Pye Corner

Pye Corner

At the northern end of Giltspur Street, leading to West Smithfield, in Farringdon Ward Without (Elmes, 1831).

First mention: 6 Eliz. (Lond. I. p.m. II. 17).

Spelt "Pie Corner" (O. and M. 1677).

Former name: "Rennerstrete," 1456 (Ct. H.W. II. 530).

Strype says the street leading from Newgate to West Smithfield is called by this name in the Bp. of London's Register of Wills (ed. 1720, I. iii. 245).

Stow derives the name "Pie Corner" from the signe of the Pie, "a fayre Inn for recipte of travellers, but now divided into tenementes" (S. 375–6).

This derivation is borne out by the entry relating to "Rennerstrete" referred to above, which is as follows: "A tenement called 'le Pye' in parish of St. Sepulchre without Neugate near the high street called 'Rennerstrete,' 1456" (Ct. H.W. II. 530).

It is suggested in N. and Q. 3rd S. VIII. 292 that the name may be derived from the French term "pied cornier," defined in Littré as a "terme d'eaux et forets," signifying "l'arbre qu'on laisse à léxtrémité d'un héritage d'un orpentage, pour servir de marque," and that a tree stood in the vicinity marking the boundary of West Smithfield.

Stow's derivation seems more likely to be correct.

The word "corner" in early times seems to have been used in a somewhat diflerent sense in this connection to that denoted by the modern use of the term.

"Cornere" in Promp. Parv. = "angulus," and the word seems to have been used to include both sides of the angle, and to have been used to denote in this connection a short, narrow, unimportant street. In addition to "Pye Corner" we have "Amen Corner," near St. Paul's.

The Fire of London ended at this point.

Houses pulled down and rebuilt 1790.

Pye corner, a passage to Kings and Phenix streets, at the SW corner of Swan close.

Pye Corner; noted chiefly for Cooks Shops, and Pigs drest there during Bartholomew Fair.

Pye corner, Smithfield.

Pye-Corner, West-Smithfield. See Giltspur-st.

Pye-Corner, West Smithfield, is on the left hand side of Giltspur-street, at the corner of the last street, before coming to the market. It was at this spot that the great fire of London ended, which gave rise to the saying that the city was destroyed for the sin of gluttony, as the fire began and Pudding-lane, and ended at Pye-corner.

Pie Corner, West Smithfield, between Giltspur Street and Smithfield; now the Smithfield end of Giltspur Street.

Pie Corner, a place so called of such a sign, sometime a fair Inn for receipt of travellers, but now divided into tenements.—Stow, p. 139.

Pye corner noted chiefly for Cook's Shops, and Pigs drest there during Bartholomew Fair.—Strype, B. iii. p. 283.

Hostess. I am undone by his [Falstaff's] going; I warrant you, he's an infinitive thing upon my score.—Good master Fang, hold him sure:—good master Snare, let him not 'scape. He comes continually to Pie Corner (saving your manhood) to buy a saddle; and he's indited to dinner to the Lubbard's Head in Lumbert Street to Master Smooth's the silkman.—Shakespeare, Second Part of King Henry IV., Act ii. Sc. I.

Face. I shall put you in mind, sir; at Pie Corner
              Taking your meal of steam in, from Cook's stalls.
              Where, like the father of hunger, you did walk
              Piteously costive.—Ben Jonson, The Alchemist, Act i. Sc. I.

Little-wit. Tut, we'll have a device, a dainty one. I have it, Win, I have it, i' faith, and 'tis a fine one. Win, long to eat of a pig, sweet Win, in the Fair do you see, in the heart of the Fair, not at Pie Corner.—Ben Jonson, Bartholomew Fair, Act i. Sc. I.

Whorebang. By this flesh, let's have wine, or I will cut thy head off, and have it roasted and eaten in Pie Corner next Bartholomew Tide.—Nat Field, Amends for Ladies, 4to, 1618.

In the Pig Market, alias Pasty Nook, or Pie Corner; where pigs are all hours of the day on the stalls piping hot, and would say (if they could speak) come eat me.—Bartholomew Fair (tract), 1641.

Lady Frugal. What cooks have you provided?
Holdfast. The best of the city: they've wrought at my Lord Mayor's.         
Anne Frugal. Fie on them! They smell of Fleet Lane and Pie Corner.—Massinger, The City Madam.

Sir Humphrey Scattergood. I'll not be served so nastily as in my days of nonage, or as my father was; as if his meat had been dress'd at Pie Corner by greasy scullions there.—T. Shadwell, The Woman Captain, 4to, 1680; See also his Sullen Lovers, 4to, 1668.

Next day I through Pie Corner past:
     The roast-meat on the stall
Invited me to take a taste;
     My money was but small.
The Great Boobee (Roxburghe Ballads, p. 221).

Through a good part of the 17th century Pie Corner was noted for the manufacture of broad-sheet (or what in the next century would have been called Seven Dials) literature. Randolph, in his "Answer to Ben Jonson's Ode," speaks as contemptuously of "some Pie Corner Muse," as does Marvell, long after, in his "Rehearsal Transprosed" of "superannuated chanter of Saffron Hill and Pie Corner;" and Edward Phillips says:—

Who would grudge the slight mention of a book and its author; yet not so far as to condescend to the taking notice of every single-sheeted Pie Corner poet who comes squirting out with an elegy in mourning for every great person that dies.—Edward Phillips, Preface to Theatrum Poetarum, 12mo, 1675.

The Great Fire of London began at Pudding Lane and ended at Pie Corner, a singular coincidence in names, which is said to have occasioned the erection, at the corner of Cock Lane, of a figure of a boy upon a bracket, with his arms across his stomach, thus curiously inscribed: "This boy is in memory put up of the late Fire of London, occasioned by the sin of gluttony, 1666." There is an engraving of it by J.T. Smith, who also etched some "old houses at the south corner of Hosier Lane, drawn in April 1795," which, with the other old houses spared by the Fire, were taken down in 1809. There is still an inscription on the corner house. [See Cock Lane]. Long after the Fire D'Urfey calls Pie Corner "a very fine dirty place."¹

September 4, 1666. W. Hewer this day went to see how his mother did, and comes late home, telling us how he hath been forced to remove her to Islington, her house in Pie Corner being burned, so that the Fire is got so far that way.—Pepys.

A certain Company were reckoning up y^e families of y^e Pyes and named divers; at length one ask't what was Sir Edm. Py that married L^d Lucas sister? One answered he was Py of Py Corner.—R. Symond's Pocket-Book, Harl. MS., 991, fol. 10.

¹ Song of Bartholomew Fair.