street, and in the ward of the same name. It is of great antiquity,
and was originally a chapel belonging to the dean and chapter of St.
Paul’s, who between the years 1171, and 1181, granted the church of St.
Olave Jewry, together with this chapel, as an appendage to it, to the
prior and abbot of Butley in Suffolk.
This chapel was made parochial in the year 1456, but continued under
the patronage of the prior and canons of Butley, till the suppression
of that convent, when it came to the crown. However in the year 1577,
Queen Elizabeth granted the patronage, together with the church and
rectory to Thomas Paskins and others, and in 1590 to William Daniel,
serjeant at law, and other parishioners; which rectory impropriate,
and right of advowson, have been held by the parish in fee farm of the
crown ever since. _Newc. Repert. Eccless._
This church sharing the common fate in the dreadful fire of London, the
present structure was erected in its stead about four years after. It
is a plain and solid building strengthened with rustic at the corners,
and enlightened by one series of large windows. The steeple is a square
tower crowned with a lanthorn which has four faces.
The rector, besides several annual donations, and other advantages,
receives 110_l._ _per annum_.
Mr. Munday, in his edition of Stow’s Survey, mentions several
monumental inscriptions in this church, among which are the following.
1. Our life is all but death; time that ensueth,
Is but the death of time that went before:
Youth is the death of childhood; age of youth.
Die once to God, and then thou diest no more.
2. Agnes, the wife of Leonard Darr, whose sight,
By sickness much impair’d, in heav’nly light,
Look’d, liv’d and died, as dimness her were giv’n,
That her soul’s eyes might better look to heav’n.
In this church Munday himself lies, and on his monument is the
following inscription.
3. To the Memory of that ancient servant to the city with his pen in
divers employments, especially the _Survey of London_, master _Anthony
Munday_, citizen and draper of London.
He that hath many an antient Tombstone read,
(I’th’ labour seeming more among the dead
To live, than with the living) that survey’d
Obstruse antiquities, and o’er them laid
Such vive and beauteous colours with his pen,
That (spite of time) those old are new again,
Under this marble lies interr’d; his tomb
Claiming (as worthily it may) this room,
Among those many monuments his quill
Has so reviv’d, helping now to fill
A place (with those) in his Survey; in which
He has a monument, more fair, more rich
Than polish’d stones could make him, where he lies,
Though dead, still living, and in that ne’er dies.
_St._ STEPHEN’S HOSPITAL, situated in the Woolstaple at Westminster,
was founded by Henry VIII. in the year 1544, for eight maimed soldiers,
who have each a convenient room, and an allowance of 5_l._ _per annum_
out of the Exchequer.
_St._ STEPHEN’S _Walbrook_, behind the Mansion-house of the Lord Mayor,
in Walbrook ward. We read of a church near the same spot dedicated to
the same patron so early as the year 1135; but it then stood on the
other side of the street. However about the year 1428, Robert Chichely,
Mayor of London, purchased the ground of the present church and cemetry
of the Grocers company, and the first stone of the new structure
was laid in 1429; but the work advanced so slowly, that it was not
finished, till the year 1439.
The old structure was destroyed by the fire of London in the year
1666, and the present noble edifice was erected in its place by the
great Sir Christopher Wren. The steeple rises square to a considerable
height, and is then surrounded with a balustrade, within which rises
a very light and elegant tower in two stages, the first adorned with
Corinthian, and the second with Composite columns, and covered with a
dome, whence rises the vane.
The outside of the church is plain and void of ornament, but in the
center of the roof is a large dome; which cannot be seen to advantage,
on account of its being in a manner hid by the Mansion-house. The
principal beauties of this justly admired edifice are on the inside;
where this dome, which is spacious and noble, is finely proportioned
to the church, and divided into small compartments decorated with
great elegance, and crowned with a lanthorn, while the roof, which is
also divided into compartments, is supported by very noble Corinthian
columns, raised on their pedestals. It has three isles and a cross
isle; is seventy-five feet in length, and thirty-six in breadth, the
height of the middle roof is thirty-four feet, and of the cupola and
lanthorn fifty-eight feet. On the sides under the lower roofs are only
circular windows, but those which enlighten the upper roof are small
arched ones; and at the east end are three very noble arched windows.
