GROUP V
We come next to those streets which run north and south of Thames Street. The area is bounded on the north by Ludgate Hill, St. Paul’s Churchyard, Cannon Street, and Fenchurch Street; on the south by the Thames; on the east by Tower Hill and the site of London Wall; and on the west by the bed of the Fleet River, now New Bridge Street. For the sake of convenience we will begin at the west end.
The wall of the City originally crossed Ludgate Hill at the gate, and ran down nearly in a straight line to the river. The Castle or Tower of Montfichet was in the middle of this piece of wall, and Baynard’s Castle was at the south end of it. The Tower of Montfichet passed into the Fitzwalter family, who also owned the soke beside it. Now, when the first enmity broke out between John and Fitzwalter, all the castles and houses of the latter were dismantled and destroyed by the King’s command. In 1276 the Dominicans begged permission to occupy a piece of ground lying between the wall and the river Fleet. Lord Fitzwalter gave the Friars the site of Castle Baynard and of Montfichet. They also obtained permission to pull down the town wall at this place, and to rebuild it farther west, so as to include their ground. Here the Black Friars settled and built great buildings, and claimed the right of sanctuary. Westward of the Black Friars was the house of the Carmelites, called the White Friars. They claimed right of sanctuary also, a right which descended to a haunt of rogues, called Alsatia, an account of which may be read in The Fortunes of Nigel:
“The ancient sanctuary at Whitefriars lay considerably lower than the elevated terraces and gardens of the Temple, and was therefore generally involved in the fogs and damps of the Thames. The brick buildings by which it was occupied crowded closely on each other.... The wailing of children, the scolding of their mothers, the miserable exhibition of ragged linens hung from the windows to dry, spoke the wants and distresses of the wretched inhabitants; while the sounds of complaint were mocked and overwhelmed in the riotous shouts, oaths, profane songs, and boisterous laughter that issued from the alehouses and taverns, which, as the signs indicated, were equal in number to all the other houses.”
Where is now Bridge Street was formerly the Fleet River, and on its western bank was Bridewell Palace, a palace where the Norman kings held Court.
The old palace, burnt down in the Great Fire, was built round two courtyards; in its later days rebuilt, it followed the frequent fate of such ancient monuments, and became partly a “hospital” for poor boys, partly a prison for vagrants and other unwanted persons. It was also a hospital for lunatics, and was put under the same management as Bethlehem in 1557. Bridewell is also fully described in London in the Eighteenth Century. The part of London bounded north and south by Fleet Street and the River, east and west by New Bridge Street and the Temple, is now almost entirely occupied by mammoth printing-offices; yet on the Embankment are one or two buildings of note: Sion College, opened here in 1886 to supersede the old building on London Wall; the Guildhall School of Music; the City of London School for Girls (all modern).
After Blackfriars Bridge, running behind the line of wharves and warehouses, begins Thames Street, Upper and Lower, once one of the principal thoroughfares in London, a London that knew nothing of what is now called the “West End.” It is now a noisy street “pestered” with drays and vans, with cranes and their accompaniments, so that to walk therein in work-hours is a perilous proceeding.
Yet this ancient street, Thames Street, is, not even excepting West Chepe, the most interesting and the most venerable of all the streets of London. It is the seat of the export and the import trade. From Thames Street the City sent abroad the products of the country—the iron, the wool, the skins and hides; from Thames Street the City distributed the imports to the various parts of the country.
Off the wharves of Thames Street lay the shops of all the nations of Western Europe. In the narrow lanes leading down to the stairs between the quays lived the seafaring folk and those who worked for them, and those who worked for the merchants.
London at one time was roughly divided into belts of population. The first belt is that of the Service. It consists of the foreshore between Thames Street and the river, with the lanes and houses upon it. The second is that of the Merchants, between Thames Street and the Markets of West and East Chepe. The third is that of the Markets. The fourth that of the Industries between the Markets and the Wall.
As to the first: The Wall of London, when it was first erected, was carried along the river from the south-west angle to the Walbrook. Beyond the Walbrook the south wall of the Roman fortress formed a river-wall, which was continued as far as the south-east angle.
