Exterior of No. 3 and cross to the memory of Mr. Booker, 1837 (photograph).
[[58]]Joinery details on first floor of No. 3 (measured drawing).
The Ship Tavern, Gate Street—exterior, showing Little Turnstile (photograph).
Twyford Buildings—View of court in 1906 (photograph).
XXV.—HIGH HOLBORN, BETWEEN LITTLE TURNSTILE AND KINGSWAY.
In 1592 a Commission on Incroached Lands reported[[59]] the existence of certain property in St. Giles, held without any grant, state, or demise from the sovereign. On 29th August, 1609, James I. granted the whole of this to Robert Angell and John Walker. As the point is of importance, the description of the premises included in the grant is here given in some detail.[[60]]
“All that one messuage of ours with appurtenances in the tenure of Thomas Greene, and one cottage with appurtenances, with garden, in the tenure of Thomas Roberts, situated in the parish of St. Giles-in-the-Fields ... and all those four cottages with appurtenances lying and being on the south side of the public way leading from the said town called St. Giles-in-the-Fields towards Holborne ... and all those small cottages built within the small pightell called Pale Pingle, lying and being within the parish of St. Giles opposite the aforesaid cottages, namely, on the north side of the royal way between the town of St. Giles aforesaid ... and Holborne.”
In 1650 a survey[[61]] was made of certain property “late belonginge to Charles Stuart, late king of England,” and included therein were a number of premises, which extended along the south side of High Holborn for a distance of 234½ feet eastwards from Little Queen Street, and the easternmost house of which was The Falcon.
To the reversion in fee farm of this property a Mr. Gibbert laid claim, basing his pretensions on the identification of the property with certain of that included in the grant of James I. above referred to, and the surveyors reviewed at length his title, annexing a “plott of ye ground” (Plate 2). The conclusion to which they came was, that it was “clere and aparent” that Green’s messuage and Roberts’ cottage and garden, together with the four cottages opposite the Pale Pingle, were the tenements granted to Gibbert, and that these were “at the least 40tie pole” distant from the houses which he claimed. “Soe yt his clayme in those aforesaid houses is very unreasonable, false, imperfect and untrue. And wee, whose names are heerunto subscribed, shall (if Gibbert should bee so uncivell or shameles heereafter to lay clayme to them before yor honors) make it clerely appeare to the contrary if at any tyme required.”
In spite of this emphatic condemnation of the unfortunate Mr. Gibbert, there can be no doubt that the surveyors were wrong. They seem entirely to have overlooked the possibility that the houses of Green and Roberts were not adjacent to the four cottages opposite the Pale Pingle; in fact, a perusal of the royal grant is sufficient to make it reasonably certain that they were quite distinct. The matter is, however, capable of definite proof.