The Wards of Old London: Fleet Street - Wordsmiths, Pubs, and an Unexpected Ghost

A visitor to London, exploring the ward of Farringdon Without, and having walked along Holborn and High Holborn, can, from Holborn Circus, follow a series of small roads (Saint Andrew Street, Shoe Lane, Little New Street, New Hardings, Pemberton Row) southward to Gough Square. A statue of a cat named Hodge identifies one of the houses in the square as the one-time home of Hodge's owner, the Eighteenth Century lexicographer and literary critic, Dr Samuel Johnson.

Dr Johnson's house, in Gough Square. Photo: Jim Linwood (licensed under CCA).

Johnson lived here from 1748 to 1759, and it was here that he completed his famous Dictionary of the English Language (1755). It was not, as has sometimes been claimed, the first English dictionary, but it was the best of the early ones, and provided the model for most subsequent dictionaries. Johnson's house is also one of the best-preserved examples of a Georgian town-house that is open to visitors in London.

Samuel Johnson, by Sir Joshua Reynolds (1775 - image is in the Public Domain). 

Johnson was an immensely sociable man, whose generosity towards friends and literary associates frequently extended well beyond his own, rather limited, financial means. A widower from 1752, and one without children, many of these friends and associates lodged with him, and helped him in the compilation of the dictionary, working word by word through key texts, beginning with the King James Bible, and the works of Shakespeare, Milton and Dryden. His intellectual circle included women as well as men, and even a former slave, Francis Barber, whom he had educated himself.

Francis Barber, by Sir Joshua Reynolds (image is in the Public Domain).

One thing that I noticed, on visiting the house last year, was the tiny proportions of the basement kitchen. A member of staff overheard me commenting on this to my sister, who was accompanying me. He smiled, explaining that this was a frequent topic of conversation among his colleagues: "we have come to the conclusion that beyond the toasting of muffins and crumpets, very little cooking actually happened here." Johnson, and his many house-guests and literary collaborators, must either have dined out in some of the many pubs and chop-houses in the surrounding streets, or brought food in from such establishments. Such, presumably, were the habits of many literate, middle class Londoners at the time.

Walking south from Gough Square, along Hind Court, one emerges into Fleet Street. Among the first pubs that one encounters is Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, which in its current form, dates to the reconstruction of London after the Great Fire of 1666, but which, as an establishment, is much older. It has often been mentioned in association with Johnson, and, although there is no direct evidence that he actually frequented it, it does seem to me more likely than not. What is more certain is that Charles Dickens refers to the pub in A Tale of Two Cities, as does Anthony Trollope in Ralph the Heir. Other literary figures who have held court there include P.G. Wodehouse and W.B. Yeats.

Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese. Photo: Banjobacon (licensed under CCA).

There is a ghost story associated with the pub, concerning a midwife, whose spirit was unable to rest on account of her murder of new-born children that she had delivered. This story was the subject of a Seventeenth Century broadsheet ballad, a recording of which can be heard here. The children's bones were said to be at the pub in 1680, but the current staff were unable to produce them for my sister and I, nor had they seen or heard anything of the ghost.

The printed broadsheet of the Ballad of the Midwive's Ghost (1680 - image is in the Public Domain).

Fleet Street itself runs west from Ludgate towards The Strand in Westminster, crossing the (now subterranean) River Fleet. To the south, in the Medieval and Early Modern eras, lay the Bridewell, a palace in the early years of Henry VIII's reign, and subsequently an orphanage and prison; Whitefriars, a Carmelite priory; and the Temple, the London headquarters of the crusading Knights Templar, until the dissolution of the order in 1312. To the north of Fleet Street lay the sumptuous townhouses of provincial prelates, including the Bishops of Salisbury and Saint David's.

The Civil Parishes of the City of London in 1870, including those (lower left, showing the positions of the Bridewell, Whitefriars and the Temple) bordering Fleet Street. Image: Doc77can (licensed under CCA).

Fleet Street is today more famous for journalism (although few journalists actually work there now), going back to 1500, when Wynkyn de Worde set up one of England's first printing workshops near Shoe Lane. The newspaper industry was given a very considerable boost by the repeal of the Newspaper Tax in 1855, and of Paper Duty in 1858, and flourished in Fleet Street until the final quarter of the Twentieth Century.

