The parish church, dedicated to St. Mary, was originally built about the beginning of the 14th century as a chapel of ease to Stepney, and was consecrated as a parish church March 16, 1719. What is now known as Stratford, a mile or so farther east, is more properly Stratford Langthorn. Stratford Place, OXFORD STREET, north side, opposite South Molton Street, was built about 1775 by Edward Stratford second Earl of Aldborough, and others, to whom a ground-lease, renewable for ever under certain conditions, had been granted by the Corporation of London. In the mansion that terminates the place, and fronts the entrance from Oxford Street, the Earl of Aldborough resided for many years.1 Here stood the Lord Mayor's Banqueting House, erected for the Mayor and Corporation to dine in after their periodical visits to the Bayswater and Paddington Conduits, and the Conduit Head adjacent to the Banqueting House, which supplied the City with water. A conduit head Hard by the place toward Tyburn, which they call My Lord Mayor's Banqueting House. Ben Jonson, The Devil is an Ass, Act v. Sc. I. Strype preserves a curious picture of a visit made by the Mayor to the Conduit Heads in the year 1562. Before dinner they hunted the hare and killed her, and after dinner they went to hunting the fox; "there was a cry for a mile, and at length the hounds killed him at the end of St. Giles'; great hallooing at his death and blowing of horns." The Banqueting House was taken down in 1737, and the cisterns arched over at the same time.2 Here General Strode (the same who set up the statue in Cavendish Square) erected a pillar to commemorate the naval victories of Britain, which it did for a very brief period, as the foundations gave way in 1805. About 1792 Richard Cosway, R.A., removed from Schomberg House, Pall Mall, to the south-western corner of Stratford Place. The house has a lion on the outside, and hardly had he taken possession of his new abode when a pasquinade, attributed to Peter Pindar, was affixed to his door : When a man to a fair for a show brings a lion, But here the old custom reverséd is seen For the lion's without, and the monkey's within! Cosway, one of the vainest of men, was so mortified that he removed shortly after to No. 20. This he fitted up and furnished in a style then scarcely known in the houses of professional men. His marble chimneypieces were all carved by Thomas Banks, R.A. The rooms -each fitted in a different manner- -"were more like scenes of enchantment pencilled by a poet's fancy, than anything, perhaps, before displayed in a domestic habitation." 1 Londiniana, vol. iii. p. 40. 2 Maitland, ed. 1739, p. 779. His furniture consisted of ancient chairs, couches, and conversation stools, elaborately carved and gilt and covered with the most costly Genoa velvets; escritoires of ebony, inlaid with mother-of-pearl; and rich caskets for antique gems, exquisitely enamelled, and adorned with onyxes, opals, rubies and emeralds. There were cabinets of ivory, curiously wrought; mosaic tables set with jasper, blood-stone, and lapis-lazuli; having their feet carved into the claws of lions and eagles; screens of old raised oriental Japan; massive musical clocks richly chased with or-molu and tortoise-shell; ottomans superbly damasked; Persian and other carpets . . . and rich hangings of English tapestry. The chimney-pieces, carved by Banks, were further adorned with the choicest bronzes and models in wax and terra-cotta; the tables covered with old Sèvres, blue, Mandarin, Nankin, and Dresden china; and the cabinets were surmounted with crystal cups adorned with the York and Lancaster roses, which might probably have graced the splendid banquets of the proud Wolsey. -Smith's Nollekens, vol. ii. p. 401. In his drawing-room was a marble sarcophagus in which was the embalmed body of his deceased daughter; but this Mrs. Cosway, on her return from her long sojourn in Italy, got rid of, sending the body to the Bunhill Fields cemetery, and the sarcophagus to Nollekens, the sculptor. Cosway resided here to the last. His death occurred in Miss Udney's carriage, on July 4, 1821, while taking an airing on the Edgeware Road. Madame D'Arblay records meeting Sir Joshua Reynolds at a dinner at Mrs. Walsingham's (a daughter of Sir Hanbury Williams) in Stratford Place. Henry Addington (Lord Sidmouth) was living here in 1792. Sydney Smith at No. 18 in 1835. No. 1 is the Portland Club House. R. W. Elliston, the celebrated actor, dated from Stratford Place in June 1822. Stratton Street, PICCADILLY, west side of Devonshire House. Built circ. 1693,2 and so called after John, Baron Berkeley of Stratton, the hero of Stratton Fight, fought at Stratton in Cornwall during the Civil Wars under Charles I. This Lord Berkeley built Berkeley House in Piccadilly (on the site of Devonshire House); hence Berkeley Street and Berkeley Square. Thomas Graham, Lord Lynedoch, the hero of Barossa, and Wellington's second in command in the Peninsula, lived at No. 12 in this street, and died