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Cowley Street, WESTMINSTER. [See Barton Street.]

✓ Cowper's Court, CORNHILL, was so called from Sir William Cowper, Bart., of the time of James I.; a large householder in the parish of St. Michael, Cornhill. [See Jerusalem Coffee - house.] Beneath Cowper's Court are extensive vaults, which reached on the one hand under the pavement of Cornhill, and on the other under Birchin Lane, but of late years in forming the foundations of some large blocks of offices the vaults have been much encroached on. For a long series of years they served as the wine cellars of the Jerusalem Coffee-house. Traditionally these cellars are said to be the vaults and underground passages of Sir William Cowper's house.

Craig's Court, CHARING CROSs (east side), properly Craggs's Court; built in 1702, and so called, it is said, after the father of Secretary Craggs, the friend of Pope, Addison, etc. There was, however, a James Cragg, or Craig, living on the "Waterside," in the Charing Cross division of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, in the year 1658; and on November 17, 1699, "Joseph Craig, Esq.," was elected a vestryman of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. The Sun Fire Office was established in this court in 1726. The Westminster Paving Act of 1762 (our first great metropolitan street reform) was hastened through the House by an accident which happened to Speaker Onslow's carriage in passing through the narrow entrance to Craig's Court. No. I was Cox and Greenwood, the largest army agency office in Great Britain. The firm (now Cox and Co.) has removed to new premises, 16 Charing Cross. The west-end office of Woodfall, the printer of the Public Advertiser and of the Letters of Junius, was at the corner of Craig's Court.

As soon as you receive the enclosed Advertisement pray carry it yourself to G. Woodfall, printer, next Craig's Court, Charing Cross, and have it put into the Public Advertiser to-morrow. Be so good as not to mention it to any mortal, and take care he does not know you nor suspect that you are a friend of mine.-Horace Walpole to Grosvenor Bedford (no date), Letters, vol. ix. p. 496.

The notorious Teresa Constantia Philips was living in Craig's Court when she published her Memoirs, 1748-1749; and here (1763) George Romney, the painter, had his first London residence.1

The Society of Arts met in Craig's Court in 1755.

Cranbourne Alley or Street, LEICESTER SQUARE, a paved thoroughfare for foot-passengers begun 1678, and leading from Castle. Street to the north-east corner of Leicester Square. Properly speaking the name of alley or passage was confined to the small portion which led into Little Newport Street, but in practice the whole was regarded as the Alley.

Cranbourn Alley has experienced the same elevation; and any one who should chance to call it otherwise than Cranbourn Street would risk something more than abuse from the ladies of the needle and sons of the gentle craft resident there.Captain Grose, Essay, p. xvii.

1 Edwards's Anecdotes of Painting, p. 276.

470

CRANBOURNE ALLEY OR STREET

The name was derived from the Cecils, Earls of Salisbury, and Viscounts Cranbourne of Cranbourne, in the county of Dorset. It was long famous for its cheap straw bonnets and millinery goods of every description, so that "a Cranbourne Alley article" became a common name for what was both cheap and vulgar. But earlier it was a mart for clothes of all kinds. In 1788, when Lady Augusta Campbell (daughter of Elizabeth Gunning, Duchess of Hamilton and Argyll) eloped with Mr. Clavering, the Auckland Correspondence (vol. i. p. 464) informs us that "the lover had been the day before to Cranbourne Alley, and had procured every kind of female dress necessary for Lady Augusta."

How many a modish well-dressed fop you meet,
Exactly suits his shape in Monmouth Street;
In Yorkshire warehouses and Cranbourne Alley

'Tis wonderful how shoes and feet will tally.

George Colman's Prologue to the Capuchin, 1776.

In one of his most amusing pieces Thomas Moore the poet took the Lord Chancellor (Eldon) into this well-known Alley.

For instance I, one evening late,

Upon a gay vacation sally,

Singing the praise of Church and State

Got (God knows how) to Cranbourne Alley.
Horace, Ode xxii. Lib. i.

Freely translated by Lord E.

