Set the Thames on fire. A “temse” was the old name for a sieve, agreeably to the French tamis and the Italian tamiso, which terms express the same implement. A sifter would require to work very hard indeed to ignite his sieve. Accordingly a bystander often said to him touching his apparent laziness: “You’ll never set the temse on fire!” Its punning
Seven Dials. A once notorious thieves’ neighbourhood, which received its name from a stone column presenting seven dials or faces, from which the same number of streets radiated. This, originally set up to mark the limits of St Giles’s and St Martin’s parishes, was removed in 1763, owing to the erroneous idea that a large sum of money lay buried beneath it.
Seven Sisters’ Road. This long road, extending from Holloway to Tottenham, received its name from seven trees planted in Page Green in the latter parish by the Sisters Page. Local tradition has it that one of these was a cripple, and the tree planted by her grew up deformed.
Seventh Day Baptists. See “[Sabbatarians].”
Saxagesima Sunday. Approximately the sixtieth day before Easter.
Seymour Place. After one of the family names of the Portmans, owners of the estate.
Seymour Street. Far removed from Seymour Place, this has no connection with the Portman family, having received its name from the first builder on the land.
Shadwell. A corruption of “St Chad’s Well,”[“St Chad’s Well,”] a reputed holy well discovered hereabouts in ancient days.
Shaft Alley. See “[St Andrew Undershaft].”
Shaftesbury Avenue. After Anthony Ashley Cooper, seventh Earl of Shaftsbury, who performed the opening ceremony of this new thoroughfare shortly before his death in 1885.