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The engines, which combined all Watt's improvements, were the most complete and powerful which had up to that time been produced from the Soho manufactory.

They consisted of two double-acting engines, of the power of 50 horses each, with a pressure of steam of five pounds to the superficial inch-the two engines, when acting together, working with the power of 150 horses. They drove twenty pair of millstones, each 4 feet 6 inches in diameter, twelve of which were usually worked together, each pair grinding 10 bushels of wheat per hour, by day and night if necessary. The two engines working together were capable of grinding, dressing, etc. complete, 150 bushels an hour-by far the greatest performance achieved by any mill at that time, and probably not since surpassed, if equalled. But the engine power was also applied to a diversity of other purposes, then altogether novel -such as hoisting and lowering the corn and flour, loading and unloading the barges, and in the processes of fanning, sifting, and dressing—so that the Albion Mills came to be regarded as amongst the greatest mechanical wonders of the day.— Smiles's Lives of the Engineers, vol. ii. p. 137.1

The mill was made a public show of, and was constantly crowded. by curious visitors, much to Watt's annoyance. The millers and their men looked on with feelings of extreme dislike, but on March 3, 1791, the whole building was destroyed by fire, the work apparently of incendiaries. There are several views of this extensive fire, and one is entitled The Bakers' glory on the conflagration of Albion Mill.

The Albion Mills are burnt down. I asked where they were; supposing they were powder mills in the country, that had blown up. I had literally never seen or heard of the spacious lofty building at the end of Blackfriars Bridge. At first it was supposed maliciously burnt, and it is certain the mob stood and enjoyed the conflagration as of a monopoly. The building had cost £100,000, and the loss in corn and flour is calculated at £140,000. I do not answer for the truth of the sums; but it is certain that the Palace Yard and part of St. James's Park were covered with half-burnt grain.—Walpole to the Misses Berry, Letters, 1877, vol. ix. p. 295.

According to Mr. Smiles the loss sustained by the Company was about £10,000, of which amount Boulton and Watt lost the greater part, the former holding £6000 and the latter £3000 interest in the undertaking.2

Albion Street, HYDE PARK. At No. 14 lived Tyrone Power,

the Irish comedian.

A hundred years ago Albion Street (where comic Power dwelt, Milesia's darling son)-was a desert. The Square of Connaught was without its penultimate, and, strictly speaking naught. The Edgware Road was then a road 'tis true; with tinkling waggons passing now and then, and fragrant walls of snowy hawthorn blossoms. The ploughman whistled over Nutford Place; down the green solitudes of Sovereign Street the merry milkmaid led the lowing kine.-Thackeray's Catherine (1839), chap. viii.

Albion Tavern, No. 153 ALDERSGATE STREET, one of the largest establishments of the kind in London, and famed for its good dinners, both public and private, and also its good wines. The tavern acquired much of its celebrity under Mr. John Kay, who was succeeded

1 On p. 138 of this volume is a woodcut of the mills.
2 Smiles's Lives of Boulton and Watt, p. 359,

in 1842 by Mr. (afterwards Alderman Sir) John Staples and Mr. Thos. Staples. In 1864 it was transferred to the London Taverns Company, by whom it is still held. The farewell dinners given by the East India Company to their Governors of India were generally given at the Albion; several of the City Companies give their dinners here; and here (after dinner) the annual trade sales of the principal London publishers take place.

18 Aldermanbury. A street in CRIPPLEGATE WARD, the continuation of Milk Street, Cheapside, north of Gresham Street to London Wall.

How Aldermanbury Street took that name, many fables have been bruited, all which I overpass as not worthy the counting; but to be short, I say this street took the name of Alderman's burie (which is to say a court), there kept in their bery or court, but now called the Guildhall. . . . I myself have seen the ruins of the old court hall in Aldermanbury Street, which of late hath been employed as a carpenters' yard.-Stow, p. 109.

Expens and chargis in the clensyng of certeyn olde ruinouse houses and grounde lying in Aldenmanbury, sumtyme the Place of Saincte Aethelbert Kyng. and in the erection, settyng uppe and makyng of fyve newe Tenementes . which began in London, Tuysday the xxix day of Auguste the xxiii yere of the reigne of Kyng Henry grace the viiith.—Report on MSS. of the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's, by Maxwell Lyte.1

In 6 Richard II. (1383) one William Berham was accused of slandering John Northamptone, Mayor of London, and John Boseham, to "Sir Robert Tresilian, Chief Justiciar of our Lord the King, at his house in Aldermannebury," and the case being tried before "the country [jury] of the venue of Aldermannebury," he was found guilty and sentenced to be exposed on the Pillory for one hour on six consecutive days, "with one large whetstone hung from his neck, in token of the lie told by him against the said Mayor, and another smaller whetstone in token of the lie told by him against the said John Boseham.2

In 1680 when the House of Commons compelled Jeffreys to resign the Recordership of London, he was also called to account for the " 'great sums of money disbursed in fitting up his dwelling-house in Aldermanbury, which he held of the city." 3

1 Aldermanbury Conduit stood opposite to the south side of St. Mary's Church. It was erected under the will of Sir W. Eastfield, but was destroyed in the great fire. It was rebuilt, and removed early in the 18th century.

