L&M Companion: Ralph Greatorex (1625-1712?) Scientific instrument-maker, at the Adam & Eve on the south side of the Strand; particularly accomplished in the design of diving bells and waterpumps. One of his bells was meant for use in the construction of the Tangier mole. He attended early meetings of the Royal Society before its incorporation, but he never became a Fellow.
... and on 23 May 1660 John Webb had asked the committee to be allowed to hang in the King's residences in London the pictures that had been re-assembled and to have them recorded in an inventory by de Critz.
"He tells me, among other things, that the Duke of York is now sorry for his lying with my Lord Chancellor’s daughter, who is now brought to bed of a boy."
Clearly Pepys doesn't consider Anne Hyde as the Duchess of York yet -- she's just the wayward daughter of Chancellor Hyde's.
'Students of real estate law learn of the "doctrine of ancient lights" -- limiting the ability of a landowner to build in a way that blocks long-established windows on an adjoining property.'
Not old enough, apparently. Batten has blocked Pepys' cellar light when the Navy made the recent property upgrades.
I find this difficult to imagine. I've been to Seething Lane and seen the park where the Navy building existed. It is flat. So how did they have cellar "lights" i.e. windows. I've never seen an Elizabethan house built so the basement gets natural light -- that was a Georgian innovation as I recall. If it was built on a hillside there could be a groundfloor house entrance on the uphill, and a window into the cellar on the downhill side. But the park is flat, and Pepys tells us the groundfloor kitchen has a door into the Navy yard.
Perhaps this "light" was a small shute to the basement for the use of the coal man -- which indicates a space between the house and the street where such a utility shute could be dug out???? Again, I've never seen a Tudor house built in crowded London like that.
Whatever the case, I trust Batten had the courtesy to make sure Pepys had an alternative before he bricked up Pepys' existing light.
"1646 Elias Ashmole develops a further interest in Astrology by being introduced to William Lilly and John Booker, who were then regarded as being the best living astrologers. Ashmole was to purchase their libraries after their deaths."
You can now read "The Life of William Lilly a Student in Astrology Written by himself in the 66th year of his age, at Hersham in the parish of Walton-on-Thames in the county of Surrey" Transcribed from the autobiography by Sue Ward Copywrite 1998 and 2009 https://classicalastrologer.files…
John Booker (1603–1667) was an English astrologer, respected in that career for over 30 years. In the 1640s he was appointed licenser of mathematical publications, and so in effect a censor of astrological works, for the Stationers' Company.
L&M: "Capt. William Murford was a timber merchant of Cannon Street, and an entrepreneur. He offered Pepys a share in a light-house project and from the beginning of his acquaintance with Pepys had pressed gifts on him. The diary records no gift of a necklace by him to Mrs Pepys. He died in 1666, leaving a widow, Bridget."
L&M Companion: William Lilly (1602 - 1681) The most prolofoc writer of his day on astronomy. A supporter of the popular party, he forecast victories for parliament in every campaign during the Civil Wars, and prophesied on behalf of every successive regime from the outbreak of the troubles to the Restoration. In 1670 he turned to the practice of astrological medicine.
L&M note for 24 October, 1660: "Lilly was mercenary by his own admission (see his 'Hist. of his life and times' 1822, esp. page 88) and was suspected of having been in the pay of every successive government of the past 20 years. Certainly, his popular almanacks adjusted to each change of regime. He claimed the government pension he had been given in 1649 was only for 2 years, and for foreign intelligence, not astrological prophecy (pages 145-146). In 1660 his almanacs lay under some disrepute because of his failure to foresee any of the changes in English government in 1659-1660 or the defeat and death of his foreign patron, Charles Gustavus of Sweden."
Beacon Hill is an area in most old towns in Britain. It's usually the highest hill in the neighborhood.
Pepys never tells us about their emergency warning system, but I found a book which mentioned it -- basically it says Cromwell kept the system in good condition, but Charles II, James II, William III and Anne let it decay. George I revived it. So during Diary times I think we can guess that it was still reasonable useable. https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
Reading this over, a scare-fire and a warning beacon are not the same thing.