At the "Golden Angel, in Cranbourne Street, Leicester Fields," lived Ellis Gamble, the goldsmith, to whom Hogarth was apprenticed, to learn the art of silver-plate engraving. A shop bill engraved for Gamble by his eminent apprentice is greatly coveted by the collectors of Hogarth's works, and fine impressions fetch extraordinary prices. Fuseli, the painter, on his first arrival in England, at the close of 1763, "took lodgings at the house of a Mrs. Green, in Cranbourne Street, then called Cranbourn Alley. He lived here from prudential motives-those of economy,' "1 and also that he might be near to the house of Mr. Coutts, the banker, to whom he had been introduced, and who then resided in St. Martin's Lane.

November 3, 1764.—His Grace of Kingston has taken a pretty milliner from Cranbourne Alley, and carried her to Thoresby. Miss Chudleigh, at the Princess's birthday on Friday, beat her side till she could not help having a real pain in it, that people might inquire what was the matter.—Walpole to Lord Hertford (Letters, vol. iv. p. 298).

Gray gives an odd picture of himself and Bishop Hervey in Cranbourne Alley:

I have seen His Lordship of Cloyne often. He is very jolly, and we devoured five raspberry puffs together in Cranbourne Alley, standing at a pastry-cook's shop in the street.-Gray to Rev. J. Brown, June 6, 1767.

In December, 1843, the whole south side of Cranbourne Alley was taken down, the street widened, and thrown into the new carriageway to join Coventry Street to Long Acre. Ryder's Court on the 1 Knowles, Life of Fuseli, prefixed to his Works, vol. i. p. 30.

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north side was so called after Richard Ryder, Esq., one of the first inhabitants of Cranbourne Street.

I believe I know exactly where Paradise is situated! "Where?" asked some one shortly and in a tone which seemed to imply, "What can you know about the matter?" I answered, "It is certainly in Cranbourne Alley; for there so many pretty faces may be seen flitting about the bonnet-shops on a fine day, that it is impossible to believe that Paradise can be anywhere else."-T. Jefferson Hogg's Life of Shelley, 1858, vol. ii. pp. 272, 273.

Crane Court, FLEET STREET, originally Two Crane Court, the first court on the north side of Fleet Street, east of Fetter Lane.

Two Crane Court, a very handsome open place, with freestone pavement, and graced with good buildings, well inhabited by persons of repute, the front house being larger than the rest, and ascended up by large stone steps, late inhabited by Dr. Edward Browne, an eminent physician. Here is kept the Museum of the Royal Society.-Strype, B. iii. p. 277.

On Thursday met the grave resort of Spider Merchants in Crane Court.Cawthorn.

The court has no thoroughfare. Dr. Edward Browne, who lived in the large house at the end of the court, was president of the College of Physicians (d. 1708), and son of Sir Thomas Browne, author of Religio Medici and Vulgar Errors. This house was purchased in 1710 by the Royal Society for £1450, on the motion of their President, Sir Isaac Newton. Here the Society held its meetings for seventy years, when apartments having been granted them in the newly-erected Somerset House, they removed there. The first meeting of the Society in Crane Court was held November 8, 1710; the first meeting in Somerset House, November 30, 1780. "On the meetingnights a lamp was hung out over the entrance to the court from Fleet Street."1 Later, the house was rented by the Philosophical Society, and in the great room Coleridge delivered his course of twelve Lectures on Shakespeare, beginning the course on November 18, 1819. It afterwards became the office of the Scottish Corporation [see that heading], but, though many alterations were necessarily made in the house, the great room was reverently preserved exactly as when Newton presided in it till the destruction of the building by fire, November 14, 1877.2 A new building has been erected on the site from the design of Mr. Thomas L. Donaldson, architect. The philosophers, whilst in Crane Court, were often aimed at by the wits.

"Pray, Mr. Stanhope, what's the news in town?"

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Heroic Postscript to the Heroic Epistle. The first meetings of the Society of Arts were held in a circulating library in this court (1754).

Cranley Place, ONSLOW SQUARE, is named after the second title of the Earl of Onslow.

Craven Buildings, DRURY LANE, on the site of Craven House. [See the next article.] Dr. Arne, the musical composer, lived at No. "The Musick of the Masque of Comus" has on the title-page, "sold by the author at his house, No. 17 in Craven Buildings, Drury Lane."

17.

Craven House, DRURY LANE, in the parish of St. Clement's Danes, the town house of William, first Earl of Craven, who died here in 1697. He is said to have been married to the Queen of Bohemia, daughter of James I., and mother of Prince Rupert. In 1661, when she came to England after her nephew's restoration, she was lodged at Craven House for about six months. It was a five-storey house, with eleven small windows on each storey, intersected by Doric and Ionic pilasters.

