Cassell & Co. carry on their important business, marks the site of an
historic house, and perpetuates an error of nomenclature. Its original
title, as proved by a document of the year 1452, was "Savage's" Inn,
otherwise called the "Bell on the Hoop," but in the seventeenth century
a trade token was issued from here, having on it an Indian woman
holding a bow and arrow, and in 1676 "Bell Sauvage" Inn, on Ludgate
Hill, consisting of about forty rooms, with good cellarage and stabling
for about one hundred horses, was to be let. The mistake is repeated
in _The Spectator_, No. 28, where we are told of a beautiful girl who
was found in the wilderness, and whose fame was perpetuated in a French
romance. As we learn from Howe, in his continuation of _Stow's Annals_,
on a seat outside this inn Sir Thomas Wyat rested, after failing in an
attempt to enter the city during his ill-advised rebellion in the reign
of Mary Tudor. From Lambarde we gather that this was one of the houses
where plays were performed before the time of Shakespeare. Writing in
1576, he says, "Those who go to Paris Garden, the Bell Savage, or the
Theatre to behold bear-baiting, interludes, or fence play, must not
account of any pleasant spectacle unless first they pay one pennie
at the gate, another at the entrie of the scaffold, and a third for
quiet standing." Here, as at the "Cross Keys," Gracechurch Street,
Bankes exhibited his horse, and here, in 1683, "a very strange beast
called a Rhynoceros--the first that ever was in England," could be seen
daily. Stow affirms the inn to have been given to the Cutlers' Company
by Isabella Savage; but, in fact, the donor was John Craythorne, who
conveyed the reversion of it to them in 1568. The sculptured elephant
and castle representing their crest is still on a wall in La Belle
Sauvage Yard. The inn, which has left its mark in the annals of
coaching, was taken down in 1873.
A thoroughfare, formerly containing several fine mansions and various
inns for travellers, was Aldersgate Street, the continuation of St.
Martin's-le-Grand. There are allusions in print to the "Bell," the
"George" (previously the "White Hart"), and to the "Cock" Inn, where,
after years of wandering, Fynes Moryson arrived one Sunday morning in
1595; but these all passed away long ago. The last to linger in the
neighbourhood was the "Bull and Mouth," St Martin's-le-Grand, finally
called the "Queen's" Hotel, absorbed by the General Post Office in
1886. The name is generally supposed to be a corruption of Boulogne
Mouth, the entrance to Boulogne Harbour, that town having been taken
by Henry VIII. George Steevens, the Shakespearean commentator, seems
to have suggested this, and his idea has been generally accepted; but
it is more likely that our inn was identical with the house called in
1657 "the Mouth near Aldersgate in London, then the usual meeting-place
for Quakers," to which the Body of John Lilburne was conveyed in August
of that year. We learn from Ellwood's _Autobiography_ that five years
afterwards he was arrested at the "Bull and Mouth," Aldersgate. The
house was at its zenith as a coaching centre in the early years of the
nineteenth century, when Edward Sherman had become landlord. He rebuilt
the old galleried house in 1830. When coaching for business purposes
ceased to be, the gateway from St. Martin's-le-Grand was partially
blocked up and converted into the main entrance, the inn continuing
under its changed name for many years. The sculptured signs were not
removed until the destruction of the building. One, which was over the
main entrance, is a statuette of a Bull within a gigantic open Mouth;
below are bunches of grapes; above, a bust of Edward VI. and the arms
of Christ's Hospital, to which institution the ground belonged. Beneath
is a tablet inscribed with the following doggerel rhyme:--
"Milo the Cretonian an ox slew with his fist,
And ate it up at one meal, ye Gods what a glorious twist."
