Aldersgate Street

Aldersgate Street

North from St. Martin's le Grand at No. 62 to Goswell Road (P.O. Directory). In Aldersgate Ward Without, but the northern end lies outside the City boundary, in the Borough of Finsbury.

First mention found in records: "Aldredes-gate Street," 44 H. III. (Anc. Deeds, A. 1953).

Other forms of name: "Aldresgatestrete," 33 Ed. I. (Cal. L. Bk. B. p. 129). "Aldrichesgate Street," 1332 (Ct. H.W. I. 382). "Aldergatestrete," 1349 (ib. 620). "Aiderichegatestrete," 1361 (ib. II. 28). "Aldirgastrete," 1383 (lb. 237). "Aldersgate Streete" (S. 311).

In Rocque's map 1746 the northern portion from the Barbican to the Bars is called "Pick-axe Street," and in Stow and Strype, "Goswell Street." "Aldersgate Street" in Horwood, 1799.

Shaftesbury Place, Lauderdale Buildings and Westmoreland Buildings all in this Ward commemorate some of the famous houses which stood in this street in earlier times.

Named after the Gate of Aldersgate.

In the course of excavations for building the French Protestant Church at the eastern end of Bull and Mouth Street, in 1841, portions of Roman buildings were discovered. A portion of the wall ran east to west, and its continuation under the pavement indicated the exact spot where the northern gate of the City stood. A base of flint stones was found at a depth of 11½ feet from the surface, 1 ft. 6 in. in height, on which rested layers of angular uncut stones imbedded in mortar, 4 ft. 6 in. high, covered by two courses of tiles; above the tiles was a ragstone wall 2 ft. 6 ins. high surmounted by two courses of tiles and another course of ragstone terminating 18 ins. under the pavement at that date. The height of the wall was 10 ft., varying in width from 9½ ft. at the base to 6 ft. at the top. The wall was apparently bounded by a ditch on the north, as the workmen had to excavate 20 ft. deep for a foundation through black earth or sediment. Similar walls, etc., were found on the opposite side of Aldersgate Street, being continued to the bastion in Cripplegate Churchyard (Arch. XXX. 522–4. R. Smith, 55).

A Roman wall was found at a depth of 6 ft. 9 in. extending from Aldersgate Street to King Edward Street. A line of buildings based on this wall formed the southern boundary of St. Botolph's Church. It is probable that the church and churchyard occupy the site of the Town Ditch. The length of the wall was 131 ft., height 11–12 ft. A tower also found was apparently of later date (Arch. LII. 609 et seq.).

Aldersgate Street, a very spacious and publick Str. betn Aldersgate S. and Goswel Str. N. L. 400 Yds and from P C. near N. 400 Yds. This Street has its Name from the Gate, and Stow says, the Gate has its Name from its Antiquity, as being ealder (or older) than Aldgate. See the Gate in the Introduction.

Aldersgate street, very spacious and long; and although the Buildings are old, and not uniform, yet many of them are very good, and well inhabited; and of the principal of them, two are very large, the one formerly called Dorchester House, as being the Seat of the Late Marquess of Dorchester; and Peter House, as belonging once to the Lord Peters: Now called London House, being at present the Seat of the Bishop of London. The other Thanet House, as belonging to the Earl of Thanet, the greatest part of which is now converted into Tenements; amongst which is a very handsome built Inn. This Street runneth Northwards unto the end of Barbican on the East side, and Long lane on the West; where Gosweel street begins.

Aldersgate street, extends from the gate to the corner of Barbican.

Aldersgate-Street,—the N. contin. of St. Martin's-Le-Grand, from 66 Newgate-st. Nos. 1 & 180 are at St. Martin's-le-Grand, it is about ¼ of a mile in length.

Aldersgate-St., is the north continuation of St. Martin's-le-Grand, and reaches from the site of the ancient Alders-gate to the ancient Barbican. This street contains the church of St. Botolph (see St. Botolph's Church); Shaftesbury House (which see), an ancient residence of the earls of that name, and built by Inigo Jones; the celebrated Albion Tavern, and the Bull and Mouth and the Three Cups Hotels. It gives name to the ward, which is governed by Alderman Sir Peter Laurie and eight common-councilmen.

