Tyburn: London's Fatal Tree

by Alan Brooke

  At the junction of Holborn with Gray’s Inn Road the picturesque Staple Inn can be seen on the south side. Although this has been rebuilt on a number of occasions, it provides a very good idea of how many of the timber-framed buildings of Tudor London would have looked. It was of course one of the Inns of Chancery and not a hostelry catering for travellers and others. In 1886 the government bought part of Staple Inn to provide an extension to the Patent Office. Another part was sold to the Prudential Assurance Company. Alfred Waterhouse did much restoration work on the houses and the hall which was built in 1581. The hall boasts a splendid hammer-beam roof, and fine stained glass. Close by is a charming garden, a real oasis from the hurly-burly of Holborn. There is a quaint notice in the entrance gateway forbidding horses to enter or children to play in the precincts. Staple Inn includes, at no. 337, the former premises of John Brumfit who opened his tobacconist’s shop there in 1933. It became immortalised when its image appeared on packets of Old Holborn tobacco.

  Gray’s Inn Road lies at the eastern boundary of Gray’s Inn, which is one of the four great Inns of Court. Its gardens were laid out in the 1580s by Francis Bacon who is commemorated by a statue in the South Square. One of the alumni of Gray’s Inn was William Cecil, Lord Burghley (1520–98), the highly able and wily servant who proved so invaluable to Queen Elizabeth. The story is told that Cecil, while a young man resident in Gray’s Inn, incurred a huge gambling debt to a fellow student whose bedroom was adjacent to his own. He is reputed to have drilled a hole through the partition between the bedrooms and with a roll of paper acting as a voice tube, whispered in sepulchral tones to his colleague that he risked perdition if he did not abjure gambling. The student is said to have been so shaken by what he took to be the divinely inspired advice that next morning he knocked on Cecil’s door and humbly begged him to accept the discharge of the debt.

  At 22 High Holborn stands the Cittie of York pub. There has been a drinking house on this site since 1430. A rebuilding in 1695 produced Gray’s Inn Coffee Shop but what can be seen today is the result of a further rebuilding in the 1890s. The name recalls a drinking place of the same name which was once part of Staple Inn. For many years it was known as Henekey’s Long Bar. The interior is unique. The bar is certainly one of the longest in Britain and on a high gallery can be seen a number of enormous vats which Henekey’s used for housing their wines and spirits. There is a high, arched ceiling of almost cathedral-like appearance. Other curiosities of this pub are a number of cubicles with swing doors where lawyers could hold private meetings with clients over a drink or meal. Perhaps strangest of all is a stove dating from 1815 from which the smoke escapes by means of a vent under the floor. Holborn and High Holborn once had a very large number of hostelries, many of them taverns and coaching inns, the latter mostly succumbing to the competition of the railways from the late 1830s. At no. 119, a blue plaque may be seen commemorating the work of the horologist Thomas Earnshaw (1749–1829). For many years he had his workshop on this site. His greatest fame probably lies with the improvements he made to the marine chronometer.

  High Holborn is the continuation of Holborn to Shaftesbury Avenue. On the south side at no. 208 stands the Princess Louise. This pub, named after Queen Victoria’s fourth daughter, was built in 1872. What distinguishes this magnificent pub are its interior decor and fittings. There is a riot of etched and decorative glass, superb pictorial tiling, polished woodwork and gold embossed mirrors. The stonework in the gentlemens’ toilet is so splendid that it is the subject of a preservation order. The Princess Louise is a superb example of Victorian pub design and architecture and should on no account be missed by pub aficionados. At no. 270 formerly stood the George and Blue Boar Inn, a major coaching inn in which Cromwell and Ireton in 1645 managed to intercept correspondence between Charles I to his wife Henrietta Maria. This made it clear that the King was prepared to negotiate with the Parliamentarians, whom he thought of as rebels, while also being engaged in other negotiations which he hoped would bring a French army to support him. This treasonable item had been hidden away in the saddle of one of the King’s messengers. The house was one of the watering holes which catered for those going in procession to Tyburn and it is referred to in Jonathan Swift’s poem, the best-known part of which runs as follows:

  As clever Tom Clinch, when the rabble was bawling,

  Rode stately through London to die of his calling,

  He stopped at the George for a bottle of sack

  And promised to pay for it when he came back.

