Holborn and Bloomsbury | Page 7

Lollard.
After they had been removed from the end of Broad Street, to make
way for the almshouses, the parish pound and cage stood on the site of
the gallows until 1765. There was here also a large circular stone,

where the charity boys were whipped to make them remember the
parish bounds.
The space to the north of the High and Broad Streets was previously a
notorious rookery. Dyott Street, which still exists, though cut in half,
had a most unenviable reputation. The Maidenhead Inn, which stood at
the south-east corner of this, was a favourite resort for mealmen and
country waggoners. There was in this street also a tavern called the
Turk's Head, where Haggart Hoggarty planned the murder of Mr.
Steele on Hounslow Heath in 1802. Walford mentions also Rat's Castle,
a rendezvous for all the riff-raff of the neighbourhood. Dyott Street was
named after an influential parishioner of Charles II.'s time, who had a
house here. It was later called George Street, but has reverted to the
original name.
South of Great Russell Street there were formerly Bannister's Alley and
Eagle and Child Yard running northwards. From the former of these
continued Church Lane, to which Maynard Lane ran parallel.
Bainbridge, Buckridge, and Church Streets ran east and westward. Of
these Bainbridge remains, a long, narrow alley bounded by the brewery
wall. Mayhew says that here "were found some of the most intricate
and dangerous places in this low locality."
The part of the parish lying to the north, including Bedford Square,
must be for the present left (see p. 98), while we turn southwards.
New Compton Street is within the former precincts of the hospital.
When first made it was called Stiddolph Street, after Sir Richard
Stiddolph, and the later name was taken from that of Sir Frances
Compton. Strype says, "All this part was very meanly built ... and
greatly inhabited by French, and of the poorer sort," a character it
retains to this day.
Shaftesbury Avenue, opened in 1885, has obliterated Monmouth Street,
named after the Duke of Monmouth, whose house was in Soho Square
(see The Strand, this series). Monmouth Street was notorious for its
old-clothes shops, and is the subject of one of the "Sketches by Boz."
Further back still it was called Le Lane, and is under that name

mentioned among the hospital possessions.
The north end of Shaftesbury Avenue is in the adjoining parish of St.
George's, Bloomsbury, but must for sequence' sake be described here.
A French Protestant chapel, consecrated 1845, which is the lineal
descendant of the French Church of the Savoy, stands on the west side.
Near at hand is a French girls' school. Further north is a Baptist chapel,
with two noticeable pointed towers and a central wheel window.
Bedford Chapel formerly stood on the north side of this. In the lower
half of the Avenue there are several buildings of interest. The first of
these, on the east side, is for the medical and surgical relief of all
foreigners who speak French. Below this is a chapel belonging to the
Baptists, and further southward a working lads' home, established in
1843, for homeless lads at work in London. In connection with it are
various homes in the country, both for boys and girls, and two training
ships, the Arethusa and Chichester.
All the ground to the south of Shaftesbury Avenue was anciently, if not
actually a pond, at all events very marshy ground, and was called
Meershelands, or Marshlands. It was subsequently known as Cock and
Pye Fields, from the Cock and Pye public-house, which is supposed to
have been situated at the spot where Little St. Andrew Street, West
Street, and Castle Street now meet. The date at which this name first
appeared is uncertain; it is met with in the parish books after 1666. In
the reign of William III. a Mr. Neale took the ground, and transformed
the great ditch which crossed it into a sewer, preparatory to the building
of Seven Dials. The name of this notorious place has been connected
with degradation and misery, but at first it was considered rather an
architectural wonder. Evelyn, in his diary, October 5, 1694, says: "I
went to see the building beginning near St. Giles, where seven streets
make a star from a Doric pillar placed in the middle of a circular area,
said to be built by Mr. Neale." Gay also refers to the central column in
his "Trivia." The column had really only six dial faces, two streets
converging toward one. In the open space on which it stood was a
pillory, and the culprits who stood here were often most brutally stoned.
One John Waller, charged with perjury, was killed in this manner in
1732.

In 1773 the column was taken down