In the opinion of some persons this is Sir Christopher Wren’s
masterpiece. It is even thought that Italy itself can produce no modern
structure equal to this in taste, proportion, elegance and beauty. It
is certain that foreigners, to whom it is well known, might very justly
call our judgments in question, were we not to allow it as high a
degree both of merit and fame as they have bestowed upon it. It is one
of the happy productions of Sir Christopher Wren’s great genius without
a strict observance of the rules of art. It has a very striking effect
at entering, every part coming at once to your eye, except the bases of
the columns, which are injudiciously eclipsed by the carving on the top
of the pews (these are not represented in the print) and was not the
design of the architect. The outside is now in part hid by the Mansion
house. The plate also represents a plan and section.
To this church that of St. Bennet Sherehog is annexed, whereby the
profits of the rector are much increased: besides other advantages, he
receives 100_l._ a year in lieu of tithes.
[Illustration:
_S. Wale delin._ _E. Rooker sculp._
_S^t Stephen’s Walbrook_]
STEPNEY, a very ancient village near London; but as it not joined to it
by contiguous buildings, we shall not, after the example of some of our
late compilers, represent it as a part of this metropolis.
This parish was of such a vast extent, and so amazingly increased in
buildings, as to produce the parishes of St. Mary Stratford at Bow,
St. Mary Whitechapel, St. Ann’s Limehouse, St. John’s at Wapping,
St. Paul’s Shadwell, St. George’s Ratcliff Highway, Christ Church
Spitalfields, and St. Matthew’s Bethnal Green; all which have been
separated from it, and yet it still remains one of the largest parishes
within the bills of mortality, and contains the hamlets of Mile-end,
Old and New Towns, Ratcliff and Poplar.
The village of Stepney, is remarkable for its church, and the great
number of tombstones, both in that edifice and its spacious cemetry. It
has also an independant meeting-house, and an almshouse. The village,
however, is but small, and consists of few houses besides those of
public entertainment; vast crowds of people of both sexes resorting
thither on Sundays, and at Easter and Whitsun holidays, to eat Stepney
buns, and to regale themselves with ale, cyder, _&c._
There was a church here so long ago as the time of the Saxons, when
it was called the church of all Saints, _Ecclesia omnium Sanctorum_,
and we read of the manor of Stepney under the reign of William the
Conqueror, by the name of _Stibenhede_, or Stiben’s-heath; but it
does not appear when the church changed its name by being dedicated
to St. Dunstan, the name it at present bears. To this church belong
both a rectory and vicarage; the former, which was a sinecure, was in
the gift of the bishop of London, and the latter, in the gift of the
rector, till Ridley, bishop of London, gave the manor of Stepney, and
the advowson of the church to Edward VI. who, in his turn, granted
them to Sir Thomas Wentworth, Lord Chamberlain of his houshold. But
the advowson being afterwards purchased by the principal and scholars
of King’s Hall and Brazen-Nose college in Oxford, they presented two
persons to the rectory and vicarage by the name of the Portionists
of Ratcliff and Spitalfields, till the year 1744, when the hamlet of
Bethnal Green being separated from it, and made a new parish by act of
parliament, Stepney became possessed by only one rector.
As this is at present a rectory impropriate, the above principal
and scholars receive the great tithes, and the incumbent the small,
together with Easter offerings, garden pennies, and surplice fees,
which are very considerable. _Newc. Repert. Eccles._
When the present church was erected is not recorded; the wall and
battlements are built of brick and wrought stone, plastered over; and
the roof is covered with lead. It is of a very considerable extent,
for it is an hundred and four feet long, though it is no more than
fifty-four broad; the height of the roof is thirty-five feet, and that
of the tower, with its turret, ninety-two feet. The pillars, arches
and windows, are of the modern Gothic, and the west porch, built in
1610, has no resemblance to the rest of the building, it being of the
Tuscan order. The tower, which is plain and heavy, is supported at the
corners by a kind of double buttresses; it is crowned with square plain
battlements, without pinnacles, and with a small mean turret; and the
same kind of battlements are carried round the body of the church.
On the inside are three galleries and an organ, and the altar-piece is
adorned with four Corinthian pilasters, with their entablature and a
pediment; these have gilt capitals; with the arms of Queen Anne carved:
but what is most singular is a stone on the east side of the portico,
leading up to the gallery, on which is the following inscription.
Of Carthage great I was a stone,
O mortals read with pity!
Time consumes all, it spareth none,
Men, mountains, towns, nor city:
Therefore O mortals! all bethink
You where unto you must,
Since now such stately buildings
Lie buried in the dust.
It is probable this stone was really brought from Carthage, otherwise
this inscription would scarcely be permitted to be there; but as a
modern author observes, it is to be hoped, that he who ordered it to be
fixed there, did not go to Carthage on purpose to fetch it.
