The stone tablet, illustrated on the next page, is a relic of the old boundary line of the parish. It was built into the wall of No. 2, Sheffield Street, which premises were demolished in 1903 in connection with the formation of Kingsway. The stone was preserved by the London County Council and has been lent to the London Museum.
The boundary between the parishes of St. Giles-in-the-Fields and St. George, Bloomsbury, cuts through Bedford Square in such a way that although the greater part of the square is in the former, all the houses on the east side and a few on the south side are in the parish of St. George. As it was felt that there were advantages in dealing with the square as a whole, it was decided that, as had been done in the case of Lincoln’s Inn Fields,[[3]] the entire square should be treated in one volume.
XXII.—HIGH HOLBORN FROM THE PARISH BOUNDARY TO LITTLE TURNSTILE.
The whole of the space between the parish boundary and Great Turnstile was occupied by houses at least as early as, and probably long before, the reign of Henry VIII. In 1545, Edward Stockwood sold to Thomas Dyxson, 5 messuages and 5 gardens in the parishes of St. Andrew, Holborn, and St. Giles-in-the-Fields,[[4]] and when, in the following year, Dyxson transferred the property to Richard Clyff, the western and eastern boundaries are described[[5]] as the tenement of John Coke and the inn called The Antelope, respectively. In the course of the next century, the five houses seem to have been divided or rebuilt as seven houses, four of which were in St. Giles, the remaining three being in St. Andrew’s.[[6]]
Between the westernmost of these and Great Turnstile there were, in 1545, three houses in the possession of John Coke.[[7]] These had belonged to the Priory of St. John of Jerusalem before the dissolution of that monastery.[[8]]
Great Turnstile is mentioned as early as 1522, under the name “Turngatlane”[[9]]; it was also known as “Turnpiklane.”[[10]] It is quite certain that in 1545 no houses had been built along the sides of Great Turnstile, and none probably were erected there until many years later. The earliest records so far obtained of such houses on the eastern and western sides of the lane are dated respectively 1632 and 1630[[11]], and probably these dates are not far removed from the actual time of building.
Reference was made in a previous volume[[12]] to the ten houses belonging to the Priory of St. John of Jerusalem, which, in the reign of Henry VIII., occupied the frontage of High Holborn, between Great Turnstile and certain property belonging to the Hospital of St. Giles, and it was then suggested that their western limit practically corresponded with the boundary between Cup Field and Purse Field. Definite proof of this has not been obtained, but it will be shown that the St. John’s property must have extended to within a little of this, thus occupying the site of about thirty numbers. Obviously, the houses must have been very scattered. It is also possible that certain buildings were in existence further to the west, towards Little Turnstile, as early as the reign of Edward II.,[[13]] and certainly the whole of this part of the frontage to High Holborn was covered in the early part of Elizabeth’s reign.
Agas’s map (Plate 1) shows a single line of buildings extending between the two turnstiles, but this is not an adequate representation of the state of affairs in the closing years of the sixteenth century. In order to describe this, so far as the records which have come to light in the course of the investigation for this volume will allow, it will be necessary to go into some detail, but as the point has never before been dealt with, it has been thought desirable to do so. Although the results in some cases fall short of certainty, it is hoped that thereby an idea may be gained of the somewhat complex system of houses, gardens and orchards that existed between High Holborn and the site of Whetstone Park. The accompanying plan will render the description of the properties more easy to follow. It should be understood that the plan is quite a rough one, and intended merely to give a general idea of the situation about the year 1590. The discovery of further records would, no doubt, modify it in certain details.
