Clare Market

Clare Market, (by some called New Market,) is a very considerable one, with a fine New Market House near the SW corner of Lincolns Inn Fields, and from Cha+ NE 1160 Yds.

Clare Market, very considerable and well served with Provisions, both Flesh and Fish; for besides the Butchers in the Shambles, it is much resorted unto by the Country Butchers and Higglers, the Market Days, are Wednesdays and Saturdays. The Tole belongs to the Duke of Newcastle, as Ground Landlord thereof.

Clare market, Lincoln's Inn fields, has a considerable trade for flesh, greens &c.

Clare-Market, Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, at the S.W. corner, near the N. end of Newcastle-st. from 309, in the Strand.

Clare-Market, Lincoln's-inn-fields, is at the south west corner, and near the north end of Newcastle-street going from the Strand. It derives its name from John, Earl of Clare, by whom it was built and opened in 1656.

Clare Market, Lincoln's Inn Fields, between Lincoln's Inn Fields and the Strand. It was so called after John Holles, created Baron Houghton, of Houghton, in the county of Nottingham, 1616, and Earl of Clare, 1624; but was first and for many years known as the New Market. Lord Houghton was living in the parish of St. Clement's Danes as early as 1617.¹ A heavy assessment, or rather fine, was imposed upon all new buildings beyond certain limits; and, encouraged by the success of the Earl of Bedford, Lord Clare applied for an abatement, but without avail. On the subject being discussed in the House of Commons (June 9, 1657), "Mr. Pedley took occasion to reflect highly upon my Lord Clare, and said he was one of those that had forsworn building of churches. He had built a house for the flesh (meaning the shambles in New Market), but he doubted he would hardly do as David did, build a house for the spirit: and a great deal of this kind of language."

Then is there towards Drury Lane, a new market, called Clare Market; then is there a street and palace of the same names, built by the Earl of Clare, who lives there in a princely manner, having a house, a street, and a market both for flesh and fish, all bearing his name.—Howell's Londinopolis, fol. 1657, p. 344.

"Mnemonica, or the Art of Memory, drained out of the Pure Fountains of Art and Nature, also a Physical Treatise of cherishing Natural Memory," by John Willis, London, printed and are to be sold by Leonard Sowerby, at the Turn-stile, near New Market, in Lincoln's Inn Fields, 1661.

Clare Market, very considerable and well served with provisions, both flesh and fish; for besides the butchers in the shambles, it is much resorted unto by the country butchers and higglers; the market-days are Wednesdays and Saturdays. The toll belongs to the Duke of Newcastle [Pelham Holles] as ground landlord thereof.—Strype, ed. 1720, B. iv. p. 119.

Isaac Bickerstaff was supposed to live in Shire or Sheer Lane, and the neighbouring Clare Market is frequently mentioned in The Tatler. At one time he is roused by a chanticleer "under a coop," and at another he speaks of a "butcher in Clare Market who endeavoured to corrupt me with a dozen and a half of marrow bones."

The Duke of Newcastle built a chapel "at the corner of Lincoln's Inn Fields, near Clare Market," for the use of the butchers. Hither, in February 1729 came, it is said, from Newport Market, John Henley, (Orator Henley) (d. 1756), and erected his "gilt tub," commemorated by Pope:—

Still break the benches, Henley! with thy strain,
While Sherlock, Hare, and Gibson preach in vain.
O, worthy thou of Egypt's wise abodes,
A decent priest, where monkeys were the gods!
But fate with butchers placed thy priestly stall,
Meek modern faith to murder, hack, and maul.
Dunciad, B. iii.; and see the Epistle to Arbuthnot.

Henley preached on the Sundays on such Scripture texts or subjects as admitted of a burlesque treatment, and on week days upon the fashions or anything that came uppermost. Each auditor paid one shilling. Over the altar was this extraordinary inscription, "The Primitive Eucharist."

You may find me in a morning at my lucubrations over a quartern pot in a Geneva shop in Clare Market; a house where I propose many learned interviews with Orator Henley, who has removed his stage to that place. Richard Savage,—Author to be Let, p. 271.

The Bull Head Tavern, in Clare Market, was a favourite resort of the famous Dr. Radcliffe. There is a letter of Steele's to his wife dated from this house August 24, 1710. It seems likely that he was hiding there. Tony Aston tells us that Mrs. Bracegirdle, the actress, was in the habit "of going often into Clare Market and giving money to the poor unemployed basket-women, insomuch that she could not pass that neighbourhood without the thankful acclamations of people of all degrees." It was in Clare Market, after his escape from Newgate, that Jack Sheppard obtained the butcher's blue frock and woollen apron he was wearing when captured at Finchley. Clare Market is a cluster of narrow dirty streets and passages lined chiefly with butchers' and greengrocers' shops, which overflow into the adjacent streets, and are supplemented by long lines of greengrocers', fishmongers', and miscellaneous stalls and barrows—a crowded, noisy, and unsavoury place on market days and Saturday nights.

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¹ Rate-books of St. Clement's Danes.