Sorry for misleading you!
It does seem strange Pepys never tells us about the beacon system given the possibility of a Dutch invasion so often during Charles II's reign, and the two invasions in James II's reign. They must have had some way of knowing what was going on if they let the beacon system decay.
"Sam's working hours seem, to say the least, irregular."
Perhaps the title Pepys holds have gives people the wrong impression. "Clerk" and "Secretary" were crucial positions of authority and trust. Yes, he implements his "betters" orders, and he works when they want him to work.
If you were a cook or a maid or a coachdriver, same rules held.
It was the advent of the Trades Unions 100 years ago that bought us -- at great personal cost and much physical pain and danger -- the concept of a weekend, and some standardization of working hours. Technology at first improved the working person's life -- but now smart phones have many people back to working 24/7. Can the Unions rescue us again? Only if we turn the phones off.
As noted above, today Charles II has been discussing, composing and issuing his Declaration on the Worcester House Conference which was held yesterday -- and by now I trust James has been persuaded to come out of hiding and visit Anne Hyde and meet his daughter. Therefore, reading the mail and discussing and ordering responses in the late afternoon would result in Pepys being summonsed for instructions in the evening.
Charles' clerks would work all evening to get as much of the important information to the post office in order to catch the mail -- or get their confidential messengers on the road as we saw when Montagu and Pepys were anchored off Deal for months.
Charles is still trying to behave Kingly and bring about reconciliation where he can.
To take the conversation about how to refer to dates one step further:
'In the 17th century, before the new system caught on, "Vulgar Era" was used instead of "Common Era." From Latin, “vulgar” meant “common,” not “crude.” However, “Vulgar Era” didn’t stick, and “BCE” and “CE” became increasingly popular.
'So, which set of abbreviations is the correct set to use? There is no right answer, but certain style guides will dictate which version to use. The BCE/CE system has become more popular in the last few decades as a way to be more inclusive in secular writing, but B.C./A.D. is still widely accepted.'
"I saw the limbs of some of our new traitors set upon Aldersgate, which was a sad sight to see; and a bloody week this and the last have been, there being ten hanged, drawn, and quartered."
Although it's not recorded in the Diary, some people were horrified by this punishment. Some young people decided to do something about it when they became of age. One was Pepys' colleague, Adm. William Penn's son -- also a William -- who is currently a teenager in Ireland looking after his parent's estates. Her hasn't had any sort of enlightment or calling yet.
But after the Diary, when Charles II awards him lands in America to settle the accounts with the Penn family, he does make some changes to civil laws concerning offenders:
"William Penn [JR], in his new colony [PENNSYLVANIA], was concerned with fostering a humane and fair means of dealing with transgression, a belief born of experience. As a convert to Quakerism he’d had hard experience with both the jails and courtrooms of London.
"Since the founding of the religion by George Fox in the 1640s, Quakers had been subject to persecution. In the late 17th century, after Charles II passed a set of acts that attempted to weaken dissent and protect the Church of England, besides being stocked, stoned, and whipped, more than 13,000 Quakers were imprisoned in England. Hundreds died while incarcerated.
"Penn’s Great Law — a series of statutes by which the Colony was to be governed — aimed to ensure the procedures for trial and sentencing in the Pennsylvania colony would be simple, understandable, and equitable. Although the blood punishments didn’t disappear, they were fewer and milder than those in England and in the other colonies. The death sentence was abolished for all crimes except premeditated murder, which was in accord with predominant Quaker thinking on capital punishment. In Penn’s colony, every county prison was to be a workhouse, and felons were either to be fined or sentenced to a certain amount of time at hard labor in a “house of Correction”.
"Still, Penn’s laws, although less severe, were based on traditional means of carrying out justice.”
This evolved/devolved into today's penal system -- with one surprising outcome which has nothing directly to do with Penn Jr. or the Diary. https://publicdomainreview.org/es…
"Sowing maslins fell out of fashion with the advent of the Industrial Revolution, as mechanized equipment and standardized farming methods transformed global agriculture to produce more uniform commodities."