The entrance is through a pair of gates, which leadeth into a large yard for the reception of coaches, and on the backside is a handsome garden.—Strype, B. iv. P. 118.

On the wall at the bottom of Craven Buildings there was formerly a fresco painting of the Earl of Craven, who was represented in armour, mounted on a charger, and with a truncheon in his hand. This portrait was twice or thrice repainted in oil, but is now entirely obliterated.-Brayley's Londiniana, vol. iv. p. 301.1

Craven House was taken down in 1809.2 The cellars still remain, though blocked up. [See Craven Buildings; Drury House; and the Olympic Theatre.]

Craven Hill, BAYSWATER, named after Lord Craven, who gave a field on his estate as a burial-place for those who died of the plague. The Pest House Estate consists of Nos. 14, 16, 18, 20, 22 Craven Hill, 6 to 12 Craven Mews, 30 to 43 Craven Hill Gardens, and Craven Hill Lodge.

Craven Street, STRAND, originally Spur Alley, and called Craven Street for the first time in 1742.3 The corner houses in the Strand 1 It was painted by Paul van Somer, the younger, and engraved by J. T. Smith.

2 There are views of it in Wilkinson and in J. T. Smith.

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

were taken down in 1860 and rebuilt; and in 1876 Craven Street was opened to the Thames Embankment.

Eminent Inhabitants.—Grinling Gibbons, the celebrated carver in wood, was supposed to have been born in this street, then called Spur Alley; it appears, however, from his sister's statement, in the Ashmole MSS., that he was born at Rotterdam. Benjamin Franklin, the philosopher of the New World, at No. 7, the house of Mrs. Margaret Stevenson, during the whole of his eighteen years' residence in London as agent for the House of Assembly, Philadelphia and other provinces. Lord Chatham visited him here, February 1775, and, writes Franklin, "he stayed with me near two hours, his equipage waiting at the door." 1 The house is on the right from the Strand. Rev. Mr. Hackman, who shot Miss Ray. Sir Joshua Reynolds enters in his Note-Book, January 22, 1761, an engagement with "Akenside, Craven Street." The poet did not reside here much more than a year. Heinrich Heine lodged at No. 32 Craven Street during his only visit to England, April 23 to August 8, 1827. James Smith, one of the authors of the Rejected Addresses, at No. 27; he died here, December 24, 1839.

In Craven Street, Strand, ten attorneys find place,
And ten dark coal-barges are moor'd at its base;
Fly, Honesty, fly! seek some safer retreat,

For there's craft in the river, and craft in the street.

James Smith, Comic Misc., vol. ii. p. 186. Why should Honesty fly to some safer retreat,

From attorneys and barges, 'od rot 'em?—

For the lawyers are just at the top of the street,

And the barges are just at the bottom.-SIR GEORGE ROSE.

Cree Church Lane, ALDGATE. [See St. Catherine Cree Church.] Creed Lane, LUDGATE HILL to Carter Lane, originally Spurriers' Row, from spurriers, or spur-makers, dwelling there; but called Creed Lane for the first time in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, from the textwriters, its next inhabitants, "who wrote and sold all sorts of books then in use, namely, A B C, with the Pater Noster, Ave, Creed, Graces, etc."2 The first edition of Spenser's Shepheardes Calender was "printed and sold by Hugh Singleton, dwelling at the Signe of the Gylden Tunne, in Creede Lane, neere unto Ludgate." James Stuart, the artist and architect, author of the Antiquities of Athens, was born in Creed Lane, 1713.

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Cremorne Gardens, CHELSEA, a popular place of entertainment on the Thames side, a short distance west of Battersea Bridge. The house was built by Theophilus, Earl of Huntingdon, and afterwards belonged successively to Lord Powerscourt, the Countess Dowager of Exeter, Sir Richard Littleton, the Duke of Bridgwater, and Lord Cremorne,3 who spent a large sum on the house, placed in it a fine collection of pictures, and greatly improved the grounds, and whose

1 Bigelow's Franklin, vol. ii. p. 303.

2 Stow, pp. 126, 127.

3 Lysons, vol. ii. p. 60. In Fussell's Journey

round the Coast of Kent, 1818, p. 13, reference is made to "the weeping willows in Lord Cremorne's garden."

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