In 1642 the inhabitants of the City of London made a large fortress with four bastions south-east of Hyde Park, on the ground now occupied by Hamilton Place. It was from part of this erection, which was called “Oliver’s Mount,” that Mount Street, Park Lane, takes its name.
The following year, as the civil strife was still waging fierce and hot between Royalists and Roundheads, three forts were constructed on Tyburn Road. It is quaint to think of impromptu fortresses built by an alarmed populace near Lancaster Gate and Oxford Street. The Perfect Diurnal, an invaluable record of the time, states that the anxiety of the citizens was such that thousands of men, women, servants, and children, many members of the Council of the City, well-known public men, and the trained bands from the Camp, together with feltmakers, shoemakers, and other tradesmen, all worked their best in throwing up these fortifications outside the City.
Samuel Butler, in his Hudibras, refers to this:
“Women, who were our first apostles,
Without whose aid w’ had all been lost else;
Women, that left no stone unturned
In which the Cause might be concern’d:
Brought in their children’s spoons and whistles,
To purchase swords, carbines, and pistols;
Their husbands, cullies, and sweethearts,