XXX.—SITE OF ROSE FIELD (MACKLIN STREET, SHELTON STREET, NEWTON STREET (PART), AND PARKER STREET (PART)).
Macklin Street (formerly Lewknor’s Lane), Shelton Street (formerly St. Thomas’s Street, afterwards King Street), the lower end of Newton Street (formerly much narrower and known as Cross Street) and the greater portion of Parker Street, have all been formed on the site of Rose Field, a pasture of a reputed area of six acres, attached to The Rose inn.
From particulars given in various deeds it is clear that the field’s western and eastern boundaries respectively were Drury Lane and the stream[[118]] dividing it from Purse Field, and that its southern boundary ran 50 feet to the south of Parker Street. As regards its northern boundary, however, there is some uncertainty. The facts, so far as they have been ascertained, are as follows.
The houses on the north side of Macklin Street were entirely in Rose Field, as also were three houses in Drury Lane, north of Macklin Street,[[119]] and the line bounding the rear of the Macklin Street property certainly coincides, at least for a portion of its length, with the boundary of that part of Rose Field leased to Thomas Burton.[[120]] It may therefore be regarded as certain that at least for a portion of its length this line represents the northern boundary of Rose Field. Probably this is true as regards its whole length as far as Goldsmith Street, which seems to be the point at which it turned northwards.[[121]]
The first reference to Rose Field (though not under that name) which has been found, occurs in the deed concerning the exchange which Henry VIII., in 1537, effected with the Hospital of Burton Lazars. According to this, part of the property transferred to the Crown consisted of “one messuage, called The Rose, and one pasture to the same messuage belonging.”
In the following year the king leased the inn and pasture to George Sutton and Ralph Martin.[[122]] In 1566 the property was leased to John Walgrave for 21 years as from Michaelmas, 1574; in 1580 to George Buck for 21 years, as from Michaelmas, 1595; and on 27th October, 1597, was, together with other property, granted by Elizabeth in perpetuity to Robert Bowes and Robert Milner, at a rent of £3 6s. 8d. Two days afterwards Milner sold it to James White, of London, silk weaver, and on 19th January, 1599–1600, the latter in turn parted with it to William Short.[[123]] Half a century later, William Short the younger took advantage of the sale of the Fee Farm Rents during the Commonwealth to redeem his rent for £29 12s. 6d.[[124]]
Before continuing the history of Rose Field, it may not be out of place to consider where The Rose inn, from which the field derived its name, was situated.
Parton[[125]] quotes a deed, dated 1667, referring to the sale by Edward Tooke to Luke Miller, of two tenements, situated in Lewknor’s Lane, “which said two tenements doe abutt on the tenement formerly known by the sign of The Rose, late in the tenure of Walter Gibbons,” and draws the inference that the inn was “on the south side of Holborn, not far eastward from The White Hart.” It is, however, doubtful if “the tenement formerly known by the sign of The Rose” was The Rose of Rose Field; for when, ten years previously, William Short had sold to Edward Tooke the first 21 houses on the north side of Lewknor’s Lane, which must have included the two tenements subsequently sold by Tooke to Miller, Walter Gibbons was in occupation of the twelfth house. It is therefore most probable that The Rose in question was a house in Lewknor’s Lane, and not The Rose of Rose Field at all.
As a matter of fact, the latter is almost certainly to be identified with the inn of that name situated on the north side of Broad Street. In 1670 this inn was in possession of Sarah Hooper, widow of William Hooper, and the latter’s son Benjamin, and is described in a deed[[126]], dated 2nd November in that year, as “all that messuage or tenement and brewhouse, with appurtenances, called The Rose, and all stables, maulting roomes, yardes, backsides, etc.” On 26th March, 1723–4, Benjamin Hooper granted[[127]] “all that messuage or tenement and brewhouse, with the appurtenances, called The Rose Brewhouse, scituate in St. Giles-in-the-Fields, now or late in the tenure of Samuel Hellier, Anthony Elmes, and Charles Hall, some or one of them, and all stables, malting houses, yards, backsides, ways, passages, etc.,” to his two daughters, Jane Edmonds and Sarah Mee. The sewer ratebook for 1718 shows “Mr. Anthony Elmes” at a house in Broad Street close to Bow Street (now Museum Street) corner,[[128]] and thus the site of The Rose can be roughly identified.[[129]]
The necessary connection between the Hoopers and William Short, who owned The Rose of Rose Field, seems to be supplied by an entry in the Feet of Fines, dated 1640, concerning a purchase from the latter by William Hooper of a messuage and one stable with appurtenances in St. Giles-in-the-Fields.[[130]]