Scalding Alley

Names

  • Scalding Alley
  • Scalding Wike
  • Scalding Lane

Street/Area/District

  • Scalding Alley

Maps & Views

Descriptions

from A Dictionary of London, by Henry Harben (1918)

Scalding Alley

On the north side of the Poultry, on the site now occupied by St. Mildred's Court (q.v.) (Maitland, 1775). In Broad Street and Cheap Wards.

It was called the Scalding house (q.v.) or Scalding wike, and was used by the poulterers, who had their selds in the market of the Poultry, for the purposes of their trade (S. 187).

First mention: A noisome goose house was kept in "Scalding Alley," 15 H. VIII. 1523 (L. and P. H. VIII. III. Pt. 2, p. 1515). "Scaldinge Alley," 1578 (Ct. H.W. II. 693).

In Strype's time it contained two or three alleys and a square Court of good buildings (ed. 1720, I. iii. so).

"Scalding house" alias "Scalding wike," and "Scalding lane" (ib. 27).

from London Past and Present: Its History, Associations, and Traditions, by Henry Benjamin Wheatley and Peter Cunningham (1891)

Scalding Alley, in the Poultry, was so called from the poulterers scalding or scorching their poultry there. [See Poultry.]

But who is this? O, my daughter Cis,
Minced-pie; with her do not dally
On pain o' your life: she's an honest cook's wife,
And comes out of Scalding Alley.