in the centre. There are three tiers of seats called sedilia, separated by two galleries without seats called porticus. The galleries are covered by a roof, but the centre of the building is open to the sky. John De Witt, who wrote a short description to accompany the drawing, says that the building was capable of seating 3000 persons, but this is scarcely probable. The theatre fell into decay and appears to have been swept away about 1633. In Holland's Leaguer, 1632, we read that the Lady of the Leaguer can almost "shake hands with the playhouse, which like a dying Swanne hangs her head and sings her own dirge." It stood where Holland Street now is, and not far from the present Blackfriars Road. Swan with two Necks, LAD LANE, an old inn, tavern, and booking and parcel office, from which coaches and waggons started to the north of England; a corruption of Swan with two Nicks, the mark (cygninota) of the Vintners' Company for their "game of swans on the Thames. [See Vintners' Company; Dyers' Company.] By an old law (or custom, rather) every swan that swam under London Bridge belonged, by right of office, to the Lieutenant of the Tower. Lad Lane is now incorporated with Gresham Street. The Carriers of Manchester doe lodge at the Two Neck'd Swan in Lad Lane, between Great Wood Street, and Milk Street End.-Taylor's Carrier's Cosmographie, 4to, 1637. There was a house with this sign, in 1632, in Swan Alley, Southwark.1 Swedish Church, PRINCE'S SQUARE, St. George's-in-the-East. The date 1728 is on the front of the church. Emanuel Swedenborg (d. March 20, 1772), founder of the "New Church" or Society of Swedenborgians, lies buried in this church, and alongside Dr. Solander, the companion of Sir Joseph Banks (d. 1782). Sweeting's Alley, originally SwEETING'S RENTS, CORNHILL, at the east end of the Royal Exchange, was so called after Henry Swieten or Sweeting, a Dutch merchant who owned considerable property on this spot at the time of the Great Fire of 1666.2 August 6, 1731.-Died Mr. Charles Sweeting, an eminent grocer Without Bishopgate, and Deputy of that part of the ward, possessed of a plentiful Estate at the East End of the Royal Exchange.-Universal Spectator, August 14, 1731. That excellent and by all physicians approved China drink, called by the Chineans Toha, by other nations Tay alias Tee is sold at the Sultaness Head Cophee House in Sweeting's Rents, by the Royal Exchange, London.—Mercurius Politicus, September 30, 1651. Knight's in Sweeting's Alley; Fairburn's in a court off Ludgate Hill; Howe's in Fleet Street-bright enchanted palaces, which George Cruikshank used to people with grinning fantastical imps and merry harmless sprites, where are they? Fairburn's shop knows him no more; not only has Knight disappeared from Sweeting's Alley, but, as we are given [to understand, Sweeting's Alley has dis 1 Churchwardens' Accounts of St. Saviour's. 2 Addit. MS. in the British Museum, No. 5065, fol. 138. appeared from the face of the Globe.—Thackeray, Westminster Review, June 1840, art. "George Cruikshank." Sweeting's Alley was swept away for the new Royal Exchange. The site is covered by the paved area of Exchange Buildings. Swithin's (St.) by London Stone, a church in CANNON STREET, in Walbrook Ward, destroyed in the Great Fire and rebuilt from Sir C. Wren's designs in 1678. The church is chiefly remarkable for the constructive skill and ingenuity of the architect. In 1869 the interior was "restored "—i.e. remodelled in 19th-century Gothic fashion, and in 1879 a new chancel and vestry were added. After the Great Fire the parish of St. Mary Bothaw was united to St. Swithin's, and this church serves for both parishes. The Rev. William Elstob, the Saxon scholar (d. 1715), was rector of St. Swithin's. The last leaf of a mouldering register records (December 1, 1663) the marriage of Dryden, the poet, to the Lady Elizabeth Howard. This interesting entry escaped the anxious researches of Malone. They were married in the old church, by license obtained only the day before. In the Register the poet's name is spelt Draydon, and the lady's Haward. No reason has been disclosed for the selection of this church for the ceremony. In the entry of the license, which is preserved in the Vicar-General's office, it is recorded that "appeared personally John Driden of St. Clement Danes, in the County of Middlesex, Esq., aged about 30 years and a Batchelor, and alleged that he intendeth to marry with Dame Elizabeth Howard of St. Martin's in the Fields, aged about 25 years." So neither party belonged to 'the parish. There is a monument in the church to Michael Godfrey (1658-1695), Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, who was killed by a cannon ball at the Siege of Namur. [See London Stone.] Swithin's (St.) Lane, LOMBARD STREET and KING WILLIAM STREET to CANNON STREET. On the west side of this lane are Founders' Hall and Salters' Hall; and (standing back) New Court, the counting-house of Messrs. Rothschild, the great money merchants and the Austro-Hungarian Consulate. At the south-west corner of the lane is the church of St. Swithin. One of the bubble companies of 1720, with a proposed capital of two millions, was for a general insurance on houses and merchandise, at the Three Tuns, Swithin's Alley, but this was then a colloquialism for Sweeting's Alley. Symond's Inn, CHANCERY LANE (east side), a series of private tenements let to students of the law and others, and so called, it is thought, from Thomas Simonds, gentleman, buried in St.