Aldersgate Street, the continuation northward of St. Martin's-le-Grand, extends from Aldersgate to the Barbican, south of Aldersgate Bars. The main entrance to the City from the north, and in early times famed for mansions and inns. A street "very spacious and long, and although the buildings are old and not uniform, yet many of them are very good and well-inhabited; and of the principal of them two are very large," wrote Seymour in 1736 (Survey of London, p. 771); but, he adds, "the politeness of the town is far removed from hence." Eighty years earlier it was said:—

This street resembleth an Italian street more than any other in London, by reason of the spaciousness and uniformity of buildings, and straightness thereof, with the convenient distance of the houses; on both sides whereof there are divers fair ones, as Peter House, the palace now and mansion of the most noble [Henry Pierrepont] Marquess of Dorchester. Then is there the Earl of Thanet's house [Thanet House], with the Moon and Sun tavern[s], very fair structures. Then is there from about the middle of Aldersgate Street, a handsome new street [Jewin Street] butted out, and fairly built by the Company of Goldsmiths, which reacheth athwart as far as Redcross Street.—Howell's Londinopolis, 1657, p. 342.

Redehall, a house "without Aldredesgate," is mentioned in 1289 as belonging to Henry de Galeys; and in the Patent Rolls of Edward IV. a place is entered as Queen Jane's Wardrobe.¹

On the east side (distinguished by a series of eight Ionic pilasters, with festoons of flowers pendent from the volutes) stood Thanet House, one of Inigo Jones's fine old mansions, the London residence of the Tuftons, Earls of Thanet. From the Tufton family it passed into the family of Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury (d. 1682–1683): hence Shaftesbury Place and Shaftesbury House, as Walpole calls it in his account of Inigo Jones. Locke, on his return from the continent, May 1679, resided for some time in the house of Lord Shaftesbury, who was then at the head of the Ministry.—Lord King, Life of John Locke, p. 86; Fox-Bourne, Life of Locke, vol. i. p. 411. Thanet House continued to be Locke's home, when in London, as long as Shaftesbury lived. On one occasion at least during Shaftesbury's occupancy of Thanet House the Duke of Monmouth was concealed in it. In 1708 it was once more in the possession of the Thanet family; in 1720 it was a handsome inn; in 1734 a tavern; in 1750, and till 1771, the London Lying-in Hospital; then as a General Dispensary,² the first established in London, removed in 1850 to Bartholomew Close. The lower part of the building was then divided, and let as shops; part serving for the meetings of the Metropolitan Scientific Association, and Shaftesbury Upper Hall used as a girl's school. Shaftesbury House was pulled down in 1882, and Shaftesbury Hall and several shops have been built on the site.

A little higher up, on the same side, where Lauderdale Buildings stand (Nos. 58 and 59), stood Lauderdale House, the London residence of John Maitland, Duke of Lauderdale (d. 1682), one of the celebrated Cabal in the reign of Charles II. On the same side, still higher up, and two doors from Barbican, stood the Bell Inn, "of a pretty good resort for waggons with meal." From this inn, on July 14, 1618, John Taylor, the Water Poet, set out on his penniless pilgrimage to Scotland.³

At last I took my latest leave, thus late,
At the Bell Inn, that's extra Aldersgate.

Taylor's Works, 1630, p. 122.

