Fenchurch Street

Fenchurch Street

West from Aldgate at No. 1 to No. 65 Gracechurch Street (P.O. Directory). In Aldgate, Langbourne, and Bridge Wards.

Earliest mention found in records: "Street of Fanchurche," 1337 (Ct. H.W. I. 424).

Other forms: "Fancherch Street," 1348–9 (ib. 520). "Fancherchstrete," 1369 (ib. II. 131). "Fanchirchestrate," 1372–3 (ib. 152). "Vanchyrche Strett," 1547 (Hist. Carp. Co. 386). "Fenne Church streete" (S. 201).

In 1408 it seems to be referred to as "Colmanstrete," as mention is made in a Will of that date of "St. Katherine Colman near Colmanstrete otherwise called Fanchirchestrete" (Ct. H.W. II. 378).

Stow says it took the name of "Fennie" or moorish ground through which the stream of "Langbourn" ran, but he adds that some people thought the name came from "faenum" of the hay sold at Gracechurch Market (S. 201).

This second derivation certainly seems the more probable of the two, as there are no records to prove the existence of the mythical "Langbourne" stream, nor to support the theory that the locality was low-lying or marsh land, while the present levels certainly indicate the contrary. It must be remembered that the street actually took its name from the church of "Fenchurch," viz. St. Gabriel Fenchurch, which stood in the middle of the street until destroyed by the Great Fire of 1666 and not rebuilt. The site of the church was on the higher ground of the City.

Roman remains found at a depth of 16 ft. The Roman level was at a depth of 12–14 ft. (Arch. XIX. 153). At No. 37, opposite to Cullum Street, a tessellated pavement found at a depth of 11 ft. 6 in. (R. Smith, 58). Walls found from Lime Street to Cullum Street.

Burial ground found under the western end of the street, but no traces of the "bourne" (Arch. LX. 230). The ground rises 3 ft. from Mincing Lane to Gracechurch Street and the ancient surface at a depth of 17 ft. has the same inclination (Tite, Xviii.).

Fenchurch-Street, Gracechurch-Street,—the third on the R. about ⅕ of a mile from London-bridge, extending from opposite Lombard-street to Aldgate.

Fenchurch-St., is the third turning on the right hand in Gracechurch-street, going from London-bridge. It leads into Aldgate, nearly parallel to Leadenhall-street.

Fenchurch Street, City, runs from Gracechurch Street to Aldgate. It is first mentioned in the City Books as Fancherche, 1276.

Fenchurch Street took that name of a fenny or moorish ground, so made by means of this borne [Langbourn] which passed through it, and therefore, until this day, in the Guildhall of this city, that ward is called by the name of Langbourne or Fennieabout; yet others be of opinion that it took that name of Fœnum, that is, hay sold here, as Grass Street [Gracechurch Street] took the name of grass or herbs there sold.—Stow, p. 76.

William Wallace, the Scottish patriot, was lodged as a prisoner, on his first arrival in London, in the house of William de Leyre, a citizen in the parish of Allhallows Staining, at the end of Fenchurch Street. According to tradition Queen Elizabeth, on her release from the tower, dined off pork and peas at the King's Head Tavern, No. 53 Fenchurch Street, after attending service at Allhallows Staining Church. A metal dish and cover used by the Queen are still shown.¹ The King's Head has been recently rebuilt as a substantial Elizabethan tavern; and is a good City dinner house, now called the London Tavern. In June 1616 Andrew Ramsay, Viscount Haddington's brother, was killed in Fenchurch Street "by the watch whom he resisted when they stayed him."²

June 10, 1665.—To my great trouble, hear that the Plague is come into the city (though it hath these three or four weeks since its beginning been wholly out of the city); but where should it begin but in my good friend and neighbour's, Dr. Burnett, in Fanchurch Street; which, in both points, troubles me mightily.—Pepys.