  Also on the south side is a newish pub by the name of Pendrell’s Oak. This recalls the Pendrell family who owned Boscobel House in Shropshire. They were devoted supporters of the Royalist cause in the Civil War and it was to Boscobel that Charles II fled after the battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651. The Pendrells sheltered the King and helped him to escape and were richly rewarded by the grateful Charles after the Restoration. One branch of the family moved to London and William Pendrell, who died in 1671, is buried in St Giles’s churchyard. The pub is close to Pendrell House where the Meteorological Office’s London Weather Centre is located. On the left is the alley known as Little Turnstile. This probably recalls the revolving stiles that were placed at the four corners of Lincoln’s Inn Fields to prevent cattle grazing there from escaping. The stiles may also have helped to ensure that other animals being driven through the area to Smithfield did not stray into these hallowed grounds. Little Turnstile gives access to Lincoln’s Inn Fields where at nos 59–60 an LCC plaque commemorates the fact that Spencer Perceval (1762–1812) lived there. He was Prime Minister when he was assassinated by a bankrupt businessman who blamed him for his financial misfortunes.

  At 72 High Holborn stands the Old Red Lion. It is said that in 1661 after the Restoration it housed overnight the bodies of Cromwell, Ireton and Bradshaw which had been exhumed and tried for regicide at Westminster Hall. They were then allegedly hanged, drawn and decapitated and the bodies buried while the heads were exhibited at Westminster. There is confusion here because the place of execution is alternatively cited as Tyburn and what is now Red Lion Square, close to the pub. For many years there was an obelisk in the square said to mark the place where they were buried. The ghosts of the three men are seen from time to time, walking purposefully across the square and apparently engaged in earnest conversation, as well they might after all these years.

  On the north side of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, which were laid out in the early 1640s, is the somewhat unsung Sir John Soane’s Museum. Soane lived from 1753 to 1837 and personified that rare phenom-enon, the rise from rags to riches. He was a bricklayer’s son who became the architect of the Bank of England. In no. 13 he accumulated an extraordinarily eclectic hoard of artistic and antiquarian items. There are Gothic fantasies, Egyptian sarcophagi plus innumerable other exhibits, many of them extremely odd, and paintings by Canaletto and Watteau. Perhaps most significant for those interested in London life in the eighteenth century, the museum contains Hogarth’s original eight engravings making up The Rake’s Progress dated 1735 and also The Election, four scenes completed in 1757.

  On the south side of Lincoln’s Inn Fields is the Royal College of Surgeons which on its first floor contains the Hunterian Museum. This exhibits some of the enormous collection of anatomical specimens and body parts accumulated by the avid Scottish scientist, surgeon, physiologist and anatomist, John Hunter (1728–93). The most fascinating exhibit is probably the skeleton of the renowned Irish giant, Charles Byrne who was almost 8 feet tall. Hunter employed considerable skulduggery to obtain the skeleton given Byrne’s clearly expressed wishes that he should be buried at sea to avoid the attention of the anatomists. Placed next to Byrne’s mortal remains are those of a midget named Caroline Crachami, otherwise known as the ‘Sicilian Fairy’, who was only 23 inches tall when she died at the age of nine.

  High Holborn is crossed at right angles by Kingsway and Southampton Row. Kingsway was part of a great Victorian scheme for improving
the metropolitan road system. Opened in 1905, its name honoured King Edward VII. A feature seen when crossing Kingsway is the northern end of the tram subway that used to run to the Embankment. This subway, possibly unique in Britain, linked the north and south London tram systems and allowed trams to avoid road congestion by using a specially designed underpass. This subway even possessed its own stations at Aldwych and Holborn which provided easy interchange with the Underground system. The last tram to use the subway did so on 5 July 1952. As late as 1950 the subterranean Holborn tram station was lit by powerful gas lamps, the loud hissing of which added to its very distinctive atmosphere.