-Dunstan's-inthe-West in June 1621. He was apparently the great-uncle of Sir Symonds D'Ewes. The Masters in Chancery had formerly their offices here. The ground rents of this inn are received by the Bishop of Chichester. [See Chichester Rents.] Symonds Inn was demolished in 1873-1874, and a stately pile of 110 chambers, with a front of Portland stone, 60 feet high, towards Chancery Lane, erected on the site. Sythe (St.), or ST. OSYTH. [See St. Bennet Sherehog; Sise Lane.] Tabard (The). This celebrated inn of Southwark, always associated in our minds with Chaucer and the "Canterbury Pilgrims," was built most probably in the 14th century, as a neighbouring inn, the Bear, certainly was. It was on the eastern side of the High Street (Long Southwark), exactly opposite St. Margaret's Church. A tabard is a jaquet or sleeveless coat, worne of times past by Noblemen in the warres, but now only by Heraults, and is called theyre coate of Armes in servise. It is the signe of an Inn in Southwarke by London, within the which was the lodging of the Abbott of Hyde by Winchester. This was the Hostelry where Chaucer and the other Pilgrims met together, and with Henry Baily their hoste, accorded about the manner of their journey to Canterbury. And whereas through time it hath been much decaied, it is now by Master J. Preston, with the Abbot's house thereto adjoyned, newly repaired, and with convenient rooms much encreased, for the receipt of many guests.—Speght's Chaucer, fol. 1598, and see Stow, p. 154. Befel that in that sesoun on a day, In felawschipe, and pilgryms were they alle, Chaucer, Prologue to Canterbury Tales. In the great fire which broke out, May 26, 1676, and destroyed the Town Hall and above six houses, Chaucer's Tabard, which was situated in the midst of the part where the fire raged fiercest, was, there can be no doubt, destroyed. It was rebuilt, and probably nearly on the old lines, for, as it came down to our own day, it consisted of open wooden galleries with chambers behind, surrounding an open court, and a large room which continued to be called the Pilgrims' Room. But the landlord of the new house, deeming the Tabard too antiquated a sign, or perhaps unacquainted with its signification, changed the sign to The Talbot, and Betterton describes it under its new name in his modernised version of Chaucer's Prologue. The Tabard and The Talbot are two such distinct names, that a succeeding landlord found it necessary to distinguish Chaucer's inn by the following inscription on the frieze of the beams which hung across the road, and from the centre of which the sign was suspended: "This is the inne where Sir Jeffry Chaucer and the nine and twenty pilgrims lay in their journey to Canterbury, anno 1383." In 1763, when the signs of London were taken down, this inscription was set up over the gateway, but was painted out in 1831. As late as the middle of the 18th century plays were acted in "The Talbot Inn Yard" during Southwark Fair. Timothy Fielding had his "Great Theatrical Booth in the Talbot Inn Yard," and played The Beggar's Opera, the parts "by the Company of Comedians from the new Theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields," with "all the songs and dances as performed at" that theatre, 66 during the time of the Fair" of 1728. Like most of the old inns, whose main dependence was on the coach and country waggon traffic, the Tabard suffered greatly from the introduction of railways. It gradually fell into a dilapidated, dirty condition; the greater part of it was let for stables, carmen's warerooms, and railway stores. At length in 1873 it was sold by auction, and in 1875-1876 the whole was swept away. A new inn, The Old Tabard (No. 85 Boro' High Street), has been built, and the site of the old one is marked by Talbot Inn Yard, let out chiefly as hop-merchants' offices; and the name is further preserved in Tabard Street, of old notorious as Kent Street. The best and oldest view of The Tabard is in Urry's "Chaucer" (fol. 1721).1 Tabernacle Row, Tabernacle Square, Tabernacle Walk, CITY ROAD (east side) and FINSBURY, all derived their name from the original temporary preaching-place run up for George Whitefield on the west side of what was then called Windmill Hill, and is now Tabernacle Walk. Shortly after Whitefield's separation from Wesley, some Calvinistic Dissenters built a large shed for him near the Foundry, upon a piece of ground which was lent for the purpose till he should return from America. From the temporary nature of the structure they called it a Tabernacle, in allusion to the movable place of worship of the Israelites during their journey in the wilderness; and the name being in puritanical taste became the designation of all the chapels of the Calvinistic Methodists.