Exeter Street

Exeter-St., Catherine-street, Strand, is ten houses on the left hand from the Strand, extending to Burleigh-street.

Exeter-Street, Catherine-Street, Strand,—ten doors on the L. from 343, in the Strand, extending to Burleigh-st. about nine doors N. of Exeter-change.

Exeter Street, Strand, built circa 1677, and so called after Exeter House, the town house of Cecil, Earl of Exeter, son of the great Lord Burghley.

Exeter Street cometh out of Katherine Street, and runneth up as far as the back wall of Bedford yard or garden.—Strype, B. vi p. 75.

The west end had no outlet when first erected. Where the street ends was therefore the back wall of old Bedford House. Dr. Johnson's first London lodging was at the house of one Norris, a staymaker in this street. "I dined," said he, "very well for eightpence, with very good company, at the Pineapple, in New Street, just by. Several of them had travelled. They expected to meet every day; but did not know one another's names. It used to cost the rest a shilling, for they drank wine; but I had a cut of meat for sixpence, and bread for a penny, and gave the waiter a penny, so that I was quite well served, nay, better than the rest, for they gave the waiter nothing."

Murphy relates that at a dinner at Footers at which he was present, reference having been made to an important debate towards the end of Sir Robert Walpole's administration, Dr. Francis, the translator of Demosthenes, observed that "Mr. Pitt's speech on that occasion (as reported in the Gentleman's Magazine) was the best speech he ever read." "That speech," said Johnson, "I wrote in a garret in Exeter Street." Here also he finished his poem of "London," and it is possible that his wretched lodging gave rise to his allusion to the "dungeons of the Strand," as his previous residence at Greenwich is known to have suggested the lines commencing "On Thames' banks in silent thought we stood."