The grains that made Pepys' bread and beer was different to what we know today.
"Maslins are both a method of planting and a cereal species mixture that can include the seeds of wheat, barley, rye, and other grains. In this seemingly unconventional ancient practice, a mixture of those seeds are hand-broadcast throughout a field.
"The grains have some complementary characteristics, like different depths of roots due to differences in drought and waterlogging tolerance. And different crops have varying needs for soil depths or nutrients, which allows them to coexist."
Unfortunately the research only mentions Greece, Ethiopia, and other Middle Eastern places, not Britain. I can't imagine English farmers had picked out the seeds of different crops yet, or were planting any differently here. If you have more info. please share.
The Old Cheshire Cheese, Wine Office Court, opened in 1538, so Pepys must have visited:
Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese is one of London’s few remaining 17th Century chophouses. The sawdust on the floor is changed twice daily. It is a pub and eating house offering unpretentious fare in wooden bays provided by high-backed church pews and served by waiters.
The site formed part of the 13th century Carmelite monastery and since 1538 a pub has stood here.
Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese is an historic gem of a pub on Fleet Street, on the edge of the City of London. The pub was rebuilt in 1667 after the original one was burnt down by the Great Fire of London. Over the past 355 years the Cheese has been frequented by numerous prominent literary figures including Dr. Samuel Johnson, Mark Twain, W.B. Yeats, PG Wodehouse, and Charles Dickens who featured it in his novel "A Tale of Two Cities".
The pub is a delightful labyrinth of different rooms: front bar, Chop House restaurant, Cheshire Bar, Cellar Bar, Williams Room and Johnson Bar to name but a few. https://ye-olde-cheshire-cheese.c…
You can visit one site of a coffee shop Pepys knew in 1660 -- but it has another name and occupies a different building today:
Jamaica Wine House, City of London, opened 1660
The Jamaica Wine House, known locally as "the Jampot", is located in St Michael's Alley, Cornhill, in the heart of London's financial district. It was the first coffee house in London and was visited by the English diarist Samuel Pepys in 1660. It is now a Grade II listed public house and is set within a labyrinth of medieval courts and alleys in the City of London. It lies in the ward of Cornhill.
The Jamaica Wine House has historic links to the sugar trade of the West Indies and the Ottoman Empire. There is a plaque on the wall which reads "Here stood the first London Coffee house at the sign of the Pasqua Rosee's Head 1652." Pasqua Rosée, the proprietor, was the servant of a Levant Company merchant named Daniel Edwards, a trader in Ottoman goods, who imported the coffee and assisted Rosée in setting up the establishment. The coffee house, which opened in 1652, is known in some accounts as The Turk's Head.
You can visit one site of a coffee shop Pepys knew in 1660 -- but it has another name and occupies a different building today:
Jamaica Wine House, City of London, opened 1660
The Jamaica Wine House, known locally as "the Jampot", is located in St Michael's Alley, Cornhill, in the heart of London's financial district. It was the first coffee house in London and was visited by the English diarist Samuel Pepys in 1660. It is now a Grade II listed public house and is set within a labyrinth of medieval courts and alleys in the City of London. It lies in the ward of Cornhill.
The Jamaica Wine House has historic links to the sugar trade of the West Indies and the Ottoman Empire. There is a plaque on the wall which reads "Here stood the first London Coffee house at the sign of the Pasqua Rosee's Head 1652." Pasqua Rosée, the proprietor, was the servant of a Levant Company merchant named Daniel Edwards, a trader in Ottoman goods, who imported the coffee and assisted Rosée in setting up the establishment. The coffee house, which opened in 1652, is known in some accounts as The Turk's Head.
Men like Addison and Steele were here; Jonathan Swift and his coteric gathered in a corner to discuss the pros and cons of that great fraud, the South Sea Bubble; Daniel Defoe was a constant guest of the host of his time; that was John Wilkes.