-Southey's Life of Wesley. The permanent Whitefield's Tabernacle stands on the north side of Tabernacle Row. Other of Whitefield's, or the Countess of Huntingdon's Tabernacles were in Spa Fields, Tottenham Court Road, etc. But there was a Tabernacle in London before that of Whitefield, and in it Bentley delivered his second series of Boyle Lectures. December 3, 1693.—Mr. Bentley preach'd at the Tabernacle neere Golden Square. I gave my voice for him to proceed on his former subject the following yeare in Mr. Boyle's Lecture."—Evelyn. [See Tenison's Chapel; Whitefield's Tabernacle.] Talbot (The). [See The Tabard.] Tallow Chandlers' Hall, No. 5, on the west side of Dowgate Hill. The Company, the twenty-first on the City list, was incorporated by Edward IV., but it had existed as a brotherhood for a considerable time previously. Henry VI. granted them arms and a crest in 1456, and Elizabeth added supporters. Both the grants are preserved in the Hall, the latter bearing the signature of William Camden, Clarencieux. 1 The Inns of Old Southwark, by William Rendle and Philip Norman, London, 1888, has a chapter devoted to the Tabard. The old hall was destroyed in the Great Fire, and was rebuilt from the designs of Sir C. Wren in 1672. It is a large and handsome building, with a Tuscan colonnade, and was in great part rebuilt in 1871. Tanfield Court, TEMPLE. These buildings were first erected by Henry Bradshaw, Treasurer, in 26 Henry VIII. (1534-1535), and were long known as Bradshaw's Rents. The present name is derived from Sir Laurence Tanfield, Chief Baron of the Exchequer in 1607,1 whose residence was here. His daughter was the mother of Lucius Carey, Lord Falkland, who inherited Tanfield's large fortune. At No. 3 lived Robert Keck, who bought the Chandos portrait of Shakespeare from Mrs. Barry. Keck died at Paris in 1719, leaving his chambers ("No 3 Tanfield Court, Temple") and the contents of them to his cousin, Francis Keck, of Great Tew, in Oxfordshire, Esq. On Sunday morning, February 4, 1732, Mrs. Lydia Duncombe, aged eighty, and Elizabeth Harrison, aged sixty, were found strangled, and their maid, Ann Price, aged seventeen, with her throat cut, in their beds, at a house in Tanfield Court. The laundress was Sarah Malcolm, who was executed for the murders, and whose portrait Hogarth painted in Newgate. He said afterwards, "This woman by her features is capable of any wickedness." Sir James Thornhill accompanied him. [See Mitre Court.] Tart Hall, "without the gate of ST. JAMES'S PARK, near Buckingham House," was built (the new part at least) in 1638, by Nicholas Stone, the sculptor,2 for Alathea, Countess of Arundel, wife to Thomas, the magnificent Earl of Arundel, and descended to her second son, the unfortunate William, Lord Viscount Stafford, beheaded in 1680, on the perjured evidence of Titus Oates and others. The gateway was never again opened after the last time Lord Stafford passed through it. The house, after being for some time used as a place of entertainment, was taken down in 1720. A memory of it is still preserved in Stafford Row adjoining. The name is difficult to account for. The adjoining Mulberry Garden was above all things famous for its tarts [see Mulberry Garden], and this, it has been suggested, gave rise to the popular name of this ancient mansion, but it would hardly account for the early and general use of the name. The Committee of Lords being informed that some important papers were hid in a wall at Tart Hall, they sent to break it, and in a copper box found those which the Attorney-General says give more light into the plot than all they had formerly seen, but most particularly against the Lord Stafford.-Algernon Sidney's Letters to Henry Savile, p. 74. The parish of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields crosseth James Street against Tart Hall, which it passeth through, and on the garden wall at the processioning there is a boy whipt (a custom used to remember the parish bounds), for which he hath some small matter, as about 2d., given him: the like custom is observed at or by Tyburn gallows. Strype, B. vi. p. 67. The remainder of the Arundelian Collection was preserved at Tart Hall, without the gate of St. James's Park, near Buckingham House. Those curiosities, too, were 1 Dugdale's Origines Juridiciales, p. 146. 2 Walpole's Anecdotes, vol. ii. p. 63. |