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Bakewell Hall, BLAKEWELL, or BLACKWELL HALL, a "spacious building on the east side of Guildhall, or on the west side of Basinghall Street."1 Here was held a weekly market for woollen cloths, established by the Mayor and Corporation (20th of Rich. II.) in a house belonging, in 1293, to John de Banquelle, Alderman of Dowgate ward. The building originally belonged to the Cliffords and the Basings, but subsequently to Thomas Bakewell, who was living in it in the 36th of Edw. III., and from whom Stow makes the Hall or Market derive its name. Bakewell Hall was rebuilt in the year 1588, destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666, re-erected in 1672, and ultimately taken down to make way for the present Bankruptcy Court in 1820. The profits or fees paid on pitchings were given by the City to Christ's Hospital, and in 1708 were reckoned at 1100.2 Bacon speaks of "the stand of cloth in Blackwell Hall" as "keeping up the State."3

Bakewell Hall was by the Corporation converted to a warehouse or market-place for all sorts of woollen cloth, and other woollen manufactures brought from all parts of the kingdom, and by an Act of Common Council, held August 8, 1516, this was to be the only market for such woollen manufactures, and none to be sold in London but at this place. . . . Cloths pay one penny each pitching, and a halfpenny per week resting; and to avoid trouble every factor has a rest, or one certain number for which he pays.-Hatton, p. 599.

William Tooke of Purley (b. 1719, d. 1802), Horne Tooke's friend, made his fortune as a Blackwell Hall factor."

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Baldwin's Gardens, on the east side of GRAY'S INN LANE (now Gray's Inn Road), is said to have derived its name from Richard Baldwin, one of the royal gardeners, who built some houses here in 1589. It became a place of sanctuary, abolished by Act of Parliament in 1697. It was used as a refuge by Henry Purcell, the musician (d. 1695); Tom Brown (d. 1704) dated some verses "from Mrs. Stewart's, at the Hole in the Wall in Baldwin's Gardens." In the Guildhall Collection of Tradesmen's Tokens is one of Nicholas Smith, "the Wheatsheaf in Baldwyn's Gardens, 1666." There is still a Hole in the Wall in Baldwin's Gardens, but no Wheatsheaf.

But I suppose you spoke figuratively, and by robbing of orchards you understood Baldwin's Garden, and by lampooning the Court you meant Three Crane Court; and you might have enlarged with Bond's Stables and the Pall Mall.-Andrew Marvell, The Rehearsal Transprosed, pt. 2, 1674.

A single sheet, entitled "The English and French Prophets mad, or bewitcht at their Assemblies in Baldwin's Gardens," was published by J. Applebee, 1707. Dr. Rimbault describes a letter of Anthony Wood's, addressed "For John Aubrey, Esq., to be left at Mr. Caley's house in Baldwin's Gardens, near Gray's Inn Lane, London."—Notes and Queries, 1st S., vol. i. p. 410.

Baldwin's Gardens acquired an evil reputation, but its character has greatly improved of late years. Here was the notorious "Thieves Kitchen," pulled down to make way for St. Alban's Church. [See that heading.]

1 Hatton's New View of London, 1708, p. 599.

2 Of the last hall there are views in Price's Guildhall, 1886.

3 Letters, 4to, p. 183.

Ball's Pond, ISLINGTON, so called from the Ducking Pond of a person of the name of Ball, who kept a tavern here in the reign of Charles II. This man issued a token with this inscription, "John Ball, at the Boarded House, neare Newington Green, his penny." Islington ponds were, in the 17th century, a noted resort for citizens intent on their favourite sport of duck hunting.

What... because I dwell at Hogsden, I shall keep company with none but the archers of Finsbury, or the citizens that come a-ducking to Islington Ponds! A fine jest i' faith !-Ben Jonson, Every Man in his Humour, Act i. sc. 1.

But Husband gray now comes to stall,

For Prentice notch'd he strait does call:

Where's Dame, quoth he,—quoth son of shop,
She's gone her cake in milk to sop:

Ho, ho! to Islington; enough!

Fetch Job my son and our dog Ruffe!

For there in Pond, through mire and muck,

We'll cry hay Duck, there Ruffe, hay Duck.

DAVENANT, The Long Vacation in London,
(Works, 1673, p. 289).

The church of St. Paul was erected from the designs of Sir Charles Barry, R.A., 1826-1827, at a cost of £10,947: one of his earliest Gothic works. On the north side of the Ball's Pond Road, and occupying contiguous sites, are the Cutlers' Almshouses; the Metropolitan Benefit Society's Asylum; and the Bookbinders' Provident Institution.