It is known his fellow-members of "The Hell Fire Club" (founded in 1719 by two prominent Freemasons; the Duke of Wharton and George Henry Lee, 2nd Earl of Lichfield) met at drinking hole called the George and Vulture in the 1730s. Thomas De Quincey records a story concerning an unnamed lord who tied a man to a spit and roasting him, presumably at the George and Vulture.
Hogarth's "Charity in the Cellar", painted c. 1739, is presumed to be the same club. The 5 depicted are identifiable and can be connected with 2 other alleged members, the 4th Earl of Sandwich and Sir Francis Dashwood.
My geography is strained here, but I think this is the same George:
Tucked away in the heart of the busiest part of the city, overshadowed by tall, modern buildings and all but a thin strip of it hidden from view, is a piece of old London.
This is the "George and Vulture," known throughout the world as the tavern where Mr. Pickwick and his friends made their favourite city headquarters.
The address in the directory of this inn is St.Michael's Alley, Cornhill; The Pickwick Papers describe it as being in George Yard, Lombard Street. Both are correct. If the latter address is followed, the inn is not easy to find, for the sign "Old Pickwickian Hostel" is so high up over the upper window in the far left-hand corner that it is the last thing one sees. It's little better from the other approach, as the alley with tall buildings facing each other so closely as to almost touch, makes it necessary to search for the entrance doorway.
Originally the George was the London lodging of Earl Ferrers, and in 1175 his brother was slain thee in the night. The George and described by Stow as "a common hostelry for travellers."
When the Great Fire of 1666 swept through these alleys it devoured everything in its path and left the George as a shell of embers. A wine merchant of George Yard, whose sign was a tethered live vulture, lost his home and his livelihood, and after the tavern was rebuilt he negotiated with the landlord for part use of the George. Unhappy with the idea of having a live bird squawking around the door the innkeeper agreed to change the name of his house to the "George and Vulture".
Fixed to a wall inside the tavern are 2 boundary markers defining the dividing line between the parishes of St. Michael's, Cornhill and St, Edmund the King, Lombard Street. They come from pre-fire days when City churches were so close together they needed boundary stones at the limits of each parish. The boundary line runs through the bar.
Poets and literary men frequented The George from the earliest times, and although there is no record to substantiate a claim that Chaucer used the house, it seems possible that his father, who was a licensed victualler, knew it well. John Skelton, the satirical poet of the 15th century, enjoyed its hospitality, as he has left a record that he was acquainted with it:
Taverns were the resort of the prominent men of the day, and were used like clubs as friendly meeting places for businessmen, authors, artists, lawyers, doctors, actors and the fashionable with no particular calling, all of whom treated "mine host" as an equal and not as a servant.
There is an historic Mitre Inn in Holborn -- I'm not sure if it's annotated elsewhere, but Pepys must have known it:
"Built in 1546 for the servants of the Bishops of Ely, The Ye Olde Mitre is famous for having a cherry tree (now supporting the front) that Queen Elizabeth once danced around with Sir Christopher Hatton. "The pub was actually a part of Cambridge (Ely being in Cambridgeshire) and the licencees used to have to go there for their licence. "Set in a part of London steeped in history, it's near where William Wallace was hung, drawn and quartered at Smithfield, along with martyrs and traitors who were also killed nearby." https://www.yeoldemitreholborn.co…
Comments
Third Reading
About Ralph Greatorex
San Diego Sarah • Link
L&M Companion: Ralph Greatorex (1625-1712?) Scientific instrument-maker, at the Adam & Eve on the south side of the Strand; particularly accomplished in the design of diving bells and waterpumps. One of his bells was meant for use in the construction of the Tangier mole. He attended early meetings of the Royal Society before its incorporation, but he never became a Fellow.
About Emanuel De Critz
San Diego Sarah • Link
... and on 23 May 1660 John Webb had asked the committee to be allowed to hang in the King's residences in London the pictures that had been re-assembled and to have them recorded in an inventory by de Critz.
