Moorfields

Moor fields, betn New Bedlam (just without the City Wall) S. and Upper Moor fields N. This Stow says, about Anno 1400, was a Moor or Marsh Ground, rotten and unpassable, but on Causways made for that Purpose; tho now by the Care and Charge of the City, are made pleasant Walks and Green Fields of firm Ground, where is a good Air of no small Advantage to the Hospital of Lunaticks, called Bedlam.

[Moorfields.]

Of these Moorfields you have formerly read what a moorish rotten Ground they were; unpassable, but for Cawsways purposely made to that intent. What they were also in our own nearer times of memory, even till Sir Leonard Hallyday was Lord Maior of London, I am very well assured many do perfectly remember. And what they are now at this instant, by the honourable Cost and Care of this City, and the industrious Pains and Diligence of that worthy Citizen, Mr. Leate, we all (to our continual comfort) do evidently behold. Mr. John Speed, my especial kind Friend, acquainted me with the draught of a Map, done after that true Shape and Model, as at the first (by the forenamed Gentleman) they were intended; and laboured with the then Lord Maior, and Court of Aldermen, that the same might have been accordingly effected. But how it was prevented, I know not; only I purposed to have been at so much Charge, as to have had that Map (in some apt and convenient form) printed in this Book: But that I could not attain thereto; being promised, that at the next Impression I shall have it.

Moorfields. An. 1477. Rafe Joceline then being Lord Maior. A. M. Speeds Map of Moorfields.

For the Walks themselves, and continual Care of the City, to have them in that comely and worthy manner maintained, I am certainly persuaded, that (our thankfulness to God being first truly perfomed) they are no mean cause of preserving Health, and wholesome Air to the City; and such an eternal Honour thereto, as no Iniquity of Time shall be able to deface.]

The Wholsomness of the Walks there.

Moorfields, a large piece of ground to the north of London wall, lying between the east end of Fore street, and the west end of New Broad street, and extending as far as Hoxton. These fields originally took their name from their being one continued marsh or moor; so that Roger Achiley, Lord Mayor, in 1521, caused the ground to be levelled, and bridges and causeways to be erected over these fields, in order to render them passable: but since that time the ground has been raised and drained, and the whole encompassed with houses.

Moorfields being a very extenfive piece of ground, is now divided into Lower Moorfields, Middle Moorfields, and Upper Moorfields. The first of these divisions has the hospital of Bethlem, a noble building, extending along the whole south side: and here the fields are divided into four different squares, by very strong, but clumsey, wooden rails, each containing a large grass plat, surrounded on each side by a row of trees. Between these squares, which are generally denominated the quarters, are gravel walks; and one extending from east to west, with a row of trees on each side, forming a tolerable vista, is usually denominated the City Mall; a great concourse of well-dressed citizens of both sexes walking there, particularly every Sunday noon in fine weather, and on evenings.

The east side of this part of Moorfields is taken up by shops, where old books are sold at the south-east corner, and second-hand goods of all sorts along that side.

The rest of Moorfields, containing the two other divifions, still lie waste, though they might be converted into gardens or public walks, and thus be rendered one of the principal ornaments of this metropolis.

Moorfields,—on the N. side of London-wall, extending towards Finsbury-square.

Moorfields, a moor or fen without the walls of the City to the north, first drained in 1527; laid out into walks for the first time in 1606, and first built upon late in the reign of Charles II. The name has been swallowed up in Finsbury (or Fensbury) Square, Finsbury Circus, the City Road, and the adjoining localities.

Cum est congelata palus illa magna, quae moenia urbis aquilonalia alluit, exeunt lusum super glaciem densae juvenum turmae.—Stephanides, Descriptio Nobilissimae Civitatis Londoniae.¹

This Fen or Moor field, stretching from the wall of the dty betwixt Bishopsgate and the postern called Cripplesgate, to Fensbury and to Holywell, continued a waste and unprofitable ground a long time, so that the same was all letten for four marks the year in the reign of Edward II.; but in the year 1415, the 3rd of Henry V., Thomas Falconer, mayor, caused the wall of the city to be broken toward the said moor, and built the postern called Moorgate for the ease of the citizens to walk that way upon causeys towards Iseldon and Hoxton.—Stow, p. 159.

This field, untill the third year of King James [1606–1607], was a most noysome and offensive place, being a generall laystall, a rotten morish ground whereof it first tooke the name. This fielde for many yeares was burrowed and crossed with deep stinking ditches and noysome common shewers, and was of former times held impossible to be reformed.—Howes, ed. 1631, p. 1021.

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This low-lying district became famous for its musters and pleasant walks; for its laundresses and bleachers; for its cudgel players and popular amusements; for its madhouse, better known as Bethlehem Hospital; and for its bookstalls and ballad-sellers.

Porter. What should you do but knock 'em down by the dozens? Is this Moorfields to muster in?—Shakespeare, Henry VIII., Act v. Sc. 3.

Edward Knowell. I am sent for this morning by a friend in the Old Jewry to come to him; it is but crossing over the fields to Moorgate.—Ben Jonson, Every Man in his Humour, Act i. Sc. 2.

Brainworm. My old master intends to follow my young master dry-foot over Moorfields to London this morning.—Every Man in his Humour, Act ii. Sc. 2.

Formal. Was your man a soldier, Sir?
Knowell. Ay, a Knave,
I took him begging o' the way, this morning
As I came over Moorfields.—Every Man in his Humour, Act iv. Sc 4.

