the Belle Sauvage

the Belle Sauvage

On the north side of Ludgate Hill in "la belle Sauvage" yard. In Farringdon Ward Without.

Forms of name: "the belle Savage," 20 H. VIII. (Lond. I. p.m. I. 78). "la Bell Savage," otherwise "le Bell Savoy," 2 and 3 P. and M. (Cal. L. and M. Ft. of Fines, II. 93).

A famous coaching inn, until the advent of the railways undermined its trade. Removed 1873 and the site occupied by Cassell's publishing offices, except one corner, No. 68, occupied by Messrs. Treloar and Sons' establishment.

Burn, in his Tradesmen's Tokens, says that the original name of the inn was "The Bell," and he quotes a deed enrolled in the Close Rolls, 31 H. VI. 1453, in support of his statement (p. 131). By this deed John Frensh confirmed to his mother Joan Freush "all that tenement or inn with its appurtenances called Savagesynn, alias vocat 'le Belle on the Hope,' in the parish of St. Bridget in Fleet Street." In course of time the two names seem to have been united into one as the appellation of the inn, though when this actually took place does not appear.

Pegge suggests that the name was derived from a former hostess, Isabella Savage, whose name as tenant a friend of his had seen in a lease of the house, but this is only second-hand evidence, and cannot be entirely relied on.

[Bell Savage Inn.] Beyond Fleet Bridge, on the North side, and on Ludgate hill, is Bell Savage Inn, very large, and fit to entertain a great many Coaches and Horses; and hath a very good Trade, especially for Stage Coaches. The first Yard is an open Square, with several private Houses in it: The inner Yard, which is much larger, being taken up in Stabling.

Belle Sauvage Inn, Ludgate-hill, is the first turning on the left from Faringdon-street, and is a very large establishment for coaches to almost eery part of England; it is a coffee-house, tavern and hotel.

Bell Savage, or Belle Sauvage, Ludgate Hill, an Inn "without" Ludgate, at which dramas were played, before a regular theatre was established in this country.¹ The origin of the name has amused our antiquaries. "The Spectator alone," says Pennant, "gives the real derivation":—

As for the Bell Savage, which is the sign of a savage man standing by a Bell, I was formerly very much puzzled upon the conceit of it, till I accidentally fell into the reading of an old Romance translated out of the French, which gives an account of a very beautiful woman who was found in a wilderness, and is called in the French, la Belle Sauvage, and is everywhere translated by our countrymen the Bell Savage.—Spectator, No. 82.

The Spectator was probably joking, though Pennant and others accepted the statement in all seriousness. Douce thought that the sign was really that of the Queen of Sheba, who, in the metrical romance of Alexander, written by Alexander Davie at the beginning of the 14th century, is spoken of as Sibely savage, and this, says Mr. Douce, is "a perversion of si belle sauvage." The Queen of Sheba was as well adapted for the purpose of a sign as the wise men of the East, and in fact we know that there was a tavern in Gracechurch Street called "The Saba."² Mr. Akerman gives a representation of what he supposes to be the tavern token of the house issued by the landlord between the years 1648 and 1672, which, he says, exhibits the figure of an Indian woman holding an arrow and a bow,³ and Mr. Burn, in correcting the mistake, after pointing out that the token is that of Henry Young, distiller, and that the armed "Indian woman" is really "the sinister supporter of the Distillers' Company's arms and no belle sauvage at all," gives what is probably the true explanation of the puzzle. The inn was originally and properly the Bell, but as early as the middle of the 15th century it was known as "Savage's Inn," and the conjunction of the two designations might easily issue in the title that has proved so perplexing.

A deed enrolled on the Close Roll of 1453 certifies a fact that places the point in dispute beyond a doubt. By that deed, dated at London, February 5, 31 Henry VI., John Frensh, eldest son of John Frensh, late citizen and goldsmith of London, confirmed to Joan Frensh, widow, his mother, "totum ten sive hospicium cum suis pertin vocat Savagesynne, alias vocat le Belle on the Hope;—all that tenement or inn with its appurtenances, called Savage's inn, otherwise called the Bell on the Hoop, in the parish of St. Bridget in Fleet Street, London," etc. ... The sign in the olden day was the Bell; "on the hoop" implied the ivy-bush, fashioned, as was the custom, as a garland. The association of Savage's inn with the sign of the Bell certainly gave an impulse to the perversion or new name of La Belle Sauvage: when that occurred is another question.—Burn's London Traders and Tavern Tokens, p. 175.

