Roman Bath Street comes next. This place was formerly called Pinnock’s Lane, i.e. Pentecost Lane. Houses in Pentecost Lane are mentioned as early as 1280. It contained the forbidden slaughter-houses. At the upper end stood the Royal Bagnio. There were two Bagnios—this of Pinnock’s Lane and another in Long Acre. The Royal Bagnio was opened in 1679; it was simply a turkish bath, a place for sweating and hot bathing: for a time it was very much esteemed as a preventative against some forms of disease and a cure for headache. The Royal Bagnio contained one large room with a cupola and several smaller rooms, the walls of which were lined with Dutch tiles. The place was converted into a hot and cold bathhouse, and finally closed and pulled down in 1876.
ST. SEPULCHRE
This church was rebuilt, Stow says, about the time of Henry VI. or Edward IV., mainly by “one of the Pophames.” The greater part was destroyed by the Great Fire, and in 1670 it was again rebuilt, by whom is uncertain. It received considerable alterations in 1738, 1837, 1863, 1875, and again 1878-80. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1249.
The patronage of the church was in the hands of: Roger, Bishop of Sarum (1107-39), who gave it to the Prior and Convent of St. Bartholomew, Smithfield ; Henry VIII., who seized it and so it continued in the Crown up to 1609, when James I. gave the advowson of the Vicarage to Francis Philips and others; the President and Scholars of St. John’s College, Oxford, who presented to the Vicarage in 1662, and in whose successors it continued.
Houseling people in 1548 were 3400.
The church consists of a nave, chancel, and two side-aisles, and an adjunct on the north side called the chapel of St. Stephen; it measures 150 feet in length, 81 feet in width, and 149 feet 11 inches in height, to the summit of the tower. The organ was built by Renatus Harris, and is considered one of his finest productions; its case is said to have been the work of Grinling Gibbons.
A chantry was founded here by: John de Tamworth, who had a licence from the King to assign one messuage and sixteen cottages in the suburbs of London, for a chaplain to sing for his soul, on certain days in this church, February 20, 1373-74. Here also was founded the Brotherhood of Our Lady and St. Stephen, endowed by various persons with rents, etc., which fetched £9 : 13 : 4 in 1548.
Roger Ascham, Queen Elizabeth’s tutor, and author of Toxophilus and the Scholemaster, who died in 1568, was buried here, but has no memorial. Here also the remains of Captain John Smith were interred in 1631; he was Governor of Virginia and Admiral of New England, and author of the General History of Virginia. His monument has perished, but there is a replica of the original inscription on a plate on the south wall. Sir Robert Peake, a distinguished cavalier and engraver, was also interred here in 1667, but no one else of eminence appears to have been buried in the church.
In 1605 Robert Dowe gave £50 to the parish on condition that the night before every execution a hand-bell, which he presented, should be rung in front of the condemned prisoners’ dungeon, and an exhortation given them. His donation has now passed into the hands of the Charity Commissioners. No names of benefactors are recorded by Stow. According to the Record of the Parish Clerk of 1732 the donations of the poor, for ever, amounted to £250, besides which there were forty-seven other donations of less value than £40 or £20 per annum. Richard Reeves left £100 per annum. In addition, the stock of money given by eight persons was £500, and eight others gave £128 : 15s. per annum to provide coals and fuel.
There were two charity schools, one for fifty boys and one for fifty girls, and without the Liberty there were two for thirty boys and twenty girls. There were also three almshouses, for eight poor people, who had from 5s. to 15s. paid them every quarter by the Company of Armourers.