Plenty. Walk into Moorfields—
I dare look on your Toledo. Do not shew
A foolish vapour in the streets.—Massinger, The City Madam, Act i. Sc 2.

Anne. You talk'd of Hebe,
Of Iris, and I know not what; but were they
Dress'd as we are? they were sure some chandler's daughters
Bleaching linen in Moorfields.—City Madam, Act iv. Sc 4.

In a petition of the Lord Mayor and Corporation of London to the King, James I., about 1625, they state that they have at great charge made pleasant walks out of the boggy fields north of London, and pray his Majesty will direct the construction of a new street to lead to the said walks.¹

1626.—After dinner, the Duke and the Earls of Montgomery and Holland having brought me home, I went to walk in the Moorffield.—Bassompierre's Embassy to England in 1626, p. 83.

The Parisian. I have now no more to say, but what refers to a few private notes which I shall give you in a whisper when we meet in Moorfields, from whence (because the place was meant for public pleasure and to shew the munificence of your city) I shall desire you to banish the laundresses and bleachers, whose acres of old linen make a shew like the fields of Carthagena, when the five months' shifts of the whole fleet are washed and spread.—Sir W. Davenant, Dialogue between a Parisian and a Londoner.

1651.—Twelve regiments of London, being 1400, mustered in Finsbury Fields, the Speaker, and divers of members of Parliament were there, and the Lord Mayor and Sherifis of London.—Whitelocke, p. 506.

June 28, 1661.—Went to Moorfields, and there walked, and stood and saw the wrestling, which I never saw so much of before, between the north and west countrymen.—Pepys.

December 26, 1661.—After dinner Sir William [Pen] came to me, and he and his son and daughter, and I and my wife, by coach to Moor Fields to walk (but it was most foule weather), and so we went into an alehouse, and there eat some cakes and ale, and a washeall and bowle [wassail bowl] woman and girl came to us and sung to us.—Pepys.

July 26, 1664.—Great discourse yesterday of the fray in Moorfields, how the butchers at first did beat the weavers, between whom there hath been ever an old competition for mastery, but at last the weavers rallied and. beat them. At first, the butchers knocked down all for weavers that had green or blue aprons, till they were fain to pull them off and put them in their breeches. At last, the butchers were fain to pull off their sleeves that they might not be known, and were soundly beaten out of the field; and some deeply wounded and bruised; till at last the weavers went out triumphing, calling "£100 for a butcher."—Pepys.

Lady Maggot. With me! I'faith, but you shall not; when did you ever see a lady of my quality walk with her own husband? Well, I shall never teach a citizen manners. I warrant, you think you are in Moor-Fields, seeing haberdashers walking, with their whole fireside.—Shadwell, The Scowrers, 4to. 1691.

Well, this thing called prosperity makes a man strangely insolent and forgetful. How contemptibly a cutler looks at a poor grinder of knives, a physician in his coach at a farrier a-foot ; and a well-grown Paul's Church-yard bookseller upon one of the trade that sells second-hand books under the trees in Moorfields.—Tom Brown, ed. 1709, vol. iv. p. 13.

1709. In Moorfields, bought a very rare edition of the New Testament in English, printed anno 1536.—Thoresby's Diary, vol. ii. p. 33.

Through fam'd Moorfields extends a spacious seat.
Where mortals of exalted wit retreat;
Where, wrapped in contemplation and in straw,
The wiser few from the mad world withdraw.—Gay to Snow.

Mr. West's books are selling outrageously. His family will make a fortune by what he collected from stalls and Moorfields.—Walpole to Cole, April 7, 1773.

Moorfields was one of the chief of Whitefield's and Wesley's open-air preaching places.

On Sunday, April 29th, 1739, he [Whitefield] preached for the first time in Moorfields and on Kennington Common; and the thousands of hearers were as quiet as they could have been in a church.—Wesley's Funeral Sermon on Whitefield, 8vo, 1770.

There was the cell of Guy of Warwick cut in the living stone, where he died a hermit, as you may see in a penny history that hangs upon the rails in Moorfields.—Gray to Mr. Wharton (Works, by Mitford, vol. iii. p. 124).

After the Great Fire of London in 1666 the people lived in sheds and tents in Moorfields till such time as other tenements could be erected for them.

April 7, 1667.—Into Moor-fields, and did find houses built two stories high, and like to stand; and must become a place of great trade till the city be built; and the street is already paved as London Streets used to be.—Pepys.

Moorfields was the place of assignation and division of booty of Defoe's Colonel Jack. Tom Dibdin was apprenticed to Sir William Rawlins, an upholsterer in Baker's Row, Moorfields. He ran away to Margate, and turned actor. This was not forgotten on the stage, and many years afterwards appeared a clever parody:—

My name's Tom Dibdin; far o'er Ludgate Hill
My master kept his shop—a frugal Cit,
Whose constant cares were to increase his stores
And keep his only prentice, Me, at home.

Autobiography, vol. i. p. 349.

Keats, the poet, was born at the Swan and Hoop livery-stables, No. 28, on the Pavement in Moorfields, over against the riding school. The stables were kept by a person of the name of Jennings. The poet's father, who was killed by a fall from a horse, when the son was in his ninth year, was Jennings's assistant and son-in-law. [See Windmill Street; Rope-Makers' Alley; Finsbury Circus; Bethlehem Hospital, etc.]

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¹ "When the great fen or moor which watereth the walls of the City on the north side is frozen over, the young men go out in crowds to divert themselves upon the ice."—Old Translation of Fitzstephen.

¹ Cal. State Papers, 1623–1625, p. 517.