Fleet Street in 1890, looking east towards Saint Paul's Cathedral. Photo: James Valentine (image is in the Public Domain).

The former Daily Telegraph building, now the London headquarters of Goldman Sachs. Photo: N.Chadwick (licensed under CCA).

This stroll along Fleet Street brings us to the end of our exploration of the intramural and extramural wards of the City of London, which I had thought to complete in 2016, but didn't quite succeed. There is, of course, far more to "London," as we understand it today, than simply The City, and I shall be launching a new series of posts in the coming weeks.

Mark Patton is a published author of historical fiction and non-fiction, whose books can be purchased from Amazon.

The Wards of Old London: Smithfield - Slaughter and Tournaments

A visitor to London, exploring the Ward of Farringdon Without, and walking north from Saint Bartholomew's Hospital emerges into West Smithfield, a road running north-east to south-west, connecting Aldersgate Street with Holborn. Today, this quarter of London is dominated by Sir Horace Jones's meat market, which opened in 1868. The market sits above a network of tunnels, which made it possible for trains to bring an annual total of 220,000 cattle and 1.5 million sheep into London, to be slaughtered out of the sight, hearing and smell of the city's inhabitants, and the effluvia cleared away, before the cleaned and butchered carcasses were hauled up into the market itself.

Sir Horace Jones's Smithfield Market. Photo: James Ketteringham (image is in the Public Domain).

It had not always been like this. Before the construction of the Victorian market, and the beginning of the railway age, cattle, sheep, pigs, chickens, ducks and turkeys were brought on foot to the capital from all corners of England Scotland and Wales. The drovers who brought them did not use the main roads, where the presence of so many animals would have been a considerable nuisance to human travelers: instead they followed a network of tracks, many of which had probably been in use since prehistoric times.

Montgomeryshire drovers, c 1885, National Library of Wales (image is in the Public Domain).

Stone bridge carrying a drovers' track over the River Dylif, Gwynedd. Photo: Tony Edwards (licensed under CCA).

In the pre-Victorian market of Smithfield, beasts were slaughtered and butchered in the open air, having previously been fattened by graziers in Islington or Bermondsey, and driven though the streets of the City itself. By the mid-Nineteenth Century, however, the presence of a beast-market in such close proximity to the metropolis was, in itself, recognised as a public nuisance.

Smithfeld in 1827, by John Greenwood. Image: Mark Annand (licensed under CCA).

"Of all the horrid abominations with which London has been cursed," complained Thomas Maslen, in 1843, "there is not one that can come up to that disgusting place, West Smithfield Market, for cruelty, filth, effluvia, pestilence, impiety, horrid language, danger, and every obnoxious item that can be imagined ... " Charles Dickens was among those who campaigned for its closure, which finally took place in 1855, the market moving out to Islington whilst Jones's state of the art facility was being built.

The last day of Old Smithfield, 1855, Illustrated London News (image is in the Public Domain).

New Smithfield Market in the Nineteenth Century (image is in the Public Domain).

The sale and slaughter of beasts had been carried on at Smithfield at least since the Twelfth Century. Nor was it only animals whose blood was spilled there. It had, in the Middle Ages, and in Early Modern Times, been a place of public execution. Lollards (proto-Protestants who argued for the translation of the Bible into English) were burned at the stake here under Henry V; as were Protestants under Mary I; and the Scottish rebel (or patriot, depending on one's point of view), William Wallace, had been hanged, drawn and quartered at Smithfield in 1305. Here it was, also, that Wat Tyler, the leader of the "Peasants' Revolt," had met his death at the hands of the City's Lord Mayor, in 1381.

Smithfield, as shown on the Agas Map of 1561. Image: Stephencdickson (licensed under CCA).

The death of Wat Tyler, from Les Chroniques de France et de l'Angleterre, by Jean Froissart. Image: British Library (Public Domain). The building in the background may be the Priory of Saint John, Clerkenwell. 

As an area of open ground beyond the City gates, Smithfield was also the venue for Medieval tournaments. The ageing Edward III held a seven day tournament in 1374, in honour of his mistress, Alice Perrers. Richard II held one in 1390, with Geoffrey Chaucer as master of ceremonies: this tournament had been announced by heralds the length and breadth of Europe, ensuring that the greatest knights of France, Flanders, and Germany, as well as England and Scotland, came to Smithfield to compete. Edward IV held a joust in 1467, as part of his strategy to win the support of Londoners for his regime.