here, December 18, 1843, in his ninety-sixth year. No. 1, on the left-hand side, is the residence of the Baroness Burdett Coutts. Here the Duchess of St. Alban's (Mrs. Coutts) gave her magnificent entertainments; and here she died in 1837. For two months before her death she lay in the great dining-room towards Piccadilly, without pain, but weak and tranquil. James Douglas, the author of Nenia Britannica, lived in this street. Thomas Campbell writes to Dr. Currie from No. 2, April 13, 1802. a Streights i' the Strand, a cant name, as Gifford says, given to "nest of obscure courts, alleys and avenues running between the bottom of St. Martin's Lane, Half-Moon, and Chandos Street," frequented by bullies, knights of the post, and fencing masters, now cleared away. [See Bermudas; Butcher Row; Porridge Island.] 1 Diary, vol. ii. p. 164. 2 Rate-books of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. Justice Overdo. Look into any angle of the town, the Streights, or the Bermudas, where the quarrelling lesson is read, and how do they entertain the time but with bottle-ale and tobacco ?-Ben Jonson, Bartholomew Fair. Their very trade Is borrowing; that but stopt they do invade All as their prize, turn pirates here at land, Have their Bermudas, and their Streights i' the Strand. Ben Jonson to Sir Edward Sackville. Strombello or Strumbello (STRUMBELS, Dodsley) is the name given in Sayer's Map of 1769 to some buildings in the Chelsea Road, on the left of the present church of St. Barnabas. Intermediately the ground was occupied by a small playhouse of the lowest description, called the Orange Theatre. 1762. At Cromwell House, Brompton, once the seat of Oliver, was also a tea-garden concert; and at Strombolo Tea-gardens near Chelsea was a fine fountain. -O'Keefe, vol. i. p. 88. The place was called Queen Street in 1794. Strutton Ground, WESTMINSTER, Victoria Street (south side) to Great Peter Street, a corruption of Stourton Ground, from Stourton House, the mansion of the Lords Dacre of the South. [See Emanuel Hospital.] Strype's Court, PETTICOAT LANE, the second turning on the right hand from Aldgate, is said to have been so called after the father of Strype, the historian, a merchant and silk throwster, and long an inhabitant of the court. The historian was born in this court in 1643.1 But it should be noted that in Strype's own Map (1720) it is called Tripe Yard; and that Dodsley (1761) enters it as Trype Yard, but also as Strype's Yard. It is now known as Tripe Court. [See Petticoat Lane.] Suffolk House, CHARING CROSS. The second name of what was afterwards known as Northumberland House. On Thursday, May 8th, 1539, "when all the citizens of London mustered in harnes afore the Kinge," Henry VIII. was stationed at the Whitehall Gateway, and "the Lord Chancellor, the Duke of Norfolke, Duke of Suffolke, and other Lords of the Kinge's househould, stood at the Duke of Suffolke's place by Charing Cross to see them as they passed by."-Wriothesley's Chronicle, p. 96. On the left hand of Charing Crosse, there are divers fair houses built of late years, specially the most stately palace of Suffolk or Northampton House, built by Henry of Northampton, son to the Duke of Norfolk and Lord Privie Seal to King James. -Howell's Londinopolis, fol. 1657, p. 350. Suckling refers to this house in his famous ballad on the Wedding of Roger Boyle, Lord Broghill, afterwards first Earl of Orrery, with Lady Margaret Howard, daughter of Theophilus, Earl of Suffolk. At Charing Cross, hard by the way Where we (thou know'st), do sell our hay, 1 Lysons, vol. iv. p. 175. And there did I see coming down Such folks as are not in our town, Forty at least in pairs. March 15, 1617.-Grant to the Earl of Suffolk to have a small pipe for conveying water to Suffolk House, inserted in the main pipe from Hyde Park to Westminster Palace.-Cal. State Pap., 1611-1618, p. 447. Evelyn, under June 9, 1658, records that he "went to see the Earl of Northumberland's pictures . . . in Suffolk House," and he observes that "the new front towards the gardens is tolerable, were it not drown'd by a too massive and clumsie pair of stayres of stone, without any neate invention." A second, perhaps an earlier house belonging to the same noble family, stood on the site of the present Suffolk Street, Haymarket. [See Suffolk Street.] Suffolk House, SOUTHWARK. Almost directly over-against St. George's Church, was sometime a large and most sumptuous house, built by Charles Brandon, late Duke of Suffolk, in the reign of Henry VIII., which was called Suffolk House; but coming afterwards into the King's hands, the same was called Southwarke Place, and a Mint of coinage [see The Mint] was there kept for the King. To this Place came King Edward VI., in the second of his reign, from Hampton Court, and dined in it. . . . Queen Mary gave this house to Nicholas Heath, Archbishop of Yorke, and to his successors, for ever, to be their Inn or Lodging for their repair to London, in recompense of York House, near to