This, it will be seen, differs from Pegge's suggestion that the sign was derived from an early hostess, Isabella Savage, whose name as tenant a friend of his had seen on an old lease of the house; but Mr. Burn gives the actual terms of the lease whilst Pegge spoke only at second-hand. The inn was known at a very early date as the Bell Savage. Lambarde, writing before 1576 of "the treble oblation, first to the Confessor, then to Sainct Runwald, and lastly to the gracious Roode," observes that without it "the poor pilgrims could not assure themselves of any good, gained by all their labour, no more than such as go to Paris Garden, the Bell Savage, or Theatre, to behold bear-baiting, interludes, or fence play, can account of any pleasant spectacle, unless they first pay one pennie at the gate, another at the entrie of the scaffolde, and the third for a quiet standing."⁴ The house, together with his own messuage, the sign of the Rose, was left to the Cutlers' Company in 1568, pursuant to the will of John Craythorne [see Cutlers' Hall], and two exhibitions at Oxford and one at Cambridge, with certain gifts to the poor of St. Bride's, are still provided out of the bequest. At the Bell Savage, in Queen Mary's reign, Sir Thomas Wyat was stopped in his ill-planned rebellion.

Wyat, with his men, marched still forward all along to Temple Barre, and so through Fleet Streete till he came to Bell Savage, an Inn nigh unto Ludgate. Some of Wyat's men, some say it was Wyat himself, came even to Ludgate and knocked, calling to come in, saying there was Wyat, whom the Queene had graunted to have their requests, but the Lord William Howard stood at the gate and said, "Avaunt, Traitor; thou shalt not come in here." Wyat awhile stay'd and rested him awhile upon a stall over against the Bell Savage Gate, and at the last seeing he could not get into the city, and being deceived of the ayde he hoped for, returned back againe in array towards Charing Crosse.—Stow, by Howes, ed. 1631, p. 621.

Here, in Queen Elizabeth's time, was a school of defence, and here Bankes exhibited the feats of his horse Marocco.⁵ Grinling Gibbons lived in this yard.

He [Grinling Gibbons] afterwards lived in Bell Savage Court on Ludgate Hill, where he carved a pot of flowers, which shook surprisingly with the motion of the coaches that passed by.—Walpole's Anecdotes, ed. Dallaway, vol. iii. p. 158.⁶

At "the first door on the left hand under Bell Savage Inn Gateway, Ludgate Hill," lived Richard Rock, M.L.,⁷ the quack doctor ("Dumplin Dick") "first upon the list of glory," whom Goldsmith so carefully describes as "this great man, short of stature, fat, and waddles as he walks. He always wears a white three-tailed wig, nicely combed, and frizzed upon each cheek. Sometimes he carries a cane; but a hat never."⁸ Allusions to the great Dr. Richard Rock will also occur to the reader of Horace Walpole. In its later years the Bell Savage was a great coaching inn; but the formation of the railways destroyed its trade; it fell into neglect and dilapidation, and was eventually (1873) demolished to make way for the immense brick building provided for the printing and publishing establishment of Messrs. Cassell, Fetter, and Galpin.

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¹ Collier's Annals, vol. i. p. 338; vol. iii. p. 265.
² Tarlton's Jests, pp. 15, 21. Our old writers invariably call the Queen of Sheba the Queen of Saba. "Saba was never More covetous of wisdom, and fair virtue, Than this pure soul shall be."—Shakespeare, Henry VIII.
³ Akerman's Tradesmen's Tokens, p. 131 (No. 1233.
⁴ Lambarde, Perambulation of Kent, p. 210 of the reprint, 1826.
⁵ Tarlton's Jests, by Halliwell, p. 11. In 1595 was published "Maroccus Extaticus; or, Bankes's Bay Horse in a Trance. A Discourse set down in a merry Dialogue between Bankes and his Beast, Anatomising some abuses and bad trickes of this inhabitant of this Age. Written and intituled to mine Host of the Belsavage and all his honest Guests: by John Dando, the wier-drawer of Hadley, and Harrie Runt, head Ostler of Bosomes Inne."
⁶ In an assessment of the parish of St. Bride's, Fleet Street, dated March 20, 1677, under Bel Savage Inn Yard the name of Grinling Gibbons, is scored out. This shows that he had been an inhabitant of the Inn Yard, and had left that year.
⁷ Public Advertiser, January 7, 1761.
⁸ Letters from a Citizen of the World, Letter 68.