Great Turnstile

Names

  • Great Turnstile
  • Turnstile Alley
  • Great Turn Stile Alley
  • Turnstile
  • Turningstile

Street/Area/District

  • Great Turnstile

Maps & Views

Descriptions

from A New View of London, by Edward Hatton (1708)

Turn stile alley (Great) on the S. side of Holbourn, a passage to (and in a straight line with) the E. side of Lincolns inn fields.

from London and Its Environs Described, by Robert and James Dodsley (1761)

Turnstile, Holbourn.

from Lockie's Topography of London, by John Lockie (1810)

Turnstile (Great, High-Holborn),—at 282, near ½ a mile on the L. from Fleet-market, leading to Lincoln's-Inn-Fields.

from A Topographical Dictionary of London and Its Environs, by James Elmes (1831)

Turnstile, Great, High Holborn, is nearly a quarter of a mile on the left hand side, going from Farringdon-street.

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

Turnstile (Great), on the south side of Holborn, a passage to, and in a straight line with, the east side of Lincoln's Inn Fields. The place derives its name from the turnstile, or revolving barrier, erected for the purpose of excluding horses, but admitting pedestrians to pass between Holborn and Lincoln's Inn Fields. Occasionally the name occurs as Turningstile. In a Presentment of the Jury of Middlesex, I Edward VI., mention is made of "twoe tenements at the Turne style in Holborne."1

The Lives of the Roman Emperors.—Sold by George Hutton at the sign of the Sun, within Turning-Stile in Holborne, 1636.

And here he published Sir Edwin Sandys's Europæ Speculum in 1637.

Great Turnstile Alley, a great thoroughfare which leadeth into Holborn, a place inhabited by shoemakers, sempsters, and milliners, for which it is of considerable trade, and well noted.—R. B., in Strype, B. iv. p. 75.
Mr. Bagford [the celebrated antiquary] was first a shoe-maker at Turnstile, but that would not do; then a bookseller at the same place, and that as little.—"J. Sotheby to Thomas Hearne, May 19, 1716 (Letters from the Bodleian, vol. ii. p. 21).
Lump. I will not break my method for the world; I have these twenty years walked through Turn-stile Alley to Holborn Fields at four: all the good women observe me, and set their bread into the oven by me.—A True Widow; a Comedy, by T. Shadwell, 4to, 1679.
At Dulwich College is a Library having a collection of plays, given by one Cartwright, bred a bookseller, and afterwards turned player. He kept a shop at the end of Turn Stile Alley, which was first designed as a Change for vending Welsh flannels, friezes, etc., as may be seen by the left side going from Lincoln's Inn Fields. The house being now divided remains still turned with arches. Cartwright was an excellent actor, and in his latter days gave ym not only plays, but many good pictures, and intended to have been a further benefactor with money, and been buried there, but was prevented by a turbulent woman there.—Bagford, Harl. MS. 5900, fol. 54 b.

Here, in Great Turnstile, about 1750–1760, John Smeaton, the builder of the Eddystone Lighthouse, kept a shop for making and selling philosophical instruments. John Britton was in the habit of meeting the Chevalier d'Eon (who dressed as a female and was respectable and respected) "at an eating-house in Great Turnstile, Holborn."


1 Notes and Queries, 7th S., vol. v. p. 415.