Portpool Lane, marked in Strype's plan Perpoole, is the reminiscence of an ancient manor of that name. The part of Clerkenwell Road bounding this district to the north was formerly called by the appropriate name of Liquorpond Street. In it there is a Roman Catholic Church of St. Peter, built in 1863. The interior is very ornate. Just here, where Back Hill and Ray Street meet, was Hockley Hole, a famous place of entertainment for bull and bear baiting, and other cruel sports that delighted the brutal taste of the eighteenth century. One of the proprietors, named Christopher Preston, fell into his own bear-pit, and was devoured, a form of sport that doubtless did not appeal to him. Hockley Hole was noted for a particular breed of bull-dogs. The actual site of the sports is in the adjoining parish, but the name occurring here justifies some comment. Hockley in the Hole is referred to by Ben Jonson, Steele, Fielding, and others. It was abolished soon after 1728.
It was in a sponging-house in Eyre Street that Morland, the painter, died. In the part of Gray's Inn Road to the north of Clerkenwell Road formerly stood Stafford's Almshouses, founded in 1652.
At present Rosebery Avenue, driven through slumland, justifies its pleasant-sounding name, being a wide, sweeping, tree-lined road. Workmen's model dwellings rise on either side.
The northern part of Gray's Inn Road falls within the parish of St. Pancras. The part which lies to the north of Theobald's Road was formerly called Gray's Inn Lane. In 1879-80 the east side was pulled down, and the line of houses set back in the rebuilding. These consists of uninteresting buildings, with small shops on the ground-floor. On the west there are the worn bricks of Gray's Inn. At the corner of Clerkenwell Road is the Holborn Town-Hall, an imposing, well-built edifice of brick and stone, with square clock-tower, surmounted by a smaller octagonal tower and dome. The date is 1878.
Gray's Inn Road is familiar to all readers of Dickens and Fielding, from frequent references in their novels. John Hampden took lodgings here in 1640, in order to be near Pym, at a time when the struggle between the King and Parliament in regard to the question of ship money was at its sharpest. James Shirley, the dramatic poet of the seventeenth century, is also said to have lived here, but was probably in Gray's Inn itself.
GRAY'S INN.
By W. J. Loftie.
An archway on the north side of Holborn, nearly opposite Chancery Lane, admits us to Gray's Inn. It is not the original entrance, which was round the corner in Portpool Lane, now called Gray's Inn Road. The Lords Grey of Wilton obtained the Manor of Portpool at some remote period from the Canon of St. Paul's, who held it; we have no direct evidence as to whether the Canon had a house on the spot, but there are some traces of a chapel and a chaplain. In 1315 Lord Grey gave some land in trust to the Canons of St. Bartholomew to endow the chaplain in his mansion of Portpool. From its situation near London, the ready access both to the City and the country, with the fine views northward towards Hampstead and Highgate, this must have been a more desirable place of residence than even the neighbouring manor of the Bishop of Ely. It consisted in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries of a gate-house which faced eastward, the chapel close to it on the left, and various other buildings, some of them apparently forming separate houses, with spacious gardens and a windmill. Here the Lords Grey lived for a couple of centuries in great state, apparently letting or lending the smaller houses to tenants or retainers—it would seem not unlikely to lawyers or students of the law, possibly their own men of business. This is no mere theory or guesswork. There has been too much conjecture about the early history of Gray's Inn, and the sober-minded topographer is warned off at the outset by a number of inconsistent assertions as to the early existence here of a school of law. Dugdale tells us that the manor was granted to the Priory of Shene in the reign of Henry VII., and after the dissolution it was rented by a society of students of the law. A fictitious list of Readers goes back to the reign of Edward III., but will not bear critical examination. The lawyers paid a rent of £6 13s. 4d. to Henry VIII., and this charge passed into private hands by grant of Charles II. The lawyers bought it from the heir of the first grantee, and since 1733 have enjoyed the Inn rent-free. The opening into Holborn was made on the purchase by the society, in 1594, of the Hart on the Hoop, which then belonged to Fulwood, whose name is commemorated by Fulwood's Rents, now nearly wiped out by a station of the Central London Railway.
The chief entrance is by the archway in Holborn. In 1867 the old brick arch was beplastered, obliterating a reminiscence of Dickens, who makes David Copperfield and Dora lodge over it. A narrow road leads into South Square, the north side of which is formed by the hall and library. The houses round the east and south sides are of uniform design, with handsome doorways. The hall has been much "restored," but was originally built in the reign of Queen Mary. It has a modern Gothic porch, carved with the griffin, which forms the coat armour of the Inn.
The interior of the hall has been renovated, having been much injured in 1828, when the exterior was covered with stucco. The brick front is again visible, and the panelling and roof within are of carved oak. There are coats of arms in the windows, and on the walls hang portraits of Charles I., Charles II., James II., and the two Bacons—father and son—Sir Nicholas and Viscount St. Albans, who are the chief legal luminaries of the "ancient and honourable society." The library, modern, adjoins on the east, and contains a collection of important records and printed books on law.
Passing through an arch at the western end of the hall, we enter Gray's Inn Square, formerly Chapel Court. The chapel is close to the library on the north side, and opens into Gray's Inn Square. This court was probably open on the north side to the fields before the reign of Charles II. Some of the buildings surrounding it are in a good Queen Anne style, and some have the cross-mullioned windows of a still earlier period. The exterior of the chapel is covered with stucco. The interior, which is very small—there being only seating for a congregation of about one hundred—was carefully examined three years ago, when a proposal was made to build a new chapel. The Gothic windows, walled up by the library to the south, came to light, and there seems some probability that the building is mainly that of Lord Grey's chantry of 1315. Some improvements and repairs to the interior have saved the little chapel for the present. There are no monuments visible, but four Archbishops of Canterbury who were connected with the Inn are commemorated in the east window. They were Whitgift (1583-1604), Juxon (1660-1663), Wake (1715-1737), Laud (1633-1645), and in the centre Becket, whose only claim to be in such a goodly company appears to be that a window "gloriously painted," with the figure of St. Thomas of London, was destroyed by Edward Hall, the Reader, in 1539, according to the King's injunctions. A subsequent window, showing our Lord on the Mount, had long disappeared, and some heraldry was all the east end of the chapel could boast.