_ Wild House, Drury Lane._--Mr. Cunningham says, "Why so
called, I am not aware." _Wild_ is a corruption of _Weld_.
It was the town mansion of the family of the _Welds_, of
Lutworth Castle.
_Compton Street, Soho._--Built in the reign of Charles the
First by Sir Francis Compton. _New_ Compton Street, when first
formed, was denominated Stiddolph Street, after Sir Richard
Stiddolph, the owner of the land. It afterwards changed its name,
from a demise of the whole adjoining marsh land, made by Charles the
Second to Sir Francis Compton. All this, and the intermediate
streets, formed part of the site of the Hospital of St. Giles.
_Tottenham Court Road._--The old manor-house, sometimes called
in ancient records "Totham Hall," was, in Henry the Third's reign,
the residence of William de Tottenhall. Part of the old buildings
were remaining in 1818.
{229}_Short's Gardens, Drury Lane_.--Dudley Short, Esq., had a
mansion here, with fine garden attached, in the reign of Charles the
Second.
_Parker Street, Drury Lane._--Phillip Parker, Esq., had a
mansion on this site in 1623.
_Bainbridge and Buckridge Streets, St. Giles's_.--The two
streets, now no more, but once celebrated in the "annals of low
life," were built prior to 1672, and derived their names from their
owners, eminent parishioners in the reign of Charles the Second.
_Dyot Street, St. Giles's._--This street was inhabited, as late
as 1803, by Philip Dyot, Esq., a descendant of the gentleman from
whom it takes its name. In 1710 there was a certain "Mendicant's
Convivial Club" held at the "Welch's Head" in this street. The
origin of this club dated as far back as 1660, when its meetings
were held at the Three Crowns in the Poultry.
_Denmark Street, St. Giles's._--Originally built in 1689.
Zoffany, the celebrated painter, lived at No. 9. in this street. The
same house is also the scene of Bunbury's caricature, "The Sunday
Evening Concert:"--
"July 27. 1771.--Sir John Murray, late Secretary to the
Pretender, was on Thursday night carried off by a party
of strange men, from a house in _Denmark Street_, near
St. Giles's church, where he had lived some time."
--_MS. Diary quoted in Collet's Relics of Literature_, p. 306.