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. Suffolk Street, HAYMARKET to PALL MALL EAST; built circ. 1664,1 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."2 It was originally called "Suffolk Yard Buildings." 3 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." Fifty years later Theodore Hook, in Gilbert Gurney, writes 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. King did give it her; and he hath furnished a house in Suffolke Street most richly for her; which is a most infinite shame.-Pepys. February 15, 1668-1669.-In Suffolk Street lives Moll Davis; and we did see her coach come for her to her door, a mighty pretty fine coach.-Pepys. Thomas Stanley, the editor of Eschylus; he died at his lodgings in this street in 1678, and was buried in the adjoining churchyard of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. Sir John Coventry, who was on his way. to his own house in Suffolk Street, from the Cock Tavern in Bow Street, where he had supped,1 when his nose was cut to the bone at the corner of the street "for reflecting on the King." A motion had been made in the House of Commons to lay a tax on playhouses. The Court opposed the motion. The players, it was said (by Sir John Birkenhead), were the King's servants, and a part of his pleasure. Coventry asked, "Whether did the King's pleasure lie among the men or the women that acted ?"-perhaps recollecting more particularly the King's visits to Moll Davis in the street he himself lived in. The King determined to leave a mark upon Sir John Coventry, who was watched on his way home. "He stood up to the wall," says Burnet, "and snatched the flambeau out of the servant's hands; and with that in one hand, and his sword in the other, he defended himself so well, that he got more credit by it than by all the actions of his life. He wounded some of them, but was soon disarmed, and then they cut his nose to the bone, to teach him to remember what respect he owed to the King." 2 Burnet adds that his nose was so well sewed up that the scar was scarce to be discerned. The famous " Coventry Act," against cutting and maiming, had its origin in this piece of barbarous revenge. Sir Philip Howard and the Earl of Suffolk; the former from 1665 to 1672; the latter from 1666. Henry Coventry (Mr. Secretary Coventry), from 1669 to 1686. Coventry Street derives its name from this Mr. Secretary Coventry. Sir Edward Spragg, one of the Admirals of the Dutch war under Charles II. Dean Swift, on July 6, 1711, took lodgings here, five doors from Mrs. Vanhomrigh, the mother of Vanessa. During the previous two months he had been living at Chelsea for his health, but kept his gown and periwig at Mrs. Vanhomrigh's for paying visits. Swift left Suffolk Street in October for a lodging by Leicester Fields. In his "Cadenus and Vanessa " he gives a lively picture of a morning reception in Vanessa's apartment, where Vanessa held Montaigne and read, While Mrs. Susan combed her head. Horace Walpole writes to Conway, September 9, 1762, "By this time I suppose the Duke de Nivernois is unpacking his portion of olive dans la rue de Suffolk Street." At this time the Venetian ambassador resided in Suffolk Street, and, as Dodsley notes, had a Popish Chapel in his house. Samuel Foote was living in Suffolk Street when young Holcroft found him at breakfast in 1770; and here his body was brought after his death at Dover in 1777. James Barry, R.A., at No. 29, between the years 1773 and 1776. 1 Marvell's Letters. 2 Burnet, ed. 1823, vol. i. p. 468. L L L し James Barry, member of the Royal Academy and of the Clementini Academy of Bologna, informs such of the young nobility and gentry as may be desirous of forming a taste for the Arts, and a knowledge and practice of drawing, that he will wait upon such as will honour him with their commands, and give lessons twice a week at three guineas per month. He continues his business as usual in Suffolk Street, No. 29, Haymarket, where he is to be met with Mondays and Tuesdays excepted. -Public Advertiser, June 4, 1774; Gentleman's Magazine, August 1834. George Frederick Cooke was living at No. 38 in September 1803. Lord Winchilsea was living at No. 7 when challenged in 1829 by the Duke of Wellington. Richard Cobden, the Apostle of Free Trade, died "at his lodgings in Suffolk Street," April 2, 1865, aged sixty. The house of Edward Cresy, architect, was designed by him in imitation of Andrea Palladio's at Vicenza. Suffolk Street, MIDDLESEX HOSPITAL-the first turning west of the hospital, now called Nassau Street. Major Rennell, the celebrated geographer, was living at No. 23 in this street in 1792. Suffolk Street, SOUTHWARK, was so called after Suffolk House, afterwards called Southwark Place. [See Suffolk House, Southwark.] The last barber who extracted teeth in London (the last of the barbersurgeons) lived in this street, and died here about the year 1824. This thoroughfare is now called Little Suffolk Street. The present Great Suffolk Street is set down as Dirty Lane in the Map of 1720, and is one of ten enjoying that distinction in Dodsley's London, 1761. The Post Office Directory recognises no Dirty Lane in 1890. Suffolk Street Gallery. [See Artists (Society of British).] Sugar Loaf Alley, now SUGAR LOAF COURT, on the south side of Leadenhall Street, near Aldgate, to Fenchurch Buildings. Then have ye an alley called Sprinckle Alley, now named Sugarloafe Alley of the like sign.-Stow, p. 52. Sun Fire and Life Office, No. 63 THREADNEEDLE STREET, the corner of Bartholomew Lane and opposite the Bank and Royal Exchange. The building was erected 1842 from the designs of C. R. Cockerell, R.A., at a cost of about £18,500, and stands partly on the site of the old church of St. Bartholomew by the Exchange. This, the third office for the insurance of houses from fire established in this country, was projected by John Povey in 1706. The poet Pope held thirty-one shares in this office, for which he paid £1011: 75. It deserves to be recorded that a well-known and useful work, The Historical Register, was published by the Sun Fire Office between the years 1714 and 1738, "to save their subscribers the expense of taking in a newspaper." Sun Tavern, FISH STREET HILL (west side), was in existence in Pepys's days and noted then as a dining-house. December 22, 1660.-Went to the Sunne Taverne on Fish Street Hill to a Dinner of Captain Teddiman's, where was my Lord Inchiquin, Sir W. Penn, etc., and other good company, where we had a very fine dinner, good musique, and a great deal of wine. I very merry. Went to bed my head aching all night.--Pepys. |