,

There's a place they call Shoemaker Row,

Whereat you may buy shoes every day

Or go barefoot all the year thro'.

Tom D'Urfey, Ancient Song for Bartholomew Fair. Probably this was a cant name for a row of stalls where shoes were on sale during Bartholomew Fair. The only Shoemakers' Rows we find extant in D'Urfey's day were between Great Carter Lane and Blackfriars, in Aldgate, and by Deadman's Place, Bankside, Southwark. Sir Christopher Wren is said to have rented a house in Shoemakers' Row, Carter Lane, during the building of St. Paul's, for convenience in watching the progress of the works.

Shoreditch, a manor and populous parish, at the north-east end of London, between Norton Folgate, Hoxton, and Hackney. The old way of spelling the name is Soersditch, but the derivation is uncertain. That it was so called after Jane Shore, the mistress of Edward IV., is a vulgar error, perpetuated by Haywood's "King Edward IV." and a ballad in Percy's Reliques :

Thus weary of my life, at lengthe

I yielded up my vital strength

Within a ditch of loathsome scent,

Where carrion dogs did much frequent :
The which now since my dying daye,

Is Shoreditch call'd, as writers saye;

Which is a witnesse of my sinne,

For being concubine to a King.-Percy's Reliques, vol. ii. Book 2.

1 Notes and Queries, 3d S., vol. i. p. 253.

2 Citizen of the World, Letter 122,