Balmes House, HOXTON, an old moated house built originally in 1540, but rebuilt in the next century by Sir George Whitmore, Lord Mayor of London, 1631. "Here on November 25, 1641, Sir William Acton, Lord Mayor, with the Aldermen, Recorder, etc., awaited the arrival of Charles I. on his return from Scotland, when he was received right royally, a roadway being cut through Sir George's estate to Moorgate."1 Sir George Whitmore died at this house, which, some years afterwards, was purchased by Richard de Beauvoir (whose name survives in De Beauvoir Town). Balmes was at one time esteemed a mansion of note, but it was subsequently occupied as a lunatic asylum, and was pulled down a few years ago.

Baltic Coffee House, THREADNEEDLE STREET, the rendezvous of merchants and brokers connected with the Russian trade. In the upper part of the Baltic is the auction sale-room for tallow, oils, etc.

Baltimore House. [See Russell Square.]

Banbury Court, on the south side of LONG ACRE, leading to Hart Street, Covent Garden. "At the corner house of Banbury Court in Long Acre," lived Simon Gribelin the engraver.2

Bancroft's Almshouses, MILE END ROAD (for 24 poor old men of the Drapers' Company, afterwards increased to 28), and SCHOOL (for 100 boys), erected 1729-1735, pursuant to the will of Francis

1 Analytical Index to the Remembrancia, 1878, p. 296 (note).
2 Advertisement in London Gazette of May 27-29, 1712.

Bancroft (grandson of Archbishop Bancroft), who, March 18, 1727, left freehold estates of the value of £28,000 and upwards to the Company of Drapers, for their erection and endowment. Each pensioner had lodging, coals, and £20 per annum. The buildings in the Mile End Road have been pulled down, and the charity is now applied entirely for educational purposes. A school for 100 boarders and 200 or more day scholars is being built at Woodford, Essex (1888). Bancroft was an officer of the Lord Mayor's Court, and is said to have acquired his fortune by harsh acts of justice in his capacity as a City officer-by unnecessary informations and arbitrary summonses. So unpopular was he that the mob hustled the bearers of his coffin, and the church bells rang out a merry peal at his funeral. His tomb, erected and endowed in his lifetime, is in the church of St. Helen, Bishopsgate. On certain occasions the Wardens, Court of Assistants, and other Members of the Drapers' Company, pay an official visit to the vault and raise the lid of the coffin-which, by Bancroft's directions, is fitted with hinges so as to open like a trunk— in order to view the corpse, which was embalmed shortly after death, but is in a hideous stage of decay.1 There is an engraving of the tomb by J. T. Smith.

Bangor House, SHOE LANE, was situated in Bangor Court (now swept away) on the west side of Shoe Lane, at the back of St. Andrew's Church.

In this Shoe Lane was a messuage called Bangor House, belonging formerly, as it seems, to the Bishops of that See; which messuage, with the waste ground about it, Sir John Barksted, Knight, did, in the year 1647, purchase of the trustees for the sale of Bishops' lands, for the purpose of erecting messuages and tenements thereupon.-Strype, B. iii. p. 247.

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June 20, 1657.-A proviso for Sir John Barkstead . . . who did in the year of our Lord God, 1647, purchase from the trustees for sale of Bishops' lands the reversion of one messuage, with the appurtenances, situate in Shoe Lane, called Bangor House, to enable him on paying one year's value, at an improved value and full rent, to the Lord Protector, to erect and new build such messuages, tenements, and houses thereupon as he may think fit; the said place being at present both dangerous and noisome to the passengers and inhabitants near adjoining." 2 In 4 William and Mary (1692) was passed "An Act to enable Humphry, Lord Bishop of Bangor, to make a lease of Bangor House, with the appurtenances in the parish of St. Andrew, Holborn, for a competent term of years, in order to the new building, and improving the rent thereof, for the benefit of his successors.

In 1826 an Act was passed enabling the Bishop of Bangor to sell the house, etc., to the parish of St. Andrew, Holborn, the proceeds to accumulate for the purchase of a London house for the See. The last Bishop of Bangor who resided in Bangor House was Bishop Dolben (d. 1633). Bentley's well-known printing offices occupied the site for many years; and were succeeded by a gloomy-looking house which stood at the corner of St. Andrew Street, a short new street from Holborn Circus.

1 Inspection of April 27, 1881.

2 Commons Journals, Burton, vol. ii. p. 295.

[graphic]

A perspective View of the

new

Building

at the BANK of ENGLAND taken from the Mansion House.

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