April 18, 1783.—Mrs. Burney wondered that some very beautiful new buildings should be erected in Moorfields, in so shocking a situation as between Bedlam and St. Luke's Hospital; and said she could not live there. Johnson. Nay, Madam, you see nothing there to hurt you. You no more think of madness by having windows that look to Bedlam, than you think of death by having windows that look to a churchyard. . . . I think a very moral use may be made of these new buildings; I would have those who have heated imaginations live there, and take warning.-Croker's Boswell, p. 72. Walker, in his Original (No. 19, September 23, 1835), says that Finsbury Square was the first public place lighted with gas. A row of lamps had been previously displayed, as an experiment, in the Colonnade in front of Carlton House. Fish Street (Old), Ward of Queenhithe, is described in 1708 as "a considerable and pleasant street between Bread Street east and Old 'Change west."1 The eastern portion of Old Fish Street was swept away in forming Queen Victoria Street, and the remainder absorbed in Knight-Rider Street. The Church of St. Mary Magdalen on the north, and that of St. Nicholas, Cole Abbey, on the south side of KnightRider Street, were both in Old Fish Street before the name was changed. In this Old Fish Street is one row of small houses, placed along in the midst of Knightrider's Street, which row is also of Bread Street Ward. These houses, now possessed by fishmongers, were at the first but moveable boards or stalls, set out on market-days, to show their fish there to be sold; but procuring license to set up sheds, they grew to shops, and by little and little to tall houses of three or four stories in height, and now are called Fish Street.—Stow, p. 129. Old Fish Street was very early one of the chief centres of the fish trade in London, Old Fish Street and Old Fish Street Hill, which runs from it to the Thames, with Queenhithe as their landing-quay, forming the western fish-market of London before Billingsgate supplanted Queenhithe and became the only fish-market. In the Statutes and Ordinance of the Fishmongers, 8 Edward I. (1280), it is provided that in respect of penalties for certain fraudulent proceedings, as the "dubbing" of baskets, etc., "this matter is to be cried at London Bridge, and in Eldefistrate [Old Fish Street], and elsewhere in the City. where need shall be." There are to be two Hallmotes of fishmongers in the year for the recapitulating and amending the laws of the trade; the one against the Feast of St. Martin, and the other against Lent; "to which Hallmote shall come all the fishmongers who belong to the hallmote of the one fishmongery and the other., . . . And one Hallmote shall be holden at the Bridge and the other at Westfistrete, and all shall come to the one Hallmote and the other," and any making default "shall give 21 pence without release of aught or any pardon being granted."2 Old Fish Street was noted for its taverns. There is a tavern token of the King's Head in Old Fish Street with the head of Henry VII. upon it, and in the Beaufoy Collection, Guildhall, is a similar token of the Will Somers Tavern, in Old Fish Street, with the 1 Hatton, p. 60. 2 Liber Albus, p. 327. figure of Will Somers, Henry VIII.'s jester, upon it. Another tavern in this street had the head of Cardinal Wolsey for its sign. He [Wolsey] had a very stately cellar for his wines, about Fish Street, called Cardinal Wolsey's cellar.-Aubrey's Lives, vol. iii. p. 588. The Bore's Head and the Swan, Old Fish Street, are among the taverns commemorated in Newes from Bartholomew Fayre for their great sale and utterance of wine, Besides beere and ale, and ippocrass fine. Of both these taverns there are tokens in the Beaufoy Collection. Tavern tokens were issued in the reign of Charles I., and not later than the reign of Charles II. In course of time the Old Fish Street Taverns became celebrated, as Billingsgate taverns were subsequently, for their fish dinners. Sir Lancelot. Let's meet at the King's Head in Fish Street. Oliver. No, fie man, no, let's meet at the Rose at Temple Bar.-London Prodigal, 1605, Act ii. Sc. 4. August 6, 1666.-Sent for a coach, and went with them [Mr. and Mrs. Pierce and Mrs. Knipp]; and in our way Knipp saying that she come out of doors without a dinner to us, I took them to Old Fish Streete, to the very house and woman where I kept my wedding-dinner, where I never was since, and there I did give them a jole of salmon, and what else was to be had.-Pepys. Locke the philosopher, in his Directions to a Foreigner visiting London, 1699, advises him to "Eat fish in Fish Street, especially lobsters, Colchester oysters, and a fresh cod's head."1 Old Fish Street, before its destruction in the Great Fire, was very narrow, but was rebuilt on somewhat better lines. Oh! the goodly landscape of Old Fish Street! which, if it had not the ill-luck to be crooked, was narrow enough to have been your founder's perspective; and where the garrets, perhaps not for want of architecture, but through abundance of amity, are so narrow, that opposite neighbours may shake hands without stirring from home.