This day at Lady Shrewsbury’s house at Piccadilly Hall, Parish of St. Martin’s, Mass was said by Captain George Popham, Priest. Richard Wainwright apprehended him, by the aid of Edward Corbett the Constable, and took him to Somerset House, whence he escaped, and was received by the Friars.
Evidently the countess at the time must have been renting Mrs. Baker’s “Hall.”
An important description is preserved in a letter written by the Rev. George Garrard, Master of the Charterhouse, to the Earl of Strafford:
Since the spring garden was put down (1634), we have, by a servant of the Lord Chamberlain’s, a new spring garden erected in the fields beyond the Mews, where is built a fair house and two bowling greens made to entertain gamesters and bowlers at an excessive rate, for I believe it hath cost him above 4,000l., a dear undertaking for a gentleman barber. My Lord Chamberlain much frequents that place, where they bowl great matches. June 24, 1635.
Garrard, writing to Edward, Viscount Conway, 30 May 1636, adds:
Simme Austbiston’s house is newly christened. It is called Shaver’s Hall, as other neighbouring places are named Tart Hall, Pickadell Hall. At first, no conceit there was of the building being a barber’s, but it came upon my Lord of Dunbarr’s loosing 3,000l. at one sitting, whereon they said a northerne Lord was shaved there; but now, putting both togeather, I feare it will be a nickname of the place, as Nicke and Frothe is at Petworth, so long as the house stands. My Lord Chamberlain knows not of it yett, but will chafe abominably when he comes to know it. My neighbours at Salisbury House are all gone to Hatfield.—Dom. Ser. St. Pap. Car. I, 323 (41).
The barber was Simon Osbaldistone, servant to Philip, Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery, Chamberlain of the Royal Household.
Clarendon, in “The History of the Rebellion,” mentions the place:
Mr. Hyde going to a House called Piccadilly, which was a fair house for entertainment and gaming, with handsome gravel walks with shade, and where is an upper and lower bowling green, whither many of the best quality resorted for exercise and recreation.
A description of the building is found in an estimate of 1650.