On the west side, a little beyond the church of St. Botolph, Aldersgate, is Trinity Court, so called from a brotherhood of the Holy Trinity, licensed by Henry VI., suppressed by Edward VI., and first founded in 1377, as a fraternity of St. Fabian and Sebastian. The Hall was standing in 1790.⁴ Higher up, on the same side, Westmoreland Buildings preserves a memory of the London residence of the Nevilles, Earls of Westmoreland, taken down about 1760, after having been long divided and let out in tenements. At the back of Rutland House Sir William Davenant was, in 1656, permitted to get up an opera for recitations with music and scenery; the first dramatic entertainment licensed since the establishment of the Commonwealth. Still higher up is the Albion Tavern, famed for its good wines and its good dinners; while nearly opposite Shaftesbury House, stood Petre House, the townhouse until 1639 of the Lord Petre. Richard Lovelace, the poet, was, in 1648, confined in Lord Petre's house in Aldersgate by order of the House of Commons; and it continued to be used as a prison by Cromwell and his colleagues.⁵ In 1657 it was the residence of Henry Pierrepont, Marquis of Dorchester. After his death it was bought by the See of London, when the Great Fire had destroyed the Episcopal residence in St. Paul's Churchyard. Bishop Henchman died in London House, Aldersgate Street (as Petre House was then called), in 1675. Here Compton, Bishop of London, lived; and hither the Princess Anne (afterwards Queen) fled from Whitehall at the Revolution. In 1720 Bishop Robinson was residing in it. Shortly after the nonjuror, Thomas Rawlinson ("Tom Folio"), removed his great library to London House, where he died in 1725. In 1747 it was in the possession of Mr. Jacob Hive.⁶ Bishop Sherlock, in 1749, obtained parliamentary power to dispose of London House for the benefit of the See. It was some years later purchased by Mr. Seddon, "an eminent upholsterer," and was destroyed by fire, July 14, 1768, but rebuilt, and the upholstery business was continued here till a few years back. In 1814 was made here, at an expense of £500, the cradle for Joanna Southcott's "Prince of Peace," with the inscription, "The free-offering of Faith to the Promised Seed," and great crowds flocked to see it. The baby-linen with its laces, etc., cost £500 more. London House was taken down and shops built on the site in 1871. Eminent Inhabitants, not already mentioned.—Countess of Pembroke, "Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother;" she died here in 1621. Thomas Flatman, poet, painter, and lawyer, was born in Aldersgate Street in 1633. Walpole's Anecdotes, p. 300. Robert Greene (d. 1592), though not an inhabitant, was a familiar visitant at a "well-willer's house of mine" in Aldersgate Street.⁷ Bryan Walton, Bishop of Chester, editor of the Polyglot Bible, died here in 1661. John Milton.

He made no long stay in St. Bride's Church Yard; necessity of having a place to dispose his books in, and other goods fit for the furnishing of a good handsome house, hastening him to take one: and accordingly a pretty garden-house he took in Aldersgate Street, at the end of an entry; and therefore the fitter for his turn, by the reason of the privacy, besides that there are few streets in London more free from noise than that.—Philips's Life of Milton, 12mo, 1694, p. xx.

His own words are: As soon as I was able I hired a spacious house in the City for myself and my books, where I again with rapture renewed my literary pursuits, and where I calmly awaited the issue of the contest, which I trusted to the wise conduct of Providence, and to the courage of the people.—Second Defence of the People of England.

Milton's house was at the lower end of Lamb Alley (now Maidenhead Court), by No. 30, on the east side of Aldersgate Street, the court next to Shaftesbury Place southwards.

Samuel Simmons, printer and publisher, "next door to the Golden Lion in Aldersgate Street," was the purchaser, April 27, 1667, of the copyright of Paradise Lost, but it is only the second edition, 1674, which professed to be printed by S. Simmons. Thomas Brown—Tom Brown the facetious—died here in 1704. James Petiver, the botanist (d. 1718), was an apothecary in Aldersgate Street. He was one of the earliest and ablest English collectors of specimens of natural history. Sir Hans Sloane offered £5000 for his collection. "At his house, against Little Britain in Aldersgate Street," lived John Pine the engraver, and received subscriptions (1738) for his exquisite edition of Horace. In Aldersgate Street, "against Jewin Street," lived Sutton Nicholls, the publisher, to whose industry we are indebted for so many engravings and valuable memorials of old London buildings now no more.