— Sir William Davenant. Fish Street Hill, sometimes called New Fish Street,2 runs from East Cheap to Lower Thames Street, and was the main thoroughfare to old London Bridge. Cade. Up Fish Street! down St. Magnus' corner! kill and knock down! throw them into Thames.-Shakespeare, second part of King Henry VI. King's Head Court, a little below the monument, marks the site of the King's Head Tavern, haunted by roysterers, and famous for its wine. The black-letter tract, called Newes from Bartholomew Fayre, mentions the "King's Head in New Fish Street where roysters do range." (See also the Household Expenses of Sir John Howard under the years 1463 and 1464.) Here was the Inn of the Bishops of Hereford. [See St. Mary Mounthaunt.] The inn was repaired at great cost by Bishop Booth 1 Lord King's Life of John Locke, p. 134. 2 Hatton's New View, p. 59. 3 Ben Jonson's Magnetic Lady (Gifford, vol. vi. p. 67). (d 1535).1 Bell Yard (so called from the Black Bell described by Stow in the following extract) stood over against the monument, and was taken down to allow of the new London Bridge improvements. Above Crooked Lane end, upon Fish Street Hill, is one great house for the most part built of stone, which pertained some time to Edward the Black Prince, son of Edward III., who was in his lifetime lodged there. It is now altered to a common hostelry, having the Black Bell for a sign.—Stow, p. 81. Before it was destroyed in the Great Fire, Fish Street Hill was inconveniently and even dangerously steep, but the gradient was much improved when it was reconstructed. ... November 15, 1661.-To the Opera. And so by coach home, and the coach driving down the hill through Thames Street (which I think never any coach did before from that place to the Bridge-foot), but going up Fish Street Hill, his horses were so tired that they could not be got to go up the hill, though all the street boys and men did beat and whip them. At last I was fain to send my boy for a linke, and so light out of the coach till we got to another at the corner of Fenchurch Street, and so home.-Pepys. August 22, 1668.-To the 'Change, and thence home, and took London Bridge in my way; walking down Fish Street and Gracious Street, to see how very fine a descent they have now made down the Hill, that it is become very easy and pleasant. -Pepys. Distinguished by the Church of St. Magnus (one of Wren's architectural glories), the Monument (another of his works), and the churchyard of St. Leonard, Eastcheap, a church destroyed in the Great Fire, and not rebuilt. As befits its name, Fish Street Hill has, especially in the lower part, "a very ancient and fish-like smell." Writing from Paris, Campbell the poet describes his lodgings as "in a street which makes me long for the silence of the Strand, and the smell of Fish Street Hill." 2 Fisher's Folly, DEVONSHIRE SQUARE, BISHOPSGATE STREET. A large and beautiful house, with gardens of pleasure, bowling alleys, and such like, built by Jasper Fisher, free of the goldsmiths, late one of the six clerks of the Chauncerie, and a Justice of the Peace. It hath since for a time been the Earl of Oxford's place. The Queen's Majesty Elizabeth hath lodged there. It now belongeth to Sir Roger Manars. This house being so large and sumptuous, built by a man of no greater calling, possessions, or wealth (for he was indebted to many), was mockingly called Fisher's Folly, and a rhythm was made of it, and other the like in this manner : Kirkebye's castell, and Fisher's Follie, Spinila's pleasure, and Megse's glorie.—Stow, p. 62. In the reign of James I. it had become the property first of the Campbells and then of the Hamiltons. January 10, 1615.-The Lord of Argyle's house, called Fisher's Folly, offered to the E. I. Company-held unfit for their service.—Cal. E. Indies, p. 368. March 1625.-Marquis Hamilton is dead of a pestilent fever. His body was carried with much company and torchlights to Fisher's Folly, his house without Bishopsgate, thence to go to Scotland.-Cal. State Pap., 1623-1625, p. 497. 1 Cooper, Ath. Cant., vol. i. p. 52. 2 Beattie, Life and Letters of Thomas Campbell, vol. ii. p. 257. November 1660.