At the east end of the church-yard near the church is a monument of
white marble, adorned with a cherub, urn, palm-branches and a coat of
arms, under which is the following inscription:
Here lieth interred the body of Dame Rebecca Berry, the wife of Thomas
Elton of Stratford Bow, gent. who departed this life April 16, 1696,
aged 52.
Come ladies, you that would appear
Like angels fair, come dress you here;
Come dress you at this marble stone
And make that humble Grace your own,
Which once adorn’d as fair a mind,
As e’er yet lodg’d in womankind.
So she was dress’d, whose humble life
Was free from pride, was free from strife:
Free from all envious brawls and jars
(Of human life the civil wars)
These ne’er disturb’d her peaceful mind,
Which still was gentle, still was kind.
Her very looks, her garb, her mien,
Disclos’d the humble soul within.
Trace her through ev’ry scene of life,
View her as widow, virgin, wife,
Still the same humble she appears,
The same in youth, the same in years;
The same in low and high estate,
Ne’er vex’d with this, ne’er mov’d with that.
Go, Ladies, now, and if you’d be }
As fair, as great, as good as she,}
Go learn of her humility. }
On another grave-stone near the south-east corner of the church-yard,
is the following inscription on Mary Angel:
To say an angel here interr’d doth lie,
May be thought strange, for angels never die.
Indeed some fell from heav’n to hell.
Are lost, and rise no more:
This only fell by death to earth,
Not lost but gone before.
Her dust lodg’d here, her soul perfect in grace,
’Mongst saints and angels now hath took its place.
Near the south side of the church on a marble tomb-stone, adorned with
a coat of arms, are the following lines on capt. Thomas Chevers, his
wife, and a son who died at five days old.
Reader, consider well how poor a span,
And how uncertain is the life of man:
Here lie the husband, wife, and child, by death
All three in five days time deprived of breath.
The child dies first, the mother on the morrow
Follows, and then the father dies with sorrow.
A Cæsar falls by many wounds, well may
Two stabs at heart the stoutest captain slay.
On a stone near the foot path on the north-west side, is the following
inscription:
Whoever treadeth on this stone,
I pray you tread most neatly,
For underneath the same doth lye
Your honest friend Will. Wheatly.
The last inscription we shall mention is the following short one on the
south-west side of the church.
Here lies the body of Daniel Saul,
Spittlefields weaver, and that is all.
STEPNEY _causeway_, Whitehorse lane.☐
STEPNEY _green_, Stepney.☐
STEPNEY _rents_, Shoreditch.☐
STERN’S _yard_, Kent street, Southwark.†
STERRY’S _rents_, in the Minories.†
STEVENS’S _alley_, Chanel row, New Palace yard.† 2. King’s street,
Westminster.†
STEVENS’S _court_, New Palace yard, Westminster.†
STEVENS’S _yard_, Poplar.†
STEWARD’S _court_, Clerkenwell green.†
STEWARD’S _rents_, Great Wild street.†
STEWARD’S _street_, Artillery lane, Spitalfields.†
STEWART’S SCHOOL, for the benefit of twenty poor boys of the parish of
St. George Hanover square, was founded and endowed by lieut. general
Stewart, who about the year 1728, bequeathed the sum of 500_l._ for that
purpose. _Maitland._
STEW _lane_, High Timber street.
STEWS, a number of brothels anciently situated on the Bank-side,
Southwark, and licensed by the bishop of Winchester. There were at
first eighteen of these houses, but afterwards only twelve were
allowed: they stood in a row, and had signs on their fronts towards the
Thames, not hung out, but painted on the walls, as the Boar’s Head, the
Cross Keys, the Castle, the Cardinal’s Hat, the Bell, the Swan, _&c._
These houses which were frequently kept by Flemish bawds, were under
very strict regulations, among which were the following, confirmed by
act of parliament, in the reign of Henry II.
That no stewholder or his wife should hinder any single woman from
going and coming as often as she pleased.
That no stewholder should board any single woman; but she should board
abroad at her pleasure, and that no more should be taken for the
woman’s chamber than 14_d._ a week.
That the doors should be shut up on all holidays, and no single woman
suffered in the house.
That no single woman desirous of forsaking her sins, should be kept
against her will.
That no stewholder should receive a nun, or any man’s wife.
That no man should be drawn or inticed into any of these houses, nor
any single woman take money for lying with a man, unless he lay all
night.
That no stewholder should keep any woman that had the perilous
infirmity of burning; [the venereal disease;] nor sell bread, flesh,
fish, ale, wood, coals, or any kind of food; and that the constables,
bailiffs and others should search every stewhouse weekly.
