Half Moon Street
Names
- Half Moon Street
- Half Moon Passage
Street/Area/District
- Half Moon Street
Maps & Views
- 1690 (-1790) Covent Garden (Crowle): Half Moon Passage
- 1720 London (Strype): Half Moon Street
- 1761 London (Dodsley): Half Moon Street
Descriptions
from A New View of London, by Edward Hatton (1708)
Half Moon street, betn the Strand (against the New Exchange) Sly, and Bedford str. Covent Garden Nly.
from A Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster, by John Strype (1720)
Half Moon Street, against the New Exchange, runneth up into Bedford-Street in Covent Garden; and here the Passage is but narrow, and very troublesome for Coaches to pass. All this Street, except some few Houses near Shandois-street and Maiden Lane, is in this Parish; and the Street is well inhabited by Tradesmen, except in the narrow Passage next the Strand.
from London and Its Environs Described, by Robert and James Dodsley (1761)
Halfmoon street, In the Strand. ✽
from London Past and Present: Its History, Associations, and Traditions, by Henry Benjamin Wheatley and Peter Cunningham (1891)
Half Moon Street, in the Strand. The old name for the lower end of Bedford Street, and so called from the "Half Moon Tavern." The name appears in the Map of 1767, but Bedford Street is carried through in that of 1783. The lower end of Bedford Street is in the parish of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields; the upper end in the parish of St. Paul's, Covent Garden.
1638.—To relieve Jane Walls, that was delivered of a child neere the Halfe Moone Taverne goeing into Covent Garden, jli. vjd.
July I, 1655.—Recd of Coll Corbit and Mr. Hill, for drinking in the Half Moone Taverne on the Lord's Day, 1 l.—Overseers' Accounts of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields.
People were fined, from 1648 to 1660, for the commonest offences committed on a Sunday. Entries occur in the accounts of fines received for "riding in a coach,"—"carrying linen,"—"a barber, for trimming,"—"carrying a haunch of venison,"—"carrying a pair of shoes,"—"for his wife's swearing an oath," etc. Sir Charles Sedley and the Duke of Buckingham were frequently fined in 1657 and 1658 for riding in their coaches on the Lord's Day.