That's the end of Paul Brewster's annotation
https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
About Wednesday 24 October 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
"He tells me, among other things, that the Duke of York is now sorry for his lying with my Lord Chancellor’s daughter, who is now brought to bed of a boy."
Clearly Pepys doesn't consider Anne Hyde as the Duchess of York yet -- she's just the wayward daughter of Chancellor Hyde's.
About Wednesday 24 October 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
'Students of real estate law learn of the "doctrine of ancient lights" -- limiting the ability of a landowner to build in a way that blocks long-established windows on an adjoining property.'
Not old enough, apparently. Batten has blocked Pepys' cellar light when the Navy made the recent property upgrades.
I find this difficult to imagine. I've been to Seething Lane and seen the park where the Navy building existed. It is flat. So how did they have cellar "lights" i.e. windows. I've never seen an Elizabethan house built so the basement gets natural light -- that was a Georgian innovation as I recall.
If it was built on a hillside there could be a groundfloor house entrance on the uphill, and a window into the cellar on the downhill side.
But the park is flat, and Pepys tells us the groundfloor kitchen has a door into the Navy yard.
Perhaps this "light" was a small shute to the basement for the use of the coal man -- which indicates a space between the house and the street where such a utility shute could be dug out???? Again, I've never seen a Tudor house built in crowded London like that.
Whatever the case, I trust Batten had the courtesy to make sure Pepys had an alternative before he bricked up Pepys' existing light.
About Wednesday 24 October 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
"1646 Elias Ashmole develops a further interest in Astrology by being introduced to William Lilly and John Booker, who were then regarded as being the best living astrologers. Ashmole was to purchase their libraries after their deaths."
You can now read "The Life of William Lilly a Student in Astrology
Written by himself in the 66th year of his age, at Hersham in the parish of Walton-on-Thames in the county of Surrey"
Transcribed from the autobiography by Sue Ward
Copywrite 1998 and 2009
https://classicalastrologer.files…
About John Booker
San Diego Sarah • Link
John Booker (1603–1667) was an English astrologer, respected in that career for over 30 years. In the 1640s he was appointed licenser of mathematical publications, and so in effect a censor of astrological works, for the Stationers' Company.
About Capt. William Murford
San Diego Sarah • Link
L&M: "Capt. William Murford was a timber merchant of Cannon Street, and an entrepreneur. He offered Pepys a share in a light-house project and from the beginning of his acquaintance with Pepys had pressed gifts on him. The diary records no gift of a necklace by him to Mrs Pepys.
He died in 1666, leaving a widow, Bridget."
About William Lilly
San Diego Sarah • Link
L&M Companion: William Lilly (1602 - 1681) The most prolofoc writer of his day on astronomy. A supporter of the popular party, he forecast victories for parliament in every campaign during the Civil Wars, and prophesied on behalf of every successive regime from the outbreak of the troubles to the Restoration. In 1670 he turned to the practice of astrological medicine.
L&M note for 24 October, 1660: "Lilly was mercenary by his own admission (see his 'Hist. of his life and times' 1822, esp. page 88) and was suspected of having been in the pay of every successive government of the past 20 years. Certainly, his popular almanacks adjusted to each change of regime. He claimed the government pension he had been given in 1649 was only for 2 years, and for foreign intelligence, not astrological prophecy (pages 145-146). In 1660 his almanacs lay under some disrepute because of his failure to foresee any of the changes in English government in 1659-1660 or the defeat and death of his foreign patron, Charles Gustavus of Sweden."
About Thursday 25 October 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
Beacon Hill is an area in most old towns in Britain. It's usually the highest hill in the neighborhood.
Pepys never tells us about their emergency warning system, but I found a book which mentioned it -- basically it says Cromwell kept the system in good condition, but Charles II, James II, William III and Anne let it decay. George I revived it. So during Diary times I think we can guess that it was still reasonable useable.
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
About Scare-fire
San Diego Sarah • Link
Reading this over, a scare-fire and a warning beacon are not the same thing.
Sorry for misleading you!