Aldermanbury Postern, a continuation northward of ALDERMANBURY to Fore Street, marks the path through the postern in London wall. The postern in the City wall, from which the street took its name, seems to have been originally called "The Little Postern," but in its later years was commonly known as Aldermanbury Postern.

Aldermary Churchyard, CITY. [See Mary (St.) Aldermary.]

Aldersgate, a gate in the City wall, near the church of St. Botolph, ́and south end of the present Castle and Falcon Inn; the exact site is

1 Historical MSS. Comm., Ninth Report, Appendix, p. 44.

2 Riley, Memorials, p. 476.

3 Life of Judge Jeffreys, p. 79.

As early as 1289 a

marked by No. 62 on the east side of the street. house called Redehalle [Redhall], belonging to Henry le Galeys, is described as being "without Aldredesgate."1 In 1460 it occurs as Aldresgate. In 1375, in the mayoralty of William Waleworthe, the Corporation granted to Ralph Strode, Common Counter [Common Sergeant], for the good service rendered by him to the City, "all the dwelling-house, together with the garden, and all other its appurtenances, situate over the Gate of Aldrichesgate; to have and to hold the same so long as he shall remain in the said office of Counter." 2 It is written Aldrichegate in the City Record of 27 Henry III. 3 (1243), and in the London Chronicle of Edward IV.'s time, printed by Sir Harris Nicolas (p. 99).

Ældresgate, or Aldersgate, so called not of Aldrich or of Elders, that is to say, ancient men, builders thereof; not of Eldarne trees, growing there more abundantly than in other places, as some have fabled; but for the very antiquity of the gate itself, as being one of the first four gates of the city, and serving for the northern parts, as Aldegate for the east; which two gates being both old gates, are, for difference' sake, called, the one Ealdegate, and the other Aldersgate.-Stow, p. 14. The gate described by Stow was taken down in 1617, and rebuilt the same year from a design by Gerard Christmas, the architect, as Vertue thought, of old Northumberland House. On the outer front was a figure in high relief of James I. on horseback, with the prophets Jeremiah and Samuel in niches on each side: on the inner or City front an effigy of the King in his chair of state. King James, on his way to take possession of his new dominions, entered London by the old gate: the new gate referred to this circumstance, with suitable quotations from Jeremiah and Samuel placed beneath the figures of the two prophets. The heads of several of the regicides were set on this gate.

October 20, 1660.—This afternoon, going through London, and calling at Crowe's, the upholsterer's, in St. Bartholomew's, I saw the limbs of some of our new traytors set upon Aldersgate, which was a sad sight to see; and a bloody week this and the last have been, there being ten hanged, drawn, and quartered."-Pepys's Diary. The gate suffered by the Great Fire, but was soon after repaired and "beautified." The whole fabric was sold, April 22, 1761, for £91, and immediately taken down. John Daye, the printer of Queen Elizabeth's time, dwelt "over Aldersgate," much in the same manner as Cave subsequently did at St. John's. One of the earliest English almanacs, "A Prognostication for the yere of our Lord, 1550," "was imprynted at London by John Daye, dwelling over Aldersgate." He also printed there The Scholemaster of Roger Ascham in 1570, and Tyndal's Works, 1572. Daye carried his works outside the gates, building "much upon the City wall, towards the parish church of St. Anne."-Seymour, Survey, p. 38. In March 1567, Foxe, the martyrologist, was living "at Mr. Daye's, over Aldersgate." John Daye was the printer of his great work.-Life, pp. 132-134. Faithorne, the en

1 Riley, Memorials, p. 11.

2 Riley, p. 388.

3 Liber Albus, p. 94.

4 Jer. xvii. 25; 1 Sam. xii. 1.

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graver, "being made prisoner at Basing House, was brought to London and confined in Aldersgate, where he resorted to his profession, and among other heads did a small one of the first Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, in the manner of Mellan."-Walpole, Catalogue of Engravers, p. 49. In the last year of its existence the rooms over the gate were appropriated as "the dwelling of the Common Crier of the City, for the time being." Among the State Papers there is mention of a cage, or prison, situated near the gate.-Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1639-1640, p. 496.

Aldersgate Bars, GOSWELL STREET, at the northern end of Aldersgate Street, formed the City boundary in that direction. In Stow's time "a pair of posts" marked the spot. The name long continued in use, but is now obsolete. The site of the old bar is marked by two granite obelisks with drinking-fountains attached.