These and many other orders were to be observed, under the penalty of
suffering great pains and punishments; and any woman leading a life of
lewdness was forbidden the rights of the church, and denied Christian
burial, if she was not reconciled before her death. And therefore there
was a plot of ground called the single woman’s church-yard, appointed
for these women at a distance from the parish church.
These stews were put down by order of Henry VIII. in the year 1546,
when it was proclaimed by sound of trumpet, that this row of stews
was no longer to be privileged, and used as a common brothel. _Stow’s
Survey._
STICHBONE’S _court_, High Holbourn.†
STILL _alley_, Bishopsgate street without.* 2. Bluegate field,
Upper Shadwell.† 3. George street.* 4. Houndsditch.† 5. Long
alley, Moorfields.* 6. New street, St. Thomas’s.* 7. Petticoat lane,
Whitechapel.*
STILL _stairs_, Pickleherring street.*
STILL _yard_, 1. Liquorpond street, Leather lane.* 2. Maze Pond street,
Southwark.* See STEEL _yard_.
STOCKDON’S _yard_, Vine yard, Horselydown lane.†
STOCKING FRAME _alley_, Shoreditch.*
STOCKS MARKET, stood at the north-east corner of Walbrook, where the
Mansion House of the Lord Mayor is now erected. This was made a market
about the year 1282, at which time was a pair of stocks there, for the
punishment of offenders, the first set up in the city of London.
This market was about 230 feet long from north to south, and about 180
feet broad, besides the room left for passengers on each side. On the
east side were planted rows of trees, and on the north were twenty-two
stalls covered over for fruit, as well on market days, as at other
times. The rest of the market was taken up by gardeners, only at the
south-west corner were two ranges of stalls for butchers.
But what was most singular in this market, was, there being placed at
the north end, a pretended Equestrian statue of King Charles II. set
up at the expence of Sir Robert Viner, alderman, knt. and baronet.
This statue was originally made for John Sobieski King of Poland, but,
by some accident, was left upon the workman’s hands: about the same
time the city was loyal enough to pay their devoirs to King Charles,
immediately upon his restoration; and, finding this statue ready
made to their hands, resolved to do it the cheapest way, and convert
the Polander into a Briton, and the Turk, underneath his horse, into
Oliver Cromwell, to make their compliment compleat. In this very manner
it appeared, and the turbant upon the last mentioned figure was an
undeniable proof of the truth of the story.
The above statue and all the stalls were removed in the year 1738, in
order to lay the foundation of the present Mansion-house.
STOKE GREEN, a village in Buckinghamshire, a little to the north of
Windsor. Sir Thomas Stapleton has here a very handsome house, and large
and most beautiful gardens.
In the neighbourhood of this village is Stoke House, which belongs to
the Lady Cobham, and is a noble and large edifice, with a pleasant
park. Adjoining to the house is the parish church of Stoke, and a neat
hospital, built and endowed by —— Countess of Huntingdon, for the
support and maintenance of 12 ancient poor people of both sexes.
STOKE POGES, a village so called from the Poges, its ancient Lords,
is situated a little to the north of Stoke Green. Here Edward Lord
Hastings, in the reign of Queen Mary, erected a chapel and hospital,
adorned with a portico supported by pillars, that still remain on the
east end of this ancient seat. The entrance to the house, is like that
of the Villa Borghese at Rome, by a great hall paved with marble, and
adorned with many fine ancient busts of the Roman Emperors, some of
marble, some of granate, and others of porphyry, brought from Rome
by the late Sir Robert Gayer. At the bottom of this hall is a pretty
little chapel paved with marble, seeming to rise like steps. From this
hall there is an entrance into a fine park, with seven avenues in the
form of a star; from each of which there is a delightful prospect, and
from one of them a good view of Windsor Castle.
STONE _alley_, Broad street, Ratcliff.
STONE _court_, 1. Aldersgate street: 2. St. Catharine’s by the Tower:
3. Lower East Smithfield: 4. New street, Fetter lane.
STONE CUTTERS _alley_, 1. Black Friars: 2. Fleet ditch: 3. Little Queen
street: 4. Pallmall.
STONE CUTTERS _court_, 1. Gutter lane, Cheapside: 2. Old street. 3.
Pallmall.
STONE CUTTER _street_, next to Harp ally, in the Fleet market.
STONE CUTTER _yard_, 1. Blackman street: 2. Butcher row, Ratcliff: 3.
near Castle street: 4. Great stone stairs, Ratcliff: 5. St. Martin’s
lane, Charing Cross: 6. Kent street, by St. George’s church, Southwark:
7. Millbank, Westminster horse-ferry: 8. Peter’s street: 9. Poor Jewry
lane, Aldgate.