It does seem strange Pepys never tells us about the beacon system given the possibility of a Dutch invasion so often during Charles II's reign, and the two invasions in James II's reign. They must have had some way of knowing what was going on if they let the beacon system decay.
About Thursday 25 October 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
"In the evening to Westminster about business."
"Sam's working hours seem, to say the least, irregular."
Perhaps the title Pepys holds have gives people the wrong impression. "Clerk" and "Secretary" were crucial positions of authority and trust. Yes, he implements his "betters" orders, and he works when they want him to work.
If you were a cook or a maid or a coachdriver, same rules held.
It was the advent of the Trades Unions 100 years ago that bought us -- at great personal cost and much physical pain and danger -- the concept of a weekend, and some standardization of working hours. Technology at first improved the working person's life -- but now smart phones have many people back to working 24/7. Can the Unions rescue us again? Only if we turn the phones off.
As noted above, today Charles II has been discussing, composing and issuing his Declaration on the Worcester House Conference which was held yesterday -- and by now I trust James has been persuaded to come out of hiding and visit Anne Hyde and meet his daughter.
Therefore, reading the mail and discussing and ordering responses in the late afternoon would result in Pepys being summonsed for instructions in the evening.
Charles' clerks would work all evening to get as much of the important information to the post office in order to catch the mail -- or get their confidential messengers on the road as we saw when Montagu and Pepys were anchored off Deal for months.
Charles is still trying to behave Kingly and bring about reconciliation where he can.
About Thursday 18 August 1664
San Diego Sarah • Link
To take the conversation about how to refer to dates one step further:
'In the 17th century, before the new system caught on, "Vulgar Era" was used instead of "Common Era." From Latin, “vulgar” meant “common,” not “crude.” However, “Vulgar Era” didn’t stick, and “BCE” and “CE” became increasingly popular.
'So, which set of abbreviations is the correct set to use? There is no right answer, but certain style guides will dictate which version to use. The BCE/CE system has become more popular in the last few decades as a way to be more inclusive in secular writing, but B.C./A.D. is still widely accepted.'
https://www.wordgenius.com/unders…
Let's be Vulgar Era!!!
About Saturday 20 October 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
"I saw the limbs of some of our new traitors set upon Aldersgate, which was a sad sight to see; and a bloody week this and the last have been, there being ten hanged, drawn, and quartered."
Although it's not recorded in the Diary, some people were horrified by this punishment. Some young people decided to do something about it when they became of age. One was Pepys' colleague, Adm. William Penn's son -- also a William -- who is currently a teenager in Ireland looking after his parent's estates. Her hasn't had any sort of enlightment or calling yet.
But after the Diary, when Charles II awards him lands in America to settle the accounts with the Penn family, he does make some changes to civil laws concerning offenders:
"William Penn [JR], in his new colony [PENNSYLVANIA], was concerned with fostering a humane and fair means of dealing with transgression, a belief born of experience. As a convert to Quakerism he’d had hard experience with both the jails and courtrooms of London.
"Since the founding of the religion by George Fox in the 1640s, Quakers had been subject to persecution. In the late 17th century, after Charles II passed a set of acts that attempted to weaken dissent and protect the Church of England, besides being stocked, stoned, and whipped, more than 13,000 Quakers were imprisoned in England. Hundreds died while incarcerated.
"Penn’s Great Law — a series of statutes by which the Colony was to be governed — aimed to ensure the procedures for trial and sentencing in the Pennsylvania colony would be simple, understandable, and equitable. Although the blood punishments didn’t disappear, they were fewer and milder than those in England and in the other colonies. The death sentence was abolished for all crimes except premeditated murder, which was in accord with predominant Quaker thinking on capital punishment. In Penn’s colony, every county prison was to be a workhouse, and felons were either to be fined or sentenced to a certain amount of time at hard labor in a “house of Correction”.
"Still, Penn’s laws, although less severe, were based on traditional means of carrying out justice.”