Aldersgate (Ward of), one of the twenty-six wards of London, and so called from the old City gate of the same name, which stood across the high road, near the church of St. Botolph. [See the preceding article]. This ward is divided into two distinct portions— Aldersgate Within, and Aldersgate Without. Thus, St. Martin's-leGrand lies within the gate, and Aldersgate Street without the gate. General Boundaries. — Aldersgate Bars, Goswell Street; the General Post Office. Stow enumerates six churches in this ward-St. John Zachary; St. Mary Staining; St. Olave, in Silver Street; St. Leonard, in Foster Lane; St. Anne within Aldersgate; St. Botolph without Aldersgate. The first four were destroyed in the Great Fire, and not rebuilt the last two remain. Little Britain and Goldsmiths' Hall are in this ward. The ward-mace has a crown which unscrews to form a loving cup. [See all these names.]

Aldersgate Street, the continuation northward of St. Martin's-leGrand, extends from Aldersgate to the Barbican, south of Aldersgate Bars. The main entrance to the City from the north, and in early times famed for mansions and inns. A street "very spacious and long, and although the buildings are old and not uniform, yet many of them are very good and well-inhabited; and of the principal of them two are very large," wrote Seymour in 1736 (Survey of London, p. 771); but, he adds, "the politeness of the town is far removed from hence." Eighty years earlier it was said :

This street resembleth an Italian street more than any other in London, by reason of the spaciousness and uniformity of buildings, and straightness thereof, with the convenient distance of the houses; on both sides whereof there are divers fair ones, as Peter House, the palace now and mansion of the most noble [Henry Pierrepont] Marquess of Dorchester. Then is there the Earl of Thanet's house [Thanet House], with the Moon and Sun tavern[s], very fair structures. Then is there from about the middle of Aldersgate Street, a handsome new street [Jewin Street] butted out, and fairly built by the Company of Goldsmiths, which reacheth athwart as far as Redcross Street.-Howell's Londinopolis, 1657, p. 342.

Redehall, a house "without Aldredesgate," is mentioned in 1289

as belonging to Henry de Galeys; and in the Patent Rolls of Edward IV. a place is entered as Queen Jane's Wardrobe.1

On the east side (distinguished by a series of eight Ionic pilasters, with festoons of flowers pendent from the volutes) stood Thanet House, one of Inigo Jones's fine old mansions, the London residence of the Tuftons, Earls of Thanet. From the Tufton family it passed into the family of Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury (d. 1682-1683): hence Shaftesbury Place and Shaftesbury House, as Walpole calls it in his account of Inigo Jones. Locke, on his return from the continent, May 1679, resided for some time in the house of Lord Shaftesbury, who was then at the head of the Ministry.-Lord King, Life of John Locke, p. 86; Fox-Bourne, Life of Locke, vol. i. p. 411. Thanet House continued to be Locke's home, when in London, as long as Shaftesbury lived. On one occasion at least during Shaftesbury's occupancy of Thanet House the Duke of Monmouth was concealed in it. In 1708 it was once more in the possession of the Thanet family; in 1720 it was a handsome inn; in 1734 a tavern; in 1750, and till 1771, the London Lying-in Hospital; then as a General Dispensary,2 the first established in London, removed in 1850 to Bartholomew Close. The lower part of the building was then divided, and let as shops; part serving for the meetings of the Metropolitan Scientific Association, and Shaftesbury Upper Hall used as a girl's school. Shaftesbury House was pulled down in 1882, and Shaftesbury Hall and several shops have been built on the site.

A little higher up, on the same side, where Lauderdale Buildings stand (Nos. 58 and 59), stood Lauderdale House, the London residence of John Maitland, Duke of Lauderdale (d. 1682), one of the celebrated Cabal in the reign of Charles II. On the same side, still higher up, and two doors from Barbican, stood the Bell Inn, "of a pretty good resort for waggons with meal." From this inn, on July 14, 1618, John Taylor, the Water Poet, set out on his penniless pilgrimage to Scotland,3

At last I took my latest leave, thus late,
At the Bell Inn, that's extra Aldersgate.

Taylor's Works, 1630, p. 122.

The Hall was

On the west side, a little beyond the church of St. Botolph, Aldersgate, is Trinity Court, so called from a brotherhood of the Holy Trinity, licensed by Henry VI., suppressed by Edward VI., and first founded in 1377, as a fraternity of St. Fabian and Sebastian. standing in 1790. Higher up, on the same side, Westmoreland Buildings preserves a memory of the London residence of the Nevilles, Earls of Westmoreland, taken down about 1760, after having been long divided and let out in tenements. At the back of Rutland House Sir

1 Riley, Memorials of London, xi.

2 Hatton, p. 633; Strype's Stow, B. iii. p. 121; Ralph's Crit. Rev. Pennant.

3 Taylor, in his Carrier's Cosmographie (4to, 1637), mentions four inns in this street :-the Pea

cock; the Bell; the Three Horse Shoes; the Cock.

4 There is a view of the old Hall in Brayley's Londiniana, 4 vols. 12mo, 1829.

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