Knights competing in Edward IV's joust at Smithfield in 1467 (image is in the Public Domain).

Whilst the wholesale meat market at Smithfield continues to function today, it does so on a much smaller scale than was the case only a few decades ago. The future of many of the area's historic buildings is currently uncertain, although the proposed relocation of the Museum of London to the former market (perhaps opening as early as 2021, if funding can be secured, offers some hope of sustainable regeneration.

Mark Patton's novels, Undreamed Shores, An Accidental King, and Omphalos, are published by Crooked Cat Publications, and can be purchased from Amazon. He is currently working on The Cheapside Tales, a London-based trilogy of historical novels.

The Wards of Old London: Farringdon Without - Lawyers, Hacks and Beasts

Having recently explored the Ward of Aldersgate Without, we come, now, to the last of London's City Wards, that of Farringdon Without. This ward, however, is so much larger than any of the others, that we cannot encompass it in a single post, so this is simply an orientation exercise, to be followed by other posts, which will look in more detail at specific elements of the ward.

City of London Ward Map, 1870 (image is in the Public Domain). 

City of London Civil Parishes, 1870. Image: Doc77can (licensed under CCA).

The Ward of Farringdon Without is built around three ancient east-west thoroughfares which, together, connect the City of London to Westminster, Whitehall, and the West End. The north-south axis of the ward is today formed by Farringdon Street, but this is, in a sense, simply a ghost of what it replaces - a water-course variously referred to as the River Fleet, or Fleet Ditch, which flowed down (and flows still, although beneath the ground) from Hampstead to meet the Thames at Blackfriars. 

The Ward of Farringdon Without, 1755 (image is in the Public Domain).

Copperplate map of the River Fleet, 1553 (image is in the Public Domain).

The southernmost of the east-west thoroughfares, emerging from Ludgate, is Fleet Street. To the south of Fleet Street can be found The Temple, the London headquarters of the Knights Templar until their dissolution in 1312; and the Inns of the Inner and Middle Temple which replaced it, the training grounds for twenty generations of London lawyers. To the north of Fleet Street are the Royal Courts of Justice, beyond which stood Temple Bar (now relocated to Paternoster Square, in the shadow of Saint Paul's Cathedral), marking the western limit of the City of London, and the point at which Fleet Street becomes The Strand.

Fleet Street today. Photo: Basher Eyre (licensed under CCA).

Fleet Street in 1886, by Ernest George. Image: Pterre (Public Domain).

Temple Bar today. Photo: Nessy-Pic (licensed under CCA). 

Fleet Street is best known, however, for its association with printing and newspapers. This association began in around 1500, when Wynkyn de Worde established a printing workshop near Shoe Lane. London's first daily newspaper, The Daily Courant, was established nearby in 1702, followed, shortly afterwards, by The Morning Chronicle. Fleet Street remained the hub of London journalism until the 1980s.

Running parallel to Fleet Street, and to the north, emerging from Newgate, is Holborn/High Holborn, a continuation of the Roman road (Watling Street) running west from Kent to Wales. The coronation processions of Medieval kings started at the Tower of London, and proceeded along this route on the way to Westminster Abbey.

High Holborn in 1984, looking east from the corner of Grays Inn Road. The building on the right is Staple Inn (1585). Photo: Ben Brooksbank (licensed under CCA).

The third thoroughfare is West Smithfield, running in a south-westerly direction between the Great North Road and High Holborn. Smithfield has been synonymous with the meat trade since the early Middle Ages: the Twelfth Century chronicler, William FitzStephen, described the sale of horses, sheep and pigs there, which continued into the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries.

West Smithfield, and the Victorian meat markets. Photo: Chris Downer (licensed under CCA).

Over the coming weeks, we will explore these streets, and the lanes running between them, and we will begin, where we left off last week, on the Great North Road.

Mark Patton's novels, Undreamed Shores, An Accidental King, and Omphalos, are published by Crooked Cat Publications, and can be purchased from Amazon. He is currently working on The Cheapside Tales, a London-based trilogy of historical novels.