  Close by, on the north side of High Holborn, once stood British Museum Underground station on what was originally the Central London Line. It was opened in 1900 and from the start irked passengers who wanted to change to the Northern Line at Holborn station because they had to emerge from the bowels of the earth and walk a short distance in the open. Proposals to improve interchange by closing British Museum and enlarging Holborn station eventually came to fruition and in 1933 the new Holborn station came into use and British Museum was closed. Before it had closed, however, stories circulated that the station was haunted by a spectre in the form of an Egyptian mummy that had escaped from the museum. Many people came forward claiming to have seen one or more ghastly apparitions, frequently mummies, running around the platforms and passages trailing the bandages in which they had been swathed. It was probably the flurry of excitement caused by these events which inspired the makers of the 1935 film Bulldog Jack to present much of the film’s action on an imaginary Underground station called ‘Bloomsbury’, which possessed a secret tunnel leading to a sarcophagus in the museum. Nothing can be seen of British Museum station at street level but the now grubby white tiled walls can just be discerned from Central Line trains running between Holborn (Kingsway) and Tottenham Court Road stations.

  At 83 Southampton Row, Edgar Allan Poe arrived in 1815 at the age of six. His youthful years were somewhat dissipated and he ran away to join the army from which he was soon dishonourably discharged. This forced him to turn to writing. In 1838 he wrote The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. This macabre story tells of three men and a cabin boy cast adrift in an open boat. They only survive by killing and eating the boy whose name was Richard Parker. Poe’s fame and literary success brought him neither financial security nor contentment. Many years later a merchant vessel sank in the Atlantic. Four crew members took to an open boat and three were picked up some time later. The other member of the crew was a cabin boy and he had been killed and eaten. His name? Richard Parker.

  Shaftesbury Avenue dates from the mid-1880s. It was built as part of the same scheme as Kingsway to improve road communication between the West End and the Tottenham Court Road and Bloomsbury areas. The name ‘Shaftesbury’ recalls Anthony Ashley Cooper (1801–85). As Earl of Shaftesbury, he was a philanthropist and leading campaigner for factory reform. Another reason for the construction of these roads was to open up and sanitise some of London’s worst rookeries or criminal sanctuaries, namely St Giles and Seven Dials. The latter, previously known as ‘Cock and Pye Fields’ after a local inn, got its strange name from a Doric pillar topped in fact by only six sundials. This stood at the intersection of seven streets and was a noted rendezvous for criminals. It was taken down in 1773 amid great excitement because it was rumoured that its base contained a large amount of money. It did not. The pillar was subsequently re-erected at Weybridge in Surrey. Shaftesbury Avenue lacks architectural distinction but is noted for being the centre of London’s theatreland. At the junction of High Holborn and Shaftesbury Avenue, Endell Street can be seen on the left and this contains the Swiss Protestant Church founded in 1762 where Sunday services are conducted in French. Beyond Endell Street is Bow Street. A courthouse was opened here in 1748 where Henry Fielding and his half-brother, Sir John Fielding, were magistrates. They attempted to bring some degree of rationality to the workings of the law and it was here that the Bow Street Runners started their operations. Bow Street Magistrates Court now stands on the site.

  We proceed along the old route up St Giles High Street. On the south side is the Angel pub. This is an ancient hostelry although it was rebuilt in 1898 and was previously known as the Bowl. It is said to have been one of the major stopping places for the condemned felons and their hangers-on making their way from Newgate to Tyburn and is reputed to be haunted. Other drinking places nearby also claim this distinction. They include the White Hart, Drury Lane and the Three Tuns, South Portman Mews, although both lie slightly off the direct route. Immediately on the left is the church of St Giles-in-the-Fields topped by a fine steeple 150 feet high. St Giles is close to where the Great Plague of London broke out in 1665; in just one month in that year 1,391 burials were recorded to have taken place in its churchyard. This church has many historical associations of which only a few can be given here. George Chapman was buried there in 1634. It was his translation of Homer which sent John Keats (1795–1821) into such poetic raptures. Five now beatified Jesuits, put to death after the Popish Plot, were buried in the north part of the churchyard in 1678. Lying close by was the canonised Oliver Plunkett, Archbishop of Armagh, who was executed for high treason in 1681. In his tomb was buried a copper plate with this inscription: ‘Accused of high treason, through hatred of the faith, by false brethren, and condemned to death, being hanged at Tyburn and his bowels being taken out and cast into the fire, suffered martyrdom with constancy.’ He was soon exhumed and it was reported that miraculously his bodily parts became reunited. Much earlier, in 1417, the Lollard Sir John Oldcastle died after being hanged over a hot fire. The prolific if somewhat pedestrian portrait painter, Sir Geoffrey Kneller, was buried in St Giles in 1723. Luke Hansard was interred in 1828. He and his descendants printed parliamentary reports from 1774 to 1889 and his surname has been immortalised as the title of the verbatim reports of Parliament’s deliberations. It is possible that Claude Duval, the famous highwayman, is buried within the precincts. As with so many of his kind, he went to meet his Maker while only young. He was hanged at Tyburn in 1670. Others buried here include Arthur William Devis (1762–1822), an artist who mostly painted charming portraits of children but is best remembered for his The Death of Nelson and a painting of Dr William Balmain, the co-founder of New South Wales, whose name lives on in a suburb of Sydney. He was buried in St Giles in 1803. On the west front of St Giles the name of its architect, Henry Flitcroft, is displayed prominently on a frieze, and close by is what can best be described as a stone lych gate, erected in 1804. This rather curious structure incorporates a wooden bas-relief of the Resurrection which was carved in 1687 and may be based on Michelangelo’s Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican. The interior of St Giles contains many fine seventeenth- and eighteenth-century furnishings.