Another version of the sign, the Mouth appearing below the Bull, was
over what had been a back entrance to the yard in Angel Street. These
signs are now both in the Guildhall Museum. I had almost overlooked
one house, the "Castle and Falcon," Aldersgate, closed within the last
few months, and now destroyed. The structure was uninteresting, but it
stood on an old site--that of John Day's printing-house in the reign of
Queen Elizabeth. At the present inn on April 12th, 1799, was founded
the Church Missionary Society; here also its centenary was celebrated.
Besides being plentiful in the main thoroughfares, important inns,
like the churches, were often crammed away in narrow and inconvenient
lanes. This was the case with the "Oxford Arms" and the "Bell," both
in Warwick Lane. The former was approached by a passage, being bounded
on the west by the line of the old city wall, or by a later wall a few
feet to the east of it, and touching Amen Corner on the south. It was a
fine example of its kind. As was said by a writer in _The Athenæum_ of
May 20th, 1876, just before it was destroyed:
"Despite the confusion, the dirt and the decay, he who stands
in the yard of this ancient inn may get an excellent idea of
what it was like in the days of its prosperity, when not only
travellers in coach or saddle rode into or out of the yard,
but poor players and mountebanks set up their stage for the
entertainment of spectators, who hung over the galleries or
looked on from their rooms--a name by which the boxes of a
theatre were first known."
The house must have been rebuilt after the Great Fire, which raged
over this area. That it existed before is proved by the following odd
advertisement of March, 1672-73:
"These are to give notice that Edward Bartlet, Oxford Carrier,
hath removed his inn in London from the Swan at Holborn Bridge
to the Oxford Arms in Warwick Lane, where he did Inn before
the Fire. His coaches and waggons going forth on their usual
days, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. He hath also a hearse
and all things convenient to carry a Corps to any part of
England."
The "Bell" Inn, also galleried, was on the east side of Warwick Lane.
There Archbishop Leighton died in 1684. As Burnet tells us, he had
often said that "if he were to choose a place to die in it should be an
Inn; it looked like a pilgrim's going home, to whom this world was all
as an Inn, and who was weary of the noise and confusion in it." Thus
his desire was fulfilled. There is a view of the old house in Chambers'
_Book of Days_, vol. i., p. 278. It was demolished in 1865, when the
value of the unclaimed parcels, some of which had been there many
years, is said to have been considerable. According to one statement,
the jewellery was worth £700 or £800.
The few remaining inns to which reference will be made may best perhaps
be taken in alphabetical order. The old "Angel" Inn, at the end of Wych
Street, Strand, already existed in February, 1503, when a letter was
directed to Sir Richard Plumpton "at the Angell behind St. Clement's
Kirk." From this inn Bishop Hooper was taken to Gloucester in 1554 to
be burnt at the stake. A trade token was issued there in 1657. Finally,
the business, largely dependent on coaches, faded away; the building
was rased to the ground in 1853, and the set of offices called Danes
Inn built on the site. These in their turn have now succumbed. The
"Axe" in Aldermanbury was a famous carriers' inn. It is mentioned in
drunken Barnabee's _Journal_, and from there the first line of stage
waggons from London to Liverpool was established about the middle of
the seventeenth century. It took many days to perform the journey.
In Laurence Lane, near the Guildhall, was a noteworthy house called
"Blossoms" Inn, which, according to Stow, had "to sign St. Laurence the
Deacon in a border of blossoms of flowers." In 1522, when the Emperor
Charles V. came to visit Henry VIII. in London, certain inns were set
apart for the reception of his retinue, among them "St. Laurence,
otherwise called Bosoms Yn, was to have ready XX beddes and a stable
for LX horses." In Ben Jonson's _Masque of Christmas_, presented
at Court in 1616, "Tom of Bosomes Inn," apparently a real person,
is introduced as representing Mis-rule. That the house was early
frequented by carriers is shown in the epistle dedicatory to _Have at
you at Saffron Walden_, 1596:--"Yet have I naturally cherisht and hugt
it in my bosome, even as a carrier at Bosome's Inne doth a cheese under
his arm." A satirical tract about Bankes and his horse Marocco gives
the name of the authors as "John Dande the wiredrawer of Hadley, and
Harrie Hunt head ostler of Bosomes inn." There is a view of this famous
hostelry in the Crace collection, date 1855; the yard is now a depôt
for railway goods.
