Field Lane
Names
- Field Lane
- Golden Lane
Street/Area/District
- Field Lane
Maps & Views
- 1666 London after the fire (Bowen, 1772): Field Lane
- 1677 A Large and Accurate Map of the City of London (Ogilby & Morgan): Field Lane
- 1720 London (Strype): Field Lane
- 1736 London (Moll & Bowles): Field Lane
- 1746 London, Westminster & Southwark (Rocque): Field Lane
- 1761 London (Dodsley): Field Lane
Descriptions
from A Dictionary of London, by Henry Harben (1918)
Field Lane
North out of Holborn to Great Saffron Hill. The southern end only is in Farringdon Ward Without, the greater portion lying outside the City boundary (OS. 1848–51).
First mention: 1636–7 (L. and P. Chas. I. 1636–7, p. 563).
Former name: "Golden Lane" (q.v.).
Removed for the formation of Holborn Viaduct and the adjoining streets.
from A New View of London, by Edward Hatton (1708)
Field lane, betn Saffron hill N. and Holbourn hill S.
from A Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster, by John Strype (1720)
Field lane, very narrow, but mean Houses, and the Place nastily kept; as being inhabited by Butchers and Tripe Dressers on the East side, by reason of the benefit of the Ditch that runs on the back side of their Yards and Slaughter Houses, to carry away their Filth. This Lane runneth up to Saffron hill, and receiveth Chick lane; but the part of this Lane in the Freedom goeth but little beyond the passage into Plough Yard.
from Lockie's Topography of London, by John Lockie (1810)
Field Lane, Holborn-Hill,—at 83, about six doors on the R. from Fleet-market, extending to Chick-lane and Saffron-hill.
from A Topographical Dictionary of London and Its Environs, by James Elmes (1831)
Field-Lane, Holborn-hill, is about six houses on the right hand from Farringdon-street.
from London and Its Environs Described, by Robert and James Dodsley (1761)
Field lane, Holborn hill.
from London Past and Present: Its History, Associations, and Traditions, by Henry Benjamin Wheatley and Peter Cunningham (1891)
Field Lane, Holborn, a narrow street running from the foot of Holborn Hill to Saffron Hill, was one of the most disreputable thoroughfares in London, inhabited largely by thieves and receivers of stolen property. Its appearance and character were sketched with singular vigour and accuracy by Charles Dickens in 1838.
Near to the spot on which Snow Hill and Holborn Hill meet, there opens, upon the right hand as you come out of the City, a narrow and dismal alley leading to Saffron Hill. In its filthy shops are exposed for sale huge bunches of second-hand silk handkerchiefs of all sizes and patterns; for here reside the traders who purchase them from pickpockets. Hundreds of these handkerchiefs hang dangling from pegs outside the windows, or flaunting from the door posts; and the shelves within are piled with them. Confined as the limits of Field Lane are, it has its barber, its coffee shop, its beer shop, and its fried fish warehouse. It is a commercial colony of itself: the emporium of petty larceny: visited at early morning and setting in of dusk, by silent merchants, who traffic in dark back parlours, and who go as strangely as they come. Here the clothesman, the shoe vamper, and the rag merchant, display their goods as sign boards to the petty thief: here stores of old iron and bones, and heaps of mildewy fragments of woollen stuff and linen rust and rot in the grimy cellars.—Oliver Twist, chap. xxvi.
By the formation of the Holbom Viaduct and its approaches Field Lane has been swept away.