The history of Butcher Row is crowded with incidents in the lives of authors and the unfortunate hangers-on to literature. The timber-framed house, with projecting upper storeys and barge-boarded gables, the front decorated with fleurs-de-lis and coronets, was known as Beaumont House, and it is said that Sully, then Marquis of Rosny, supped and slept there on his arrival in London (1603) as Ambassador to James I.
Butcher Row was pulled down in 1813, and Pickett Street was erected in its place. This street was pulled down to make way for the new Law Courts, and now nearly the whole northern portion of St. Clement’s parish has been cleared away. A great improvement has been made, but in order to obtain this many picturesque houses of interest have had to be destroyed.
Returning within the Bar to the city, and walking up Chancery Lane, we come to Lincoln’s Inn Gateway, one of the three historical gateways of importance in London; the other two being St. John’s Gate, Clerkenwell, and the entrance to St. James’s Palace. This gatehouse of brick was built by Sir Thomas Lovell, K.G., son of the executor of Henry VII., and bears the date upon it of 1518. This interesting building, although perfectly sound and in good condition, was shored up a few years ago when old chambers by the side of it were pulled down and rebuilt, and it then narrowly escaped destruction. Efforts were successfully made to save the gate, and it is to be hoped that it may remain to give distinction to Chancery Lane for many years. Returning to Chancery Lane, and crossing Holborn, we come to Gray’s Inn. The fine hall, which is full of associations of the deepest interest, was built between the years 1555 and 1560. Of the hall which it replaced there is no record, save that in 5 Edw. VI.
(1551), it “was seiled with fifty-four yards of wainscot, at 2s. a yard.”