In 1852 London suffered a sad loss architecturally by the removal of
the fine groined crypt of Gerard's Hall, Basing Lane, which dated
perhaps from the end of the thirteenth century, and had formed part of
the mansion of a famous family of citizens, by name Gysors. In Stow's
time it was "a common hostrey for receipt of travellers." He gives a
long account of it, mixing fact with fiction. The house and hall were
destroyed in the Great Fire, but the crypt escaped, and on it an inn
was built with, in front, a carved wooden effigy of that mythical
personage, Gerard the Giant, which is now in the Guildhall Museum. On
the removal of the crypt the stones were numbered and presented to the
Crystal Palace Company, with a view to its erection in their building
or grounds. It is said, however, that after a time the stones were used
for mending roads.
A rather unimportant-looking inn was the "Nag's Head," on the east side
of Whitcomb Street, formerly Hedge Lane, but it is worthy of mention
for one or two reasons. We learn from a manuscript note-book, which
was in the possession of the late Mr. F. Locker Lampson, that Hogarth
in his later days, when he set up a coach and horses, kept them at the
"Nag's Head." He was then living on the east side of Leicester Square.
According to a pencil note on an old drawing, which belongs to the
writer, "this inn did the posting exclusively for the Royal family from
George I. to William IV." It was latterly used as a livery stable, but
retained its picturesque galleries until, the lease having come to an
end, it was closed in 1890. The space remained vacant for some years,
and is now covered by the fine publishing office of Messrs. Macmillan &
Co.
Two "Saracen's Head" inns have already been described, and though
one feels how imperfect this account must of necessity be, and that
some houses of note are altogether omitted, I am tempted to mention
a third--the house with that sign in Friday Street. It came into the
hands of the Merchant Taylors' Company as early as the year 1400, and
after several rebuildings was finally swept away in 1844. The adjoining
house, said by tradition to have been occupied by Sir Christopher Wren,
was destroyed at the same time.
It was in the early thirties of last century that coaching reached
its zenith, and perhaps the greatest coaching centre in London was
the "Swan with Two Necks," Lad Lane. It was an old inn, mentioned by
Machyn as early as 1556. In 1637 carriers from Manchester and other
places used to lodge there, but it will be best remembered as it
appears in a well-known print during the heyday of its prosperity, the
courtyard crowded with life and movement. The gateway was so narrow
that it required some horsemanship to drive a fast team out of the said
courtyard, and some care on the part of the guard that his horn or
bugle basket was not jammed against the gate-post. The proprietor of
this establishment was Mr. William Chaplin who, originally a coachman,
became perhaps the greatest coach proprietor that ever lived. About
1835 he occupied the yards of no fewer than five famous and important
inns in London, to all of which allusion has been made--the "Spread
Eagle" and "Cross Keys" in Gracechurch Street, the "Swan with Two
Necks," the "White Horse," Fetter Lane, and the "Angel" behind St.
Clement's. He had 1,300 horses at work on various roads, and about
that time horsed fourteen out of the twenty-seven coaches leaving
London every night. When the railways came he bowed to the inevitable,
and, in partnership with Mr. Horne, established the great carrying
business, which still flourishes on the site of the old "Swan with
Two Necks." In 1845 Lad Lane was absorbed by Gresham Street. The
origin of the sign has been often discussed, but it is perhaps well
to conclude this chapter by adding a few words about it. The swans on
the upper reaches of the Thames are owned respectively by the Crown
and the Dyers and the Vintners' Company, and, according to ancient
custom, the representatives of these several owners make an excursion
each year up the river to mark the cygnets. The visitors' mark used to
consist of the chevron or letter V and two nicks on the beak. The word
nicks has been corrupted into necks, and as the Vintners were often
tavern-keepers, the "Swan with Two Necks" became a common sign.