On the 11th he sees "poor Dr. Burnett's door shut." Next year the plague returned in greater strength, and Fenchurch Street was stricken rather severely. On August 6 Pepys met Mr. Battersby in Fenchurch, who asked him, "Do you see Dan Rawlinson's door shut up?" He had seen it and wondered. "Why," says he, "one of his men is now dead of the plague, and his wife and one of his maids sick, and himself sick;" which, adds Pepys, "trouble me mightily: and so home." On the 9th he hears that Mrs. Rawlinson is dead, and on the 10th he writes: "Homeward, and hear in Fenchurch Street that now the maid is also dead at Mr. Rawlinson's: so that there are three dead in all." From the burial register of St. Dionis Backchurch, we learn that the mistress and her maid were buried together on the 9th; the man-servant had been buried on the 6th.³ Dan Rawlinson, of whom Pepys speaks so familiarly, kept the Mitre Tavern in Fenchurch Street. He was a staunch royalist, and when the King was executed, "hung his sign in mourning." This, says Hearne, made him much suspected in the rump time; but "endeared him so much to the churchmen that he throve amain and got a good estate." The Mitre was burned in the Great Fire, but rebuilt and somewhat sumptuously adorned, the walls being painted by Isaac Fuller, who left so many specimens of his pencil in the Oxford colleges.

He [Fuller] was much employed to paint the great taverns in London, particularly the Mitre in Fenchurch Street, where he adorned all the sides of a great room in panels, as was then the fashion. The figures were as large as life: a Venus, Satyr, and sleeping Cupid; a boy riding a goat and another fallen down, over the chimney: this was the best part of the performance, says Vertue: Saturn devouring a Child, Mercury, Minerva, Diana, Apollo; and Bacchus, Venus, and Ceres embracing; a young Silenus fallen down, and holding a goblet, into which a boy was pouring wine; the Seasons, between the windows, and on the ceiling two angels supporting a mitre, in a large circle.—Walpole's Anecdotes, 4to, 1798, vol. iv. p. 284.

The Mitre is gone, as also another tavern, the Elephant—formerly the Elephant and Castle—on the north side not far from where the Mitre stood, and, like it, though a smaller house, having the walls adorned with paintings which have acquired some celebrity. One of these was a view of Fenchurch Street in the last century, as it appeared in its busiest hours; another, a sort of parish club scene, in which certain unpopular officials were somewhat coarsely caricatured. A view of the humours of Harlow Bush Fair and some figures were in another room. These paintings were traditionally accounted for by a statement that Hogarth in his early years lodged at the Elephant, and falling behind in his payments painted these pictures at different times in discharge of his score. When the Elephant was about to be taken down in 1826, great numbers of people went to see these "paintings by Hogarth" which were about to be demolished. They were, however, purchased by a picture dealer, successfully removed from the walls, and exhibited in a gallery in Pall Mall, without, we believe, convincing the experts that they were works from Hogarth's pencil. Fenchurch Street has been much altered of late years. The churches of St. Dionis Backchurch, on the north side, and St. Benet's, Gracechurch, at the southwest corner have been removed, many new shops and several large blocks of offices erected, and the outlets at either end widened. The latest improvements at the north-east corner comprise a new and well-finished building for the London and South Western Bank, extending into Gracechurch Street, from the designs of the late J.S. Edmeston, architect, completed by E. Gabriel, and opened June 1888. On the north side of Fenchurch Street is Ironmongers' Hall; on the south side are the great tea warehouses of the East India Company, now the warehouses for general merchandise of the East and West India Dock Company; the Church of St. Katharine Coleman, and just out of the street, the London terminus of the Blackwall and Tilbury and Southend Railways.

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¹ The tradition is difficult to reconcile with the following record (quoted by Nichols, Progresses of Queen Elisabeth, vol. i. p. 8, from Cott. MSS., Vitell F. 5): "The xx day of Maye, my Lady Elizabeth, the Quene's Sister, came out of the Tower, and toke hir barge at the Tower Wharffe, and so to Rychmond, and from thens unto Wyndsor, and so to Wodstoke."
² Cal. State Pap., 1611-1618, p. 425.
³ Burn's Traders Tokens, p. 92.