STONE’S _rents_, Limehouse.†
STONE _stairs_, near Ratcliff cross.
STONE _yard_, 1. Lower East Smithfield: 2. Tooley street, Southwark.
STONY _lane_, St. Olave street, Southwark: 2. Old horselydown,
Southwark: 3. Petticoat lane.
STONY _street_, near Deadman’s Place, Southwark: 2. Cock lane,
Shoreditch.
STOREHOUSE _yard_, New Rag Fair, East Smithfield.
STOREY’S _passage_, and STOREY’S _gate_, by Storey’s coffee-house; both
removed in order to extend the view through Great George street into
St. James’s Park.†
STRAFFORD _street_, Albemarle street.
STRAND, a street which extends from Temple bar to the corner of St.
Martin’s lane, Charing cross. Maitland observes that the Strand was
anciently a village, which took its name from its being placed on the
bank of the Thames, and that its ancient situation was not much higher
than that river; as upon digging the foundation of the New church
called St. Mary le Strand, the virgin earth was discovered at the depth
of nineteen feet.
In this street formerly resided many of the Nobility, whose gardens
extended to the Thames, among which there are still remaining
Northumberland house, Somerset house, and the ruins of the Savoy.
As this is the grand channel of communication between the city of
London and Westminster it would have been a great ornament to both,
had it been a spacious, straight and uniform street, without that
incumberance which begins at Butcher Row, and ends at the New Church.
In this case, the prospect from Temple Bar would have afforded a noble
vista, terminated by Charing Cross, and this might have been still
enlarged, by letting in the more distant view of the park, through a
street of the same breadth with itself.
STRAND BRIDGE, a handsome structure formerly erected a little to the
east of Catharine street. It was raised over a brook which ran from the
fields, and crossing the Strand fell into the Thames, near Somerset
stairs.
STRAND _bridge_, Strand lane.
STRAND BRIDGE _stairs_, near Strand lane.
STRAND _lane_, a narrow passage leading from the Strand towards the
Thames.
STRANGEWAY’S _street_, Saffron hill.†
STRATFORD LE BOW, a village to the east of Mile-end. See the article
BOW.
STRATFORD or STRATFORD LONG-THORN, the first village in Essex, next
to London, in the parish of Westham. It had an abbey which together
with the church was given by King Henry VIII. to Sir Peter Meautys of
Westham. This parish has greatly increased of late years in buildings
and inhabitants, every vacancy being in a manner filled up, by the
addition of two little new built hamlets, if they may be thus called,
on the forest side of the town; these are Maryland Point, and the
Gravel Pits, one facing the road to Woodford and Epping, and the other
that to Ilford: while the hither part, in spite of rivers, canals, and
marshy grounds, is almost joined to Bow.
STRATTON’S _ground_, near Tothil Fields, Westminster.†
STRETHAM, a village in Surry, six miles south-west of London, and three
miles to the north of Croydon, used to be much frequented for its
medicinal waters. It has a charity school, and a seat belonging to the
Duke of Bedford, Lord of the manor.
STRETTON’S _grounds_, Westminster.†
STRETTON’S _street_, 1. Hyde Park Road, from the Lord Berkley of
Stretton’s mansion-house. 2. Berkley street, Westminster.†
STRAWBERRY _court_, Tower Royal, near St. Thomas Apostles.
STREUD’S _court_, St. James’s.†
STROUD’S _court_, Leather lane, Holbourn.†
STRUMBELS, Chelsea.
STRYPE’S _yard_, Petticoat lane.†
STUBB’S _rents_, 1. Charter house lane.† 2. Saffron hill, near Snow
hill.†
STUT’S _alley_, Kent street, near St. George’s church, Southwark.†
SUBPÆNA OFFICE, in Symmond’s Inn Chancery lane. In this office writs
are issued to summon persons to appear in Chancery.
SUFFOLK _lane_, by Little Bush lane, Thames street.
SUFFOLK _street_, Pallmall: 2. in the Mint Southwark.
SUGARBAKER’S _lane_, Duke’s Place, near Aldgate.
SUGARBAKER’S _yard_, Duke’s Place.
SUGARHOUSE _yard_, Butcher Row.
SUGARLOAF _alley_, 1. Barnaby street, Southwark.* 2. Garlick hill,
Thames street.* 3. Mark lane, Fenchurch street.* 4. Moses and Aaron
alley, Whitechapel.* 5. Portpool lane, Leather lane.* 6. Wentworth
street, Petticoat lane, Spitalfields.*