Beyond that stream the south wall of the Roman fort was allowed to remain as the river-side wall of the City, when all the rest of the Roman buildings, temples, public edifices, tombs, and villas were ruthlessly pulled down to build the wall towards the end of the fourth century.
Now, the wall between the south-west angle and the Walbrook ran along the middle of Thames Street. At the time of its construction there were, therefore, no buildings between the wall and the river. It was built about the middle of the bank, which sloped to the river below, with a narrow stretch of mud at low tide; and above it rose on the hill which still exists, to the higher ground on which the City stood. The breadth of the foreshore varied, but, of course, it was not very great. The first break in the wall was that which allowed for the waters of the Walbrook. Here there was the first port—the Roman port. It may have been the only port, unless, in their haste to complete the wall, which was undoubtedly built under the pressure of panic, the builders deliberately excluded other ports. In that case there may have been many, for nothing was easier than to make a small port, such as the two which still remain of Billingsgate and Queenhithe. A small square space was dug in the mud and shingle of the foreshore. It was maintained by piles placed close together along the three sides of the square, leaving the fourth side open for the ships. Other piles furnished support for wharves and quays.
It is therefore quite possible that there may have been other such ports. Puddle Dock may have been one. In the absence of any evidence which might lead one even to form a conjecture, we may believe that Queenhithe, originally Edred’s hithe, was of later, or Saxon, construction; while Billingsgate, close to London Bridge and Bridge Gate, was probably still earlier.
What happened, therefore, was this: On the increase of trade, when London was again settled in the sixth century, wharves and quays began to be pushed out on piles upon the foreshore of Billingsgate and Walbrook, or afterwards at other places, when a break in the wall allowed access to the City. When Queenhithe was constructed as an additional port, another break was needed in the wall, and wharves and quays were built along this part of the foreshore as well. The erection of the wharf on piles was speedily followed by the erection of tenements for the people between the wharf and the wall on the bank. The wharf extended laterally; the houses grew up laterally with the wharf; the wharf was pushed out farther upon the mud of the low tide; the wall was broken into here and there at intervals, continually growing less in length. These breaks are marked, possibly, by the ancient stairs, such as those of Paul’s Wharf and Trig Stairs.
In a word, the whole of the first belt, that of the Service, is later than the Roman wall. It belongs, therefore, to the Saxon period, and in great part, perhaps, to the early Norman times. It seems likely that, if the riverside wall had been pierced or broken in parts, the Danish and Norwegian besiegers would have attacked the City at those vulnerable points. A narrow stream, such as Walbrook, with wharves on either side, could be easily defended by chains drawn across; but a dozen places where the wall was broken—and there was nothing to defend it except wooden wharves and wooden huts—would have been difficult to defend.
BLACKFRIARS BRIDGE, 1796
Thames Street in later times, when the wall had disappeared, became the most crowded, the most busy part of the City. Its south side was wholly occupied by wharves, warehouses, and the dwellings of the working people, the Service of the port. On the north side and in the streets rising up the hill were the houses of the merchants and the better class—the second belt of the City. Here stood the townhouses of the nobles among the equally stately houses of the merchants. Here kings were entertained by the mayors and aldermen. The great number of churches shows not only the crowded condition of this part, but also the wealth of the merchants by whom the churches were founded, rebuilt, adorned, and endowed.
The breadth of the foreshore as at present built upon varies from 150 feet at its narrowest, which is at the western end, to 450 feet at its broadest, which is on either side of the Walbrook. The modern breadth, however, must not be taken to represent the breadth in the twelfth century. The excavations for London Bridge in 1831 disclosed three distinct lines of piles, representing three several occasions when the foreshore was built upon. And the oldest plan of London, called after one Agas, clearly represents the erection by the riverside built upon piles. There are no churches on this belt of reclaimed land. As it was gradually added to the City, so it was gradually added to the riverside parishes. Four churches are built on the south side of Thames Street, viz. Allhallows the Great, Allhallows the Less, St. Botolph, and St. Magnus. The dedication of the last two proclaims their late origin. The last, for instance, must belong to the late eleventh or the twelfth century. The very small size to which the parishes would be reduced if we took away the reclaimed foreshore seems to indicate that much was reclaimed before the Norman Conquest. The dedication of the churches along Thames Street—St. Peter, St. James, St. Michael, St. Mary, St. Andrew—has been supposed to indicate the site of Roman churches. Perhaps the parish boundaries may have been adjusted from time to time.
