Tothill Street

Tuttle or Tuthill street, a large str. in Westminster, betn Petit france W. and the Old Gate house E. L. 280 yds, and from Cha+ [Charing Cross] near S. 920 yds.

Tuthil street hath good Buildings, and is well inhabited by Shopkeepers and others. In this Street are these Alleys and Places of Name; Walker's Yard, a very ordinary Place. Swan Inn, indifferent good. Frying-pan Alley, a small narrow Place. Fleece Yard, a good handsome Inn. Three Tun Alley, a little small Passage into the great Almnery. Cock Inn, or Yard, a Place for Stabling.

Tothil street, Broad Sanctuary, Westminster.

Tothill-Street, Westminster,—on the W. side of the Abbey, extending towards Queen-sq.

Tothill-St., Westminster, is on the west side of the Abbey.

Tothill, Tuthill, or Tuttle Street, from the Broad Sanctuary to the Broadway, Westminster.

Tothill Street, a large street in Westminster, between Petty France (west) and the Old Gate House (east).—Hatton, 8vo, 1708, p. 84.

Such is Hatton's description; but the Gatehouse has long been level with the ground, and Petty France has since been transformed into York Street. Our notions have also changed about its size—no one would call it "a large street" now. In the 16th and 17th centuries there were mansions on both sides of Tothill Street, those on the south having gardens reaching to the Park. Stourton House, at the south-west end of the street, was the residence of the Lords Dacre of the South; opposite to it lived Lord Grey de Wilton; and at Caron House died, 1612, Sir George Carew. At Lincoln House Sir Henry Herbert had his office as Master of the Revels in 1664–1665.² On May 28, 1623, Endymion Porter wrote to his wife Olive that "Lady Carey in Tuttle Street" is to pay her "£112 for money lent by him to her son in Spain."³ Before the middle of the 17th century smaller houses were beginning to be built here.

1634.—The tobacco licences go on apace, they yield a good fine and a constant yearly rent, but the buildings yield not that profit that was expected as yet. My Lord Maynard compounded for £500 for some twenty houses built in Tuttle Street.—Garrard, Strafford Letters, vol. i. p. 263.

Betterton, the actor, was born in this street some time in 1635. Thomas Amory, the author of John Buncle, died here in 1789, aged ninety-seven. In a house near the Gate House Edmund Burke lived for some time.

Ben Jonson, in the Staple of News, speaks of—

All the news of Tuttle Street, and both the Alm'ries, the two Sanctuaries, long and round Woolstaple, with King's Street and Cannon Row to boot.

On the north side, No. 72, was a curious old inn, The Cock [see the Cock Tavern], but it was cleared away in 1873, with all the other houses on that side, to make way for the Royal Aquarium. No. 4 was a later Cock Tavern, and is now the Aquarium Tavern. This is a modern house with an old stone, dated 1671, let into the front. In the old house Thomas Southerne, the poet (1660–1746)

Tom sent down to raise
The price of prologues and of plays—

lived for many years at Mr. Whyte's, an oilman in Tothill Street, against Dartmouth Street.¹ He died there, May 26, 1746. The house, was still an oilman's shop in 1850. It has been pulled down some years. The destruction on the south side has not been so sweeping but several houses at the east end were taken down for the formation of Victoria Street and the Westminster Palace Hotel. In all there are only eighteen houses left in Tothill Street.

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² Walcott, p. 282.
³ Cal. State Pap., 1619–1623, p. 390.