THE OLD LONDON COFFEE-HOUSES
BY G. L. APPERSON, I.S.O.
For something like a century and a half the coffee-houses formed a
distinctive feature of London life. The first is said to have been
established by a man named Bowman, servant to a Turkey merchant, who
opened a coffee-house in St. Michael's Alley, Cornhill, in 1652. The
honour of being the second has been claimed for the "Rainbow" in Fleet
Street, by the Inner Temple Gate, opposite Chancery Lane. Aubrey,
speaking of Sir Henry Blount, a beau in the time of Charles II., says:
"When coffee first came in, he was a great upholder of it, and had
ever since been a constant frequenter of coffee-houses, especially
Mr. Farre's, at the 'Rainbow,' by Inner Temple Gate." But according
to _The Daily Post_ of May 15th, 1728, "Old Man's" Coffee-house,
at Charing Cross, "was the Second that was set up in the Cities of
London and Westminster." The question of priority, however, is of no
importance. It is quite certain that in a surprisingly short space of
time coffee-houses became very numerous. A manuscript of 1659, quoted
in _The Gentleman's Magazine_ for 1852 (Part I., pp. 477-9), says that
at that date there was
"a Turkish drink to be sould almost in eury street, called
Coffee, and another kind of drink called Tee, and also a drink
called Chocolate, which was a very harty drink."
Tea made its way slowly; but coffee took the town by storm.
The coffee-houses, as resorts for men of different classes and
occupations, survived till the early years of the nineteenth
century; but their palmy days were over some time before the end of
the eighteenth century. They were at the height of their fame and
usefulness from the Restoration till the earlier years of George III.'s
reign.
From the description given in _The Spectator_ and other contemporary
writings--such as "facetious" Tom Brown's _Trip through London_ of
1728, and the like--it is easy to reconstruct in imagination the
interior of one of these resorts as they appeared in the time of
Queen Anne. Occasionally the coffee-room, as at the famous "Will's"
in Russell Street, Covent Garden, was on the first floor. Tables
were disposed about the sanded floor--the erection of boxes did not
come in until a later date--while on the walls were numerous flaming
advertisements of quack medicines, pills and tinctures, salves and
electuaries, which were as abundant then as now, and of other wares
which might be bought at the bar. The bar was at the entrance to the
temple of coffee and gossip, and was presided over by the predecessors
of the modern barmaids--grumbled at in _The Spectator_ as "idols," who
there received homage from their admirers, and who paid more attention
to customers who flirted with them than to more sober-minded visitors;
and described by Tom Brown as "a charming Phillis or two, who invite
you by their amorous glances into their smoaky territories."
At the bar messages were left and letters taken in for regular
customers. In the early days of Swift's friendship with Addison,
Stella was instructed to address her letters to the former under
cover to Addison at the "St. James's" Coffee-house, in St. James's
Street; but as the friendship between the two men cooled the cover was
dispensed with, and the letters were addressed to Swift himself at the
coffee-house, where they were placed, doubtless with many others, in
the glass frame behind the bar. Stella's handwriting was very like that
of her famous correspondent, and one day Harley, afterwards Earl of
Oxford, seeing one of Stella's letters in the glass frame and thinking
the writing was Swift's, asked the latter, when he met him shortly
afterwards, how long he had learned the trick of writing to himself.
Swift says he could hardly persuade him that he was mistaken in the
writing.
