Milford Lane

Milford lane, betn the Strand, (against St. Clements Church) N. and the Thames Sd, probably so called from the Name of the builder or Owner.

Milford Lane. Then is Milford Lane down to the Thames; but why so called, I have not heard, nor can conjecture.

Milford Lane ... openeth out of the Strand, against St. Clements Church, and this Lane runneth down on the back side of Essex Street to the Water side, a Place much pestered with Carts and Carrs, for the bringing Coals and other Goods from the Wharfs by the Water side. And therefore this Lane is but ill inhabited, with old Buildings, and the rather for that the Entrance into it out of the Strand is so narrow. On the West side of this Lane and opposite to Little Essex Street is Greyhound Court, a pretty handsome new built Place, which hath a Passage into Water Street on the back side of Norfolk Buildings. Then lower down in Milford Lane, near the Wood Wharf, is a small Place called Pissing Alley, a very proper Name for it, and this Alley goeth down to Milford Stairs, and also up into Water Street being ascended by Steps.

Milford lane, extends from the Strand to the Thames. †

Milford-Lane, Strand,—at 200, op. St. Clement's church, under the archway, about ⅛ of a mile on the L. from Temple-bar.

Milford-Lane, Strand, is opposite St. Clement's church, under the archway, and reaches to the Thames.

Milford Lane, Strand, opposite St. Clement's Church, and under an archway to the Thames (now cut off by the Embankment), was never well inhabited, but deserves to be remembered from the fact that here, from 1632–1639, lived Sir Richard Baker,¹ whose Chronicles (Sir Roger de Coverley's favourite book) will long familiarise his name to the English reader.

Next is Milford Lane down to the Thames, but why so called I have not read as yet.—Stow, p. 165.

Behold that narrow street² which steep descends,
Whose buildings to the slimy shore extends;
Here Arundel's fam'd structure rear'd its frame.
The street alone retains an empty name.
There Essex' stately pile adorn'd the shore,
There Cecil, Bedford, Villiers—now no more.—Gay, Trivia.

A poem by Henry Savill, commonly attributed to the witty Earl of Dorset, beginning—

In Milford Lane near to St. Clement's Steeple,
There lived a Nymph, kind to all Christian people,—

has given the lane an unwelcome notoriety.

In the 17th century Milford Lane was a place of hiding for debtors. Richard Brome in his Mad Couple Well Match'd speaks of "the sanctuary of Whyte fryars, the forts of Fuller's Rents and Milford Lane whose walls are dayly battered with the curses of bawling creditors;" and in his Damoiselle (vol. i. p. 391) he again couples these last two places. The Publick Newes of January 1642 records that thirty-six (Irish) rebels who "consulted to set the City of London on fire in vindication of their friends," who had previously been arrested and sent to Newgate, were seized in a house in Milford Lane.

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¹ Rate-Books of St. Clement's Danes.
² The poet, in a note, says "Milford Lane."