Westminster, which King Henry her father had taken from Cardinal Wolsey, and from the see of York. Archbishop Heath sold the same house to a merchant or to merchants that pulled it down, sold the lead, stone, iron, etc., and in place thereof built many small cottages of great rents, to the increasing of beggars in that borough. The archbishop bought Norwich House or Suffolk Place, near unto Charing Cross, because it was near unto the Court, and left it to his successors. -Stow, p. 153. The said Archbishop, August the 6th, 1557, obtained a license for the alienation of this capital messuage of Suffolk Place; and to apply the price thereof for the buying of other houses called also Suffolk Place, lying near Charing Cross; as appears from a Register belonging to the Dean and Chapter of York.—Strype, B. iv. p. 17. It appears, however, from the Charter of Edward VI. (Norton, p. 386), that Henry VIII. purchased these "lands, tenements, and premises from Charles, Duke of Suffolk. Edward granted them to the City, and they were attached to the Bridge House estate. The house with its park is shown in Wyngaerde's View of London (ab. 1550). The name still survives in Great Suffolk Street. "Brandonne's Place in Southwerke" is mentioned in Sir John Howard's Expenses, under the year 1465, but this does not refer to Suffolk House, which was not built until about 1516. This is Sir Thomas Brandon's Place in another part of Southwark, afterwards given by Sir Thomas in 1510 to Lady Guildford, hence the name of Great Guildford Street. Suffolk Lane, UPPER THAMES STREET, to Laurence Pountney Lane. Suffolk Lane, well known by the Grammar School, founded and supported there by the Merchant Taylors' Company, took its denomination from the noble family of Suffolk [De la Pole], who anciently had property on this spot; and it is not unlikely that what is called Duck's Foot Lane was originally the Duke's foot-lane, or narrow way to and from his mansion.-Dr. Wilson's St. Lawrence Poultney, 4to, 1831, p. 5. The Merchant Taylors' School was removed in 1875 to the site of the old Charterhouse School. [See Merchant Taylors' School.] The pious Robert Nelson, author of the Fasts and Festivals, was born in this lane, June 22, 1656. His father, John Nelson, was a wealthy trader to the Levant. "3 Suffolk Street, HAYMARKET to PALL MALL EAST; built circ. 1664, and "so called," says Strype, "as being built on the ground where stood a large house belonging to the Earls of Suffolk. It is a very good street," he continues, "with handsome houses, well inhabited, and resorted unto by lodgers.' It was originally called "Suffolk Yard Buildings." Horace Walpole, in a MS. note to Pennant, says that this street "used to be known for the residence of foreigners, who were but ill lodged here: of late years hotels have been introduced where they are better accommodated and in better streets. In the reign of George the First an Italian warehouse was kept at the upper end of Suffolk Street by one Corticelli, much frequented by people of fashion for raffles and purchases and gallant meetings. It is mentioned in Lady M. W. Montagu's Letters.' Gilbert Gurney, writes Fifty years later Theodore Hook, in I [Gilbert Gurney] took a first floor in Suffolk Street, Charing Cross, then extremely unlike what it afterwards became in the course of the improvements in that neighbourhood. At that period it consisted for the most part of tailors' houses, the upper floors of which were tenanted in their different degrees by gentlemen loose upon town, visitors to the metropolis, and officers on half-pay, of which it appeared the greater portion were considered to be "frae the North," inasmuch as Suffolk Street was nicknamed in that day the Scottish Barracks. Evelyn notes, December 23, 1671, that "the Councillors of the Board of Trade dined together at the Cock in Suffolk Street." Besides Evelyn, Shaftesbury and Waller were of the number, and Locke was their secretary. The Golden Eagle, Suffolk Street, was the scene of the so-called "Calf's Head Club" riot, January 30, 1735, when a mob broke the windows and wrecked the house under the belief that a number of young noblemen and gentlemen who were dining there were having a "calf's-head dinner" in commemoration of the execution of Charles I. The Cock and the Golden Eagle have both disappeared, and there is no tavern in Suffolk Street now; but there are three or four private hotels and several lodging-houses. At the Pall Mall corner is the University Club House, built, 1822-1826, from the designs of W. Wilkins and J. P. Gandy-Deering, and No. 6 the gallery of the Society of British Artists, built by J. Nash, 1823-1824. The street was rebuilt in 1822. Eminent Inhabitants.-Moll Davis, from 1667 to 1674, when she removed to St. James's Square. January 14, 1667-1668.-The King [Charles II.], it seems, hath given her [Moll Davis] a ring of £700, which she shows to every body, and owns that the 1 Rate-books of St. Martin's. 2 Strype, B. vi. p. 68. 3 Rate-books of St. Martin's. |