This evolved/devolved into today's penal system -- with one surprising outcome which has nothing directly to do with Penn Jr. or the Diary.
https://publicdomainreview.org/es…
About Bread
San Diego Sarah • Link
"Sowing maslins fell out of fashion with the advent of the Industrial Revolution, as mechanized equipment and standardized farming methods transformed global agriculture to produce more uniform commodities."
The grains that made Pepys' bread and beer was different to what we know today.
"Maslins are both a method of planting and a cereal species mixture that can include the seeds of wheat, barley, rye, and other grains. In this seemingly unconventional ancient practice, a mixture of those seeds are hand-broadcast throughout a field.
"The grains have some complementary characteristics, like different depths of roots due to differences in drought and waterlogging tolerance. And different crops have varying needs for soil depths or nutrients, which allows them to coexist."
Highlights from https://ambrook.com/research/crop…
Unfortunately the research only mentions Greece, Ethiopia, and other Middle Eastern places, not Britain. I can't imagine English farmers had picked out the seeds of different crops yet, or were planting any differently here.
If you have more info. please share.
About Fleet Street
San Diego Sarah • Link
The Old Cheshire Cheese, Wine Office Court, opened in 1538, so Pepys must have visited:
Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese is one of London’s few remaining 17th Century chophouses. The sawdust on the floor is changed twice daily.
It is a pub and eating house offering unpretentious fare in wooden bays provided by high-backed church pews and served by waiters.
The site formed part of the 13th century Carmelite monastery and since 1538 a pub has stood here.
Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese is an historic gem of a pub on Fleet Street, on the edge of the City of London. The pub was rebuilt in 1667 after the original one was burnt down by the Great Fire of London. Over the past 355 years the Cheese has been frequented by numerous prominent literary figures including Dr. Samuel Johnson, Mark Twain, W.B. Yeats, PG Wodehouse, and Charles Dickens who featured it in his novel "A Tale of Two Cities".
The pub is a delightful labyrinth of different rooms: front bar, Chop House restaurant, Cheshire Bar, Cellar Bar, Williams Room and Johnson Bar to name but a few.
https://ye-olde-cheshire-cheese.c…
About Coffee house (near Royal Exchange)
San Diego Sarah • Link
You can visit one site of a coffee shop Pepys knew in 1660 -- but it has another name and occupies a different building today:
Jamaica Wine House, City of London, opened 1660
The Jamaica Wine House, known locally as "the Jampot", is located in St Michael's Alley, Cornhill, in the heart of London's financial district. It was the first coffee house in London and was visited by the English diarist Samuel Pepys in 1660.
It is now a Grade II listed public house and is set within a labyrinth of medieval courts and alleys in the City of London. It lies in the ward of Cornhill.
The Jamaica Wine House has historic links to the sugar trade of the West Indies and the Ottoman Empire. There is a plaque on the wall which reads "Here stood the first London Coffee house at the sign of the Pasqua Rosee's Head 1652."
Pasqua Rosée, the proprietor, was the servant of a Levant Company merchant named Daniel Edwards, a trader in Ottoman goods, who imported the coffee and assisted Rosée in setting up the establishment. The coffee house, which opened in 1652, is known in some accounts as The Turk's Head.
The building that currently stands on the site is a 19th-century public house. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jam…
https://www.tripadvisor.com/Resta…
About Coffee house (near Royal Exchange)
San Diego Sarah • Link
You can visit one site of a coffee shop Pepys knew in 1660 -- but it has another name and occupies a different building today:
Jamaica Wine House, City of London, opened 1660
The Jamaica Wine House, known locally as "the Jampot", is located in St Michael's Alley, Cornhill, in the heart of London's financial district. It was the first coffee house in London and was visited by the English diarist Samuel Pepys in 1660.
It is now a Grade II listed public house and is set within a labyrinth of medieval courts and alleys in the City of London. It lies in the ward of Cornhill.
The Jamaica Wine House has historic links to the sugar trade of the West Indies and the Ottoman Empire. There is a plaque on the wall which reads "Here stood the first London Coffee house at the sign of the Pasqua Rosee's Head 1652."