-The King [Charles II.], Queen, Duke of York, and the rest of the royal family, supped at Fisher's Folly at the old Countess of Devonshire's. — Addit. MSS., 10116. In a broadside ballad of 1660 entitled, "The Entertainment of the Lady Monk at Fisher's Folly," occur these lines : Y'are a welcome Guest Unto our board, whose presence makes us jolly, So called from the Founder, a lackwit Who built the house, but could not finish it. Our George [Monk] a greater work hath well begun And scorns to leave it till its thoroughly done. During the Civil Wars it was converted into a Presbyterian and Baptist Meeting-house. Butler describes the Rump Parliament as a kind of "Fisher's Folly Congregation": In 1670 it was seized upon under the "Act for the Suppression of Conventicles," and was one of the places "appointed to be used every Lord's day for the celebration of divine worship by approved orthodox ministers appointed by the Bishop of London." In a few years it reverted to its former owners, and it continued to be used as a Baptist Chapel till 1870, when the congregation migrated to a new chapel at Stoke-Newington, the building in Devonshire Square having been purchased by the Metropolitan Railway Company. [See Devonshire Square.] Fishmongers' Hall, a large semi-classical edifice, which not unworthily occupies a commanding position at the north-west angle of London Bridge; the hall of the fourth on the list of the Twelve Great Companies, erected 1831-1833, from the designs of Henry Roberts, near the site of the old hall built after the Great Fire by Edward Jerman, the City surveyor. The original hall of the Company had been the mansion of Lord Fanhope, but was at different times added to and altered to suit the Company's requirements. It was entirely destroyed in the Great Fire. Jerman's hall is the scene of Plate VIII. of Hogarth's "Industry and Idleness." The chief feature of the interior of the present building is the banqueting hall, a superb room, 73 feet long, 38 wide, and 33 high, and very richly decorated. The Court Drawing Room is 40 feet by 25 feet, and the Court Dining Room 43 feet by 30 feet, and 20 feet high. Fishmongers' dinners are among the most famous of the City banquets. Often they have been the occasion of great oratorical displays, and sometimes it is reported of equally great failures. Erskine, though so brilliant at the bar and in the House, was not a good afterdinner speaker. On one occasion at Fishmongers' Hall he made such sad work of a speech that Jekyll asked him if it was in honour of the Company that he floundered so. The earliest extant charter of the Company is a patent of the 37th of Edw. III. (1364); while the acting Charter of Incorporation is dated 2d of James I. (1604). Besides the Fishmongers' Company there was a Company of Stock-fishmongers, incorporated by a charter of 24 Henry VII. Thames Street was known as "Stock-Fishmonger Row," and the old Fish Market of London was "above bridge," in what is now called Old Fish Street Hill, in the ward of Queenhithe, not as now "below bridge," in Thames Street in the ward of Billingsgate. The two companies were definitely united by a Charter of Incorporation, 27 Henry VIII. (1537). The Company is divided into liverymen (about 450 in number) and freemen. The ruling body consists of thirty-fourthe prime warden, five wardens, and twenty-eight assistants. The freedom is obtained by patrimony, servitude, redemption (for defective service) or gift. The fees for taking up the freedom of Company are : by patrimony or servitude, £1: 135.; redemption, £113:10:6; upon admission to livery, £31: 15s.; election to the Court, £33: 125. The Company is well endowed and wealthy, and expends large sums annually in the relief of poor members, the support of almshouses and schools, exhibitions to Oxford and Cambridge, loans of from £50 to £300 to young freemen, and general benevolent purposes. Eminent Members.-Sir William Walworth, who slew Wat Tyler; Isaac Pennington, the turbulent Lord Mayor (1643) of the Civil War; Doggett, the comedian, who (1721) bequeathed a sum of money for the purchase of a "coat and badge" to be rowed for every 1st of August from the Swan at London Bridge to the Swan at Chelsea, in remembrance of George I.'s accession to the throne. Observe.-A funeral pall or hearse-cloth of the age of Henry VIII., very fine, and carefully engraved by Shaw; original drawing of a portion of the pageant exhibited by the Fishmongers' Company, October 29, 1616, on the occasion of Sir John Leman, a member of the Company, entering on the office of Lord Mayor of the City of London; statue of Sir William Walworth, by Edward Pierce; portraits of William III. and Queen, by Murray; George II. and Queen, by Shackleton; Duke of Kent, by Beechey; Earl St. Vincent (the Admiral), by Beechey; and Queen Victoria, by Herbert Smith. Fitchett's Court, on the east side of NOBLE STREET, City. Fitche's Court, a good handsome broad place, with a free-stone pavement; hath pretty good houses, with inhabitants answerable. At the upper end is an old timberhouse, where formerly Tichborn, sometime Alderman and Lord Mayor, dwelt. This house strangely escaped burning in the dreadful Fire of London, when all the houses round about it were quite consumed.-Strype's Stow, B. iii. p. 121. Fitzroy Square, between Charlotte Street and the Euston Road, is one of the smaller squares, being about 4 acres in area, and was VOL. II E |