Vere Street
Names
- Vere Street
Street/Area/District
- Vere Street
Maps & Views
- 1658 London (Newcourt & Faithorne): Stanhope Street
- 1658 London (Newcourt & Faithorne): Vere Street
- 1660 ca. West Central London (Hollar): Vere Street
- 1720 London (Strype): Vere Street
- 1736 London (Moll & Bowles): Vere Street
- 1746 London, Westminster & Southwark (Rocque): Vere Street
Descriptions
from Lockie's Topography of London, by John Lockie (1810)
Vere-Street, Clare-Market,—the second on the R. along Princes-st. from 123, Drury-Lane.
from A Topographical Dictionary of London and Its Environs, by James Elmes (1831)
Vere-St., Clare-market, is the second turning on the right hand side of the Market.
from London Past and Present: Its History, Associations, and Traditions, by Henry Benjamin Wheatley and Peter Cunningham (1891)
Vere Street, Clare Market, was so called after Elizabeth Vere, (d. 1683), daughter of Horatio, Lord Vere, of Tilbury, and wife of John Holles, second Earl of Clare. Sir Thomas Lyttelton was living in this street in 1688.1 Here stood Gibbons's Tennis Court, converted into a theatre by Thomas Killigrew; and in this temporary building his company performed from 1660 till April 1663, when the new theatre in Drury Lane was ready to receive them. They furnished a list of twenty pieces, which they termed their stock plays. Of these three only were Shakespeare's, but one of them, Henry IV., was acted on the opening night, November 8, 1660. Dryden's first play, the Wild Gallant, was brought out here in February 1663.
Rest you merry
There is another play-house to let in Vere Street.
Davenant, The Play-house to be Lett, 1663 (Works, p. 72).
Ogilby, the poet, drew a lottery of books on Tuesday, June 2, 1668, "at the Old Theatre, between Lincoln's Inn Fields and Vere Street." He describes the books in his advertisement as "all of his own designment and composure." One of the many "lock-ups" with which Sir Richard Steele became acquainted was situated in this street. On October 24, 1740, he writes to his wife from "the Bull Head, Clare Market," and again on the 30th from "Vere Street." He was out the next day.