The coffee-houses were the haunts of clubs and coteries almost from the
date of their first establishment. Steele, in the familiar introduction
to _The Tatler_, tells us how accounts of gallantry, pleasure and
entertainment were to come from "White's" Chocolate-house; poetry from
"Will's" Coffee-house; learning from the "Grecian"; and foreign and
domestic news from the "St. James's." Nearly fifty years later, Bonnell
Thornton, in the first number of _The Connoisseur_, January 31st, 1754,
similarly enumerates some of the leading houses. "White's" was still
the fashionable resort; "Garraway's" was for stock-jobbers; "Batson's"
for doctors; the "Bedford" for "wits" and men of parts; the "Chapter"
for book-sellers; and "St. Paul's" for the clergy. Mackay, in his
_Journey through England_, published in 1724, says that
"about twelve the _beau-monde_ assembles in several chocolate
and coffee-houses, the best of which are the Cocoa Tree and
White's Chocolate-houses, St. James's, the Smyrna, and the
British Coffee-houses; and all these so near one another that
in less than an hour you see the company of them all....
I must not forget to tell you that the parties have their
different places, where, however, a stranger is always well
received; but a Whig will no more go to the Cocoa Tree or
Ozinda's than a Tory will be seen at the coffee-house of
St. James's. The Scots go generally to the British, and a
mixture of all sorts to the Smyrna. There are other little
coffee-houses much frequented in this neighbourhood--Young
Man's for officers, Old Man's for stock-jobbers, paymasters,
and courtiers, and Little Man's for sharpers."
It was only natural that people of similar occupations or tastes should
gravitate in their hours of leisure to common social centres, and no
one classification, such as that just quoted, can exhaust the subject.
The devotees of whist had their own houses. The game began to be
popular about 1730, and some of those who first played scientific
whist--possibly including Hoyle himself--were accustomed to meet at the
"Crown" Coffee-house in Bedford Row. Other groups soon met at other
houses. A pirated edition of Hoyle's _Whist_, printed at Dublin in
1743, contains an advertisement of "A Short Treatise on the Game of
Whist, as play'd at Court, White's, and George's Chocolate-houses, at
Slaughter's, and the Crown Coffee-houses, etc., etc." At "Rawthmell's"
Coffee-house in Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, the Society of Arts
was founded in 1754. "Old Slaughter's" in St. Martin's Lane was a
great resort in the second half of the eighteenth century of artists.
Here Roubillac the sculptor, Hogarth, Bourguignon or Gravelot the book
illustrator, Moser the keeper of the St. Martin's Lane Academy, Luke
Sullivan the engraver, and many others of the fraternity were wont
to foregather. Near by was "Young Slaughter's," a meeting-place for
scientific and literary men.
R. L. Edgeworth, in his _Memoirs_ (p. 118, Ed. 1844), says:--
"I was introduced by Mr. Keir into a society of literary
and scientific men, who used formerly to meet once a week
at Jack's Coffee-house [_i.e., circa 1780_] in London, and
afterwards at Young Slaughter's Coffee-house. Without any
formal name, this meeting continued for years to be frequented
by men of real science and of distinguished merit. John Hunter
was our chairman. Sir Joseph Banks, Solander, Sir A. Blagden,
Dr. George Fordyce, Milne, Maskelyne, Captain Cook, Sir G.
Shuckburgh, Lord Mulgrave, Smeaton and Ramsden, were among
our members. Many other gentlemen of talents belonged to this
club, but I mention those only with whom I was individually
acquainted."
A favourite resort of men of letters during the middle and later years
of the eighteenth century was the "Bedford" Coffee-house, under the
Piazza, in Covent Garden. This house, it may be said, inherited the
tradition from Button's, which that famous coffee-house had taken
over from Will's. To the "Bedford" came Fielding, Foote, Garrick,
Churchill, Sheridan, Hogarth, and many another man of note. Another
haunt of literary men, as well as of book-sellers, was the "Chapter"
Coffee-house in Paternoster Row. Chatterton wrote to his mother in
May, 1770: "I am quite familiar at the 'Chapter' Coffee-house, and
know all the geniuses there." Goldsmith was one of its frequenters.
