Rowland Lee (d. 1543), D.D., Bishop of Lichfield, was a rector here; also C. Blake (1664-1739), divine and poet; and John Rogers, who was burnt at Smithfield, 1555.
Giltspur Street, which is alternately called by Stow Knightrider’s Street, is obviously connected with the knights riding to Smithfield.
At the south end is a low building with the inscription, “The water house erected 1791.” To the north of this are the schools, in a long low building covered with rough stucco. Little wych-elms and limes shadow the small playground before them. The row of houses succeeding are all similar—plain, severe brick; in the middle is the White Hart Hotel. Green Dragon Yard is closed by iron gates; the next court is very small. Near Windmill Court is the Plough public-house. The houses here are either brick or stucco; some old, some modern.
At the north end, on the Fortune of War public-house, at the corner of Hosier Lane, is a quaint little stucco figure of a fat child about a couple of feet high. This is Pie Corner, the spot where the Great Fire ended.
Cock Lane is a filthy, narrow little street, and looks almost deserted, as many of the buildings are untenanted. Bits of paper and refuse bestrew the pavement, grimy old warehouses stand in melancholy disorder with dirty little yards between. It is chiefly associated with the ridiculous imposture known as the Cock Lane Ghost, which deceived even Dr. Johnson. For Smithfield see p. [357].
Turning now to the streets south of Newgate, we find Warwick Lane is mentioned in the Guildhall MSS. as early as 1206; by Riley (Mem.) in 1313, and in the Calendar of Wills in 1364; in Eldedene Street (Old Dean Street) Hon. Walter Stapleton, Bishop of Exeter, had a town house. In the Chronicle of the Mayors and Sheriffs a brief account of his murder by the mob is presented.
Warwick Inn, Stow says, was formerly described as a messuage in Eldedene Lane in 28th Henry VI., when Cecily, Duchess of Warwick, possessed it. There were other houses in the Lane in the fourteenth century. It was in this house that the Earl of Warwick maintained his following of 600 men when he was in London.
We have already read (pp. [4], [6]) of the beheading of Walter Stapleton, Bishop of Exeter, in Cheapside; he was seized as he was riding towards his hostel in “Eldedeaneslane” to dine there; and just then he was proclaimed a traitor: upon hearing of which he took to flight and rode towards St. Paul’s church, where he was met and instantly dragged from his horse, and carried into “Chepe”: and there he was despoiled, and his head cut off. Also one of his esquires, William Walle by name, and John de Padington, warden of the said bishop’s manor, were beheaded the same day in Chepe. On the same day towards Vespers came the choir of St. Paul’s and took the headless body of the bishop into St. Paul’s, where they were given to understand that he had died under sentence, upon which the body was carried to the church of St. Clement [Danes].
About the same date is a grant by Godfrey de Acra, chaplain to the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul’s, and to a perpetual chaplain who shall celebrate for him and his benefactors in the chapel of St. James, in St. Paul’s, of all his houses, rents, etc., in the parish of St. Faith, “inter vicum veteris Decani versus occidentem et vicum Cecilie de Turri versus orientem.” He made provision for the maintenance of the chaplain, and for the distribution of the money on his anniversary: Thomas Fitz Thomas, Mayor of London, and eleven others are named as witnesses (Historical MSS., Com. Rep. IX. Pt. I. p. 9a).
Sir John Paston (1475) writes to his brother, John Paston, or to his uncle, William Paston, in Warwick Lane. The street had, therefore, in the fifteenth century received its new name after the great house of the Earl of Warwick. In 1496 William Paston wills that all “godes moveable in Warwikes Inn” shall be sold to pay his debts. When Charles V. came to England in 1522, two houses in Warwick Lane were assigned to his retinue—that of Mistress Lewes having a little entry, a hall, two chambers, and three feather beds; the other that of Edward Sharnebroke having one hall, four chambers, two parlours, a chapel, four feather beds, with houses of office, and a stable for eight horses.