Snow Hill

Snow Hill

North-west out of Holborn Viaduct to the Central Meat Market in Smithfield, and to Farringdon Street (P.O. Directory).

This street has been entirely reconstructed, and though retainlng its old name it occupies a wholly different site.

Prior to the formation of Skinner Street in 1802 it ran east from Fleet Market, afterwards Farringdon Street, at Holborn Bridge to Cow Lane, then south into Holborn and east to the Old Bailey, thus forming the highway between Holborn and Newgate Street, and being considerably greater in extent and importance than at the present time. It was narrow, steep and circuitous, and so remained until 1867, when it was removed for the construction of Holborn Viaduct and its approaches.

The construction of Skinner Street in 1802 had deprived it of much of its importance as a thoroughfare.

After 1867 it was rebuilt in the direction set out above and made wider than the old street so named.

First mention: "Snowre Hill," I H. VIII. (L. and P. H. VIII. I. p. 73).

Other forms: "Snourehilstreete," "Snourehyll," 36 H. VIII. (ib. XIX. (I), p. 624). "Snow hill," 4 Ed. VI. (Lond. I. p.m. I. 136–7). "Snower hill," 16 Eliz. (ib. II. 175). Snore hill," 19 Eliz. (L.C.C. Deeds, Harben Coll. 1500–1600, No. 25).

It is suggested by a writer in N. and Q. 8th 5. XII. pp. 23–4 that the name is derived from the Erse word "snuadh" = a brook, the street leading at one end to the Fleet.

Snow-hill, a considerable str. betn Hart str. without Newgate, E. and Holbourn bridge W. L. 320 yds, and from P C. NW. 430 yds.

Holbourn bridge and Snow hill. This part of Holbourn goes to Lamb's Conduit, and there begins Snow hill; which, as I said before, in a winding Passage runneth up to St. Sepulchre's Church; and both these Places are graced with good Buildings, well inhabited by noted Tradesmen, and is a Place of great Resort. The South Side by the Bridge, lieth open to the Canal, already treated of.

Snow hill, extends from the upper end of the Little Old Bailey to Holbourn bridge.

Snow-Hill, Holborn-Bridge,—on the N. side of Skinner-st. extending from Fleet-market to St. Sepulchre's church, near Newgate.

Snow-Hill, Holborn-bridge, is on the northern side of Skinner-street, and extends from Farringdon-street to the upper end of Skinner-street, near the church of St. Sepulchre.

Snow Hill, Holborn, the confined, circuitous, narrow and steep highway between Holborn Bridge and Newgate. Stow writes it Snor Hill and Snore Hill (pp. 144, 145); Howell, Sore Hill, adding, "now vulgarly called Snow Hill;"¹ but Hatton writes Snow Hill without any comment. When Skinner Street was built in 1802 Snow Hill ceased to be the highway between Newgate Street and Holborn. It remained little improved till cleared away in forming the Holborn Viaduct and approaches, 1867. The present Snow Hill is a new and wider street, carried partly on the old lines, from the eastern end of the Holborn Viaduct to Farringdon Street. The steepness of Snow Hill is suggestive of a species of ruffianly violence which Gay has described in his account of the "Scowrers" and "Mohocks" in his Trivia:—

I pass their desp'rate deeds, and mischiefs done
Where from Snow Hill black steepy torrents run;
How matrons hooped within the hogshead's womb
Were tumbled furious thence.—Gay's Trivia, B. iii. p. 329, etc.

Snow Hill in Charles II.'s days was famous for its ballads and ballad-mongers. Dorset asks Howard:—

                                         Whence
Does all this mighty mass of dulness spring
Which in such loads thou to the stage dost bring?
Is't all thy own? or hast thou from Snow Hill
The assistance of some ballad-making quill?
Buckingham, Misc. p. 75.

I knew a Unitarian minister who was generally to be seen upon Snow Hill (as yet Skinner Street was not) between the hours of ten and eleven in the morning, studying a volume of Lardner. I own this to have been a strain of abstraction beyond my reach. I used to admire how he sidled along keeping clear of secular contacts.—Elia's Essays, "Detached Thoughts."

Where Snow Hill joined Holborn Bridge and Cow Lane (near the end of the present Cock Lane) the roadway widened, and in the midst was a conduit about which idlers used to gather and gossip and occasionally to quarrel. Here in 1715, on the anniversary of Queen Anne's coronation, a Jacobite mob collected, and with banners and trumpets toasted the memory of King James, drank Queen Anne and High Church, cursed King William and abused King George, and beat and stripped all passers-by who would not do the same.²

By the advantage of copying some pictures of Titian and Vandyck, Dobson profited so much that a picture he had drawn being exposed in the window of a shop on Snow Hill, Vandyck passing by was struck with it; and inquiring for the author, found him at work in a poor garret, from whence he took him and recommended him to the king.— Walpole's Anecdotes, 1st ed., 4to, 1762, vol. ii. p. 106; ed. 4to, 1798, vol. iii. p. 235.

John Bunyan, author of the Pilgrim's Progress, died (1688) at the house of his friend, Mr. Strudwick, a grocer at the sign of the Star on Snow Hill. Thomas Cromwell, great grandson of the Protector and grandson of Henry Cromwell, the Lord Deputy, carried on the business of a grocer on Snow Hill, and there died in 1748.

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¹ Londinopolis, fol. 1657, p. 344. In a contemporary document describing property destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666, it is written "Snore Hill, alias Snow Hill."—Additional MSS., Brit. Mus., No. 5063, fol. 37.

² Doran, London in Jacobite Times, vol. i. p. 69.