  From St Giles High Street the route passes Andrew Borde Street where St Giles Hospital stood before it was dissolved. Andrew Borde himself was a noted wit who lived during the reign of Henry VIII. Very briefly we join New Oxford Street. This was completed in 1847 and had been built to reach Holborn more directly than the old route which curved through St Giles High Street. Its construction involved the knocking down of some of London’s most festering slums. Now we enter Oxford Street proper which has long been a traditional route out of London to the west. The systematic development of buildings along Oxford Street dates from the late 1730s. By the end of the century, development was complete from the Tottenham Court Road end to Park Lane. At first the buildings lining Oxford Street were largely residential. Slowly one or two places of entertainment were opened such as the Pantheon at no. 173, now occupied by a Marks & Spencer store. The Princess’s Theatre was opened in 1840 where the Oxford Walk shopping precinct now stands. At no. 275 stands Regent Hall. This building which at one time contained a skating rink is now occupied by the Salvation Army but remains surprisingly unaltered. After 1850, Oxford Street began to assume its more modern character as a centre of
retailing. At first, however, the shops were mostly small private ones largely serving the rich families who lived in the fashionable residential streets and squares on both sides of Oxford Street. Gradually these gave way to department stores of the sort which can now be seen on most of the nation’s high streets.

  The first road junction along Oxford Street on the north side is that with Hanway Street. This is probably named after Jonas Hanway (1712–86) who was assured immortality as the first Englishman reputed to have ventured out on to the streets of the capital brandishing an umbrella to protect himself from the rain. Hanway was a man of many interests including foreign travel, prison reform, philanthropy and hatred of the tea-drinking habit. He alienated the great Dr Johnson when he attacked tea on the grounds that he believed it led to adultery and other social evils.

  Berwick Street joins Oxford Street on its south side. At no. 22 a Westminster City Council plaque is affixed to the house where Jessie Matthews, actress and dancer, was born. The last role for which she is remembered is as ‘Mrs Dale’ in the 1950– 60s radio soap opera Mrs Dale’s Diary. On the north side of Oxford Street is Berners Street. At no. 13 the Swiss painter Henry Fuseli (1741–1825) lived, in the early nineteenth century. The best known of his works was probably the puzzling, even disturbing, Nightmare of 1781. It was perhaps the powerful quality of this work that led an admirer to call on Fuseli and expect to be welcomed by some enormous and sturdy bearded figure resembling a Viking warrior. Imagine the visitor’s surprise when he was greeted by a diminutive silver-haired man wearing an old flannel dressing gown and what appeared to be part of his wife’s work-basket on his head. In 1809, Berners Street was the scene of a cruel hoax. This was carried out by a young reprobate named Theodore Hook who had been expelled from Harrow, had written thirteen operas while he was still a minor and was under investigation for fraud. For reasons unknown he decided to play a complex practical joke on a Mrs Tottingham who lived at no. 54. He spent six weeks making his preparations and the result of these was that on one memorable day hundreds of tradesmen descended on her house presenting her with a vast quantity of goods varying from coffins to coffee and snuff. As if that was not enough, other callers included a cosmopolitan selection of clergymen to shrive her soul, doctors to cure her body, lawyers to assist her with the writing of her will and even stay-makers to fit her up with corsets.