“Roomland” was the name given to the quays and the adjacent plots of land of Queenhithe, Dowgate, Billingsgate, etc., whereon goods might be discharged out of vessels arriving there.
In 1311 and in 1349 we find mention of houses built upon “la Romeland” by St. Michael, Queenhithe. In 1338, and again in 1349, we read of a tenement near the King’s garden upon le Romelonde, near the Tower. In 1339 we learn that there was a Roomland in the parish of Allhallows Barking. After 1374 we find no more mention of any Roomland. Perhaps the limits of the quays were by this time contracted and defined; perhaps the foreshore had been enlarged and the “land” behind had been built upon.
Thames Street was the Exchange, the place of meeting for the merchants. One supposes, however, that the lesser sort transacted business at the taverns. Here walked in great dignity Aylwin of London Stone, the first mayor; Whittington, Philpott, Rokesley, and the Beckets, Faringdons, Walworths, Sevenokes, and all the great men of the City, each in his generation, not only building up their own fortunes, but fighting against disorder and crime in their wards, and against encroachments from the sovereign.
The Fire swept through the street, raging among the stores of the warehouses, laying low churches, destroying monuments, and burning up old memories and associations.
The warehouses were at once rebuilt, but, according to Malcolm (1803), many of the buildings had in his time become ruinous or decayed. There is very little left of the building immediately after the Fire: hardly a single warehouse, and on the north side only one or two of the mansions built by the merchants. The two ports, Billingsgate and Queenhithe, still remain, though the trade of the City is no longer carried on upon the quays. The Custom House still stands very nearly on its old site; the bridge has been moved farther west; there are other City bridges—Blackfriars and Southwark; one can still walk down lanes as narrow as when they were first reclaimed from the foreshore; and there are still one or two of these narrow lanes where, as of old, the people of the Service live.
The following is a list of the old signs in Thames Street:
“The White Bear” inn; “The White Lion” inn near London Bridge; “The White Lion” inn at the White Lion Wharf; “The Blew Ancor” inn; “The Old Swan” inn; “The Bull Head” inn; “The Naggs Head Tavern” inn; “The Princes Arms” inn; “The Fling Hors” inn; “The Lion and Key” inn; “The Black Bell inn; “The Woodmongers Arms” inn; “The Crose Bulets” inn; “The Suggar Lofe” inn; “The Lobster” inn; “The Bear and Ragged Staff” inn; “The Two Fighting Cocks” inn; “The Blue Boar and Three Horse Shoes” inn; “The Horse Shoe” inn; “The Royal Arms on Shield” inn; “The Cross against Barkin Church” inn.
Thames Street itself is the subject of a great many references in the Calendar of Wills dated from 1275 to 1688. The earliest is in 1275, after which they occur repeatedly. In 1280 a tenement is mentioned as that of Ernald Thedmar; in 1282 Henry de Coventre bequeathed to his wife his mansion in the Vintry from Thames Street to the waterside.
So far, we have spoken of Thames Street and the riverside generally; let us now take our section in detail.
Only a short way to the north lay Ludgate, one of the principal entrances to the City.
Ludgate can hardly have been so named later than the Norman Conquest. Stow, in his explanation of the ancient street leading from Aldgate to Ludgate, clearly conveys the belief that it was an ancient gate. Perhaps the necessity of land communications from the City to Westminster caused the piercing of this gate and the construction of the causeway and the bridge over the valley and stream of the Fleet. In that case, one would naturally think of King Knut and his palace at Westminster. The name is said to mean a postern.