In Trinity Chapel, Aldersgate Street, the last Nonjuring congregation in London met under John Lindsay, the translator of Mason de Ministerio Anglicano. He died in 1768.⁸

It was in a house in this street that John Wesley received that "assurance of salvation" which was the great turning point in his career, and to which the world owes the origin of Methodism. He writes in his Journal under Wednesday, May 24, 1738:—

In the evening I went, very unwillingly, to a Society in Aldersgate Street where one was reading Luther's Preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed; I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation, and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death. I began to pray with all my might for all those who had in an especial manner despitefully used me and persecuted me. I then testified openly to all what I now first felt in my heart.

It was to "the house called the Mouth, near Aldersgate in London, which was then the usual meeting-place of Quakers," that the body of "Free-born John" Lilburne was conveyed on his death, August 29, 1657.⁹ This house, the well-known Bull and Mouth Inn, really situated in St. Martin's-le-grand, was destroyed in the Great Fire; and the inn of the same title became the Queen's Hotel, which has been cleared away for the enlargement of the General Post Office. The inns of Aldersgate were especially travellers' houses, and looked after by the watch accordingly. Fynes Morison, on his return from his ten years' wanderings, 1595, arriving in London on Sunday "at four of the clock in the morning ... this early hour being unfit to trouble my friends"—

I went to the Cock (an inn of Aldersgate Street), and there, apparelled as I was, laid me down upon a bed, when it happened that the constable and watchmen (either being more busy in their office than need was, or having extraordinary charge to search upon some foreign intelligence, and seeing me apparelled like an Italian), took me for a Jesuit or priest.—Morison's Itinerary.

A century and a half later the Cock was described as "a good inn, resorted to by waggons that bring meal and other goods."¹⁰ The George Inn, formerly the White Hart, is "very large and convenient for the reception of coaches, waggons, and travellers. It hath galleries that lead to the chambers, as customary in many great inns. There is in Thanet House, which adjoins to this inn, a Lace Chamber of very good resort for buyers and sellers."¹¹ The Bell Inn, whence Taylor the Water Poet set out on his travels, was still "of good resort;" it stood near Lauderdale House. There were besides the Half-Moon, "the place of resort of the most noted wits of the 16th century."—Lambert. The Sun, "large and of a good trade," and many more. The Aldersgate inns were the usual starting-place for the Northern Counties,¹² as it seems to have been for Ireland some years later. Thus Swift, describing the visit to London (1721) of an Irish acquaintance, says: "He was just getting on horseback for Chester: he has as much curiosity as a cow. He lodged with his horse in Aldersgate Street." Journal to Stella. Gay and Pope write to Swift (October 22, 1727), "To our great joy you have told us your deafness left you at the inn in Aldersgate Street; no doubt your ears knew there was nothing worth hearing in England."

In 1879 a row of old houses, some with projecting upper storeys on the west side of Aldersgate Street, was pulled down to make way for a pile of larger and more substantial buildings. One of these, No. 134, attracted much notice from its being absurdly called "Shakespeare's London House." It was not unpicturesque in its dilapidated condition, and was probably of 17th century date, but in no other respect remarkable. The name, Shakespeare's London House, was first given to it within memory by an imaginative newsvendor who then occupied it, as a sort of advertisement. One of the most noticeable of the new buildings is the Manchester Hotel, a large structure of considerable architectural pretension at the corner of Long Lane, opposite to which is the Aldersgate Station of the Metropolitan Railway.

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¹ Riley, Memorials of London, xi.
² Hatton, p. 633; Strype's Stow B. iii. p. 121; Ralph's Crit. Rev. Pennant.
³ Taylor, in his Carrier's Cosmographie (4to, 1637), mentions four inns in this street—the Peacock; the Bell; the Three Horse Shoes; the Cock.
⁴ There is a view of the old Hall in Brayley's Londiniana, 4 vols. 12mo, 1829.
⁵ Dugdale's Troubles, p. 568.
⁶ Wilkinson's Londina Illustrata.
⁷ Robert Greene's Repentance.
⁸ Lathbury, History of Nonjurors, p. 402.
⁹ Wood, Athen. Oxon (1692), vol. ii. p. 102.
¹⁰ Seymour, Survey of London, 1736, p. 772.
¹¹ Ibid.
¹² De Laune, Angliæ Metropolis, 1690.