It was here that he came to sup one night as the invited guest of
Churchill's friend, Charles Lloyd. The supper was served and enjoyed,
whereupon Lloyd, without a penny in his pocket to pay for the meal
he had ordered, coolly walked off and left Goldsmith to discharge
the reckoning. It was at the same house that Foote, one day when a
distressed player passed his hat round the coffee-room circle with an
appeal for help, made the malicious remark: "If Garrick hear of this he
will certainly send in his hat."
Close by was the "St. Paul's" Coffee-house, where, according to Bonnell
Thornton, "tattered crapes," or poor parsons, were wont to ply "for an
occasional burial or sermon, with the same regularity as the happier
drudges who salute us with the cry of 'Coach, sir,' or 'Chair, your
honour.'" The same writer relates how a party of bucks, by a hoaxing
proffer of a curacy, "drew all the poor parsons to 'St. Paul's'
Coffee-house, where the bucks themselves sat in another box to smoke
their rusty wigs and brown cassocks."
Business men gathered at "Jonathan's" and "Garraway's," both in
Exchange Alley, where the sale and purchase of stocks and bonds and
merchandise of every kind formed the staple talk. The former house
was a centre of operations for both bubblers and bubbled in the mania
year of 1720. "Lloyd's" Coffee-house was for very many years a famous
auction mart.
"Then to Lloyd's coffee-house he never fails,
To read the letters, and attend the sales,"
says the author of _The Wealthy Shopkeeper_, published in 1700.
Addison, in No. 46 of _The Spectator_, tells how he was accustomed to
make notes or "minutes" of anything likely to be useful for future
papers, and of how one day he accidentally dropped one of these papers
at "Lloyd's Coffee-house, where the auctions are usually kept." It was
picked up and passed from hand to hand, to the great amusement of all
who saw it. Finally, the "boy of the coffee-house," having in vain
asked for the owner of the paper, was made "to get up into the auction
pulpit and read it to the whole room." The "Jerusalem" Coffee-house, in
Exchange Alley, was for generations the resort of merchants and traders
interested in the East.
The doctors met at "Batson's" or "Child's." The pseudonymous author
of Don Manoel Gonzales' _Voyage to Great Britain_, 1745, speaking of
the London physicians, says: "You find them at Batson's or Child's
Coffee-house usually in the morning, and they visit their patients
in the afternoon." The Jacobites had two well-known houses of
call--"Bromefield's" Coffee-house in Spring Gardens, and, later, the
"Smyrna" in Pall Mall. Mr. J. H. MacMichael, in his valuable book on
_Charing Cross_, 1906, quotes an order "given at their Majesties' Board
of Green Cloth at Hampton Court" in 1689, to Sir Christopher Wren,
Surveyor of Their Majesties' Works, to have "bricked or otherwise
so closed up as you shall judge most fit for the security of their
Majesties' Palace of Whitehall" a certain door which led out of
Buckingham Court into Spring Garden, because Bromefield's Coffee-house
in that court was resorted to by "a great and numerous concourse
of Papists and other persons disaffected to the Government." Mr.
MacMichael suggests that probably "Bromefield's" was identical with
the coffee-house known as "Young Man's." "The Smyrna," in Pall Mall,
was the Jacobite resort in Georgian days. It was also a house of many
literary associations. Thomson, the poet, there received subscriptions
for his _Seasons_; Swift and Prior and Arbuthnot frequented it. In
1703 Lord Peterborough wrote to Arbuthnot from Spain:--"I would faine
save Italy and yett drink tea with you at the Smirna this Winter." But
it is impossible to catalogue fully all the different coffee-house
centres. The "Grecian" in Devereux Court, Strand, was devoted to
learning; barristers frequented "Serle's," at the corner of Serle and
Portugal Streets, Lincoln's Inn Fields; the Templars went to "Dick's,"
and later to the "Grecian"; and so the list might be prolonged.