Ludgate was either repaired or rebuilt in 1215, when the barons, in arms against King John, entered London and destroyed the houses of the Jews, using the stones in the restoration of the City walls and of Ludgate more especially. Stow records a curious confirmation of this circumstance, the discovery, when the gate was rebuilt in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, of a stone with a Hebrew inscription, signifying the sign or note of Rabbi Moses, the son of Rabbi Isaac. On the east side, in a niche, on this renewal, were placed the statues of Lud and his two sons in Roman costumes; and on the west side the statue of Queen Elizabeth. When the gates were taken down (1761-62), Lud and his sons were given by the City to Sir Francis Gosling, who intended to set them up at the east end of St. Dunstan’s Church, in Fleet Street. This, however, he did not carry into effect, and the king and his two sons were deposited in the parish bone-house. The statue of Elizabeth met with a better fate, having a niche assigned it in the outer wall of old St. Dunstan’s, Fleet Street. The Lud gate of 1586 was gutted in the Great Fire, and the stonework seriously injured.
Ludgate was first erected into a prison in the reign of Richard II., and was anciently appropriated to the freemen of the City and to clergymen. The place soon became too small for the growing occasions of the City, and it was enlarged at the expense of Dame Agnes Forster, widow of Stephen Forster, mayor in 1454.
“Formerly Debtors that were not able to satisfy their debts, put themselves into this prison of Ludgate for shelter from their creditors. And these were merchants and tradesmen who had been driven to want by losses at sea. When King Philip, in the month of August, 1554, came first through London, these prisoners were thirty in number, and owed 10,000 pounds, but compounded for 2000 pounds, who represented a well-penned Latin speech to that Prince to redress their miseries, and by his royal generosity to free them. ‘And the rather for that place was not Sceleratorum Carcer, sed Miserorum Custodia, i.e. a gaol for villains, but a place of restraint for poor unfortunate men; And that they were put in there, not by others, but themselves fled thither; and that not out of fear of punishment, but in hope of better fortune.’ The whole letter was drawn by the curious pen of Roger Ascham, and is extant among his epistles, Lib. III.” (Cunningham).
The rules and customs of Ludgate are given by Strype:
“If a freeman or freewoman of London be committed to Ludgate, they are to be excused from the Ignominy of irons, if they can find sureties to be true prisoners, and if the sum be not above £100. There is another custom for the liberal and mild imprisonment of the citizens in Ludgate; whereby they have indulgence and favour to go abroad into any place, under the guard and superintendency of their keeper; with whom they must return again to the prison at night.
“This custom is not to hinder and delay Justice nor to defraud men of their debts and executions, as it is quarrelled against by some, but serves for a mitigation of their punishment; and tends rather for the expedition of their discharge, and speedy satisfaction of their creditors. While they may go and inform themselves, upon their mutual reckonings, both what they owe, and what is due unto them.” For further account of this prison see London in the Eighteenth Century, pp. 581-87.
In the year 1659, one Marmaduke Johnson, a prisoner in Ludgate, presented a memorandum on the prison and its Government to the Lord Mayor. In this document he sets forth the history of the prison, its constitution and laws, its officers, its charities, and the grievances of the prisoners.
A great many benefactors have left money to the prison, amounting in all to about £60 a year. In addition, the Lord Mayor allowed the prisoners a basket of broken meat every day; and provisions of some kind were every day, to some small extent, bestowed upon them by the markets. Besides which there were two grates, one in Ludgate, and the other on the Blackfriars side, where all day long a man stood crying, “Pity the poor prisoners.” There were about fifty of the prisoners “on the Charity,” as it was called. But the warders and turnkeys, by their exactions, got most of the money.
Ludgate Hill was formerly Bowyer Lane. On the south, until a few years ago, were to be seen some fragments of London Wall, now vanished.
On the top of Ludgate Hill, and on the west side of St. Paul’s, Digby, Grant, Winter, and Bates were executed, January 30, 1606, for their participation in the Gunpowder Plot.
The houses on the south side of the hill were set back when the street was widened in modern times. On the north side there are several old ones.