Pasqua Rosée, the proprietor, was the servant of a Levant Company merchant named Daniel Edwards, a trader in Ottoman goods, who imported the coffee and assisted Rosée in setting up the establishment. The coffee house, which opened in 1652, is known in some accounts as The Turk's Head.
The building that currently stands on the site is a 19th-century public house. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jam…
https://www.tripadvisor.com/Resta…
About George (Holborn)
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 2 -- 18th century titillation:
Men like Addison and Steele were here; Jonathan Swift and his coteric gathered in a corner to discuss the pros and cons of that great fraud, the South Sea Bubble; Daniel Defoe was a constant guest of the host of his time; that was John Wilkes.
It is known his fellow-members of "The Hell Fire Club" (founded in 1719 by two prominent Freemasons; the Duke of Wharton and George Henry Lee, 2nd Earl of Lichfield) met at drinking hole called the George and Vulture in the 1730s.
Thomas De Quincey records a story concerning an unnamed lord who tied a man to a spit and roasting him, presumably at the George and Vulture.
Hogarth's "Charity in the Cellar", painted c. 1739, is presumed to be the same club. The 5 depicted are identifiable and can be connected with 2 other alleged members, the 4th Earl of Sandwich and Sir Francis Dashwood.
FROM https://www.bowyers.com/meetingPl…
About George (Holborn)
San Diego Sarah • Link
My geography is strained here, but I think this is the same George:
Tucked away in the heart of the busiest part of the city, overshadowed by tall, modern buildings and all but a thin strip of it hidden from view, is a piece of old London.
This is the "George and Vulture," known throughout the world as the tavern where Mr. Pickwick and his friends made their favourite city headquarters.
The address in the directory of this inn is St.Michael's Alley, Cornhill;
The Pickwick Papers describe it as being in George Yard, Lombard Street.
Both are correct.
If the latter address is followed, the inn is not easy to find, for the sign "Old Pickwickian Hostel" is so high up over the upper window in the far left-hand corner that it is the last thing one sees.
It's little better from the other approach, as the alley with tall buildings facing each other so closely as to almost touch, makes it necessary to search for the entrance doorway.
Originally the George was the London lodging of Earl Ferrers, and in 1175 his brother was slain thee in the night.
The George and described by Stow as "a common hostelry for travellers."
When the Great Fire of 1666 swept through these alleys it devoured everything in its path and left the George as a shell of embers.
A wine merchant of George Yard, whose sign was a tethered live vulture, lost his home and his livelihood, and after the tavern was rebuilt he negotiated with the landlord for part use of the George.
Unhappy with the idea of having a live bird squawking around the door the innkeeper agreed to change the name of his house to the "George and Vulture".
Fixed to a wall inside the tavern are 2 boundary markers defining the dividing line between the parishes of St. Michael's, Cornhill and St, Edmund the King, Lombard Street. They come from pre-fire days when City churches were so close together they needed boundary stones at the limits of each parish. The boundary line runs through the bar.
Poets and literary men frequented The George from the earliest times, and although there is no record to substantiate a claim that Chaucer used the house, it seems possible that his father, who was a licensed victualler, knew it well.
John Skelton, the satirical poet of the 15th century, enjoyed its hospitality, as he has left a record that he was acquainted with it:
Taverns were the resort of the prominent men of the day, and were used like clubs as friendly meeting places for businessmen, authors, artists, lawyers, doctors, actors and the fashionable with no particular calling, all of whom treated "mine host" as an equal and not as a servant.
About Holborn
San Diego Sarah • Link
There is an historic Mitre Inn in Holborn -- I'm not sure if it's annotated elsewhere, but Pepys must have known it:
"Built in 1546 for the servants of the Bishops of Ely, The Ye Olde Mitre is famous for having a cherry tree (now supporting the front) that Queen Elizabeth once danced around with Sir Christopher Hatton.
"The pub was actually a part of Cambridge (Ely being in Cambridgeshire) and the licencees used to have to go there for their licence.
"Set in a part of London steeped in history, it's near where William Wallace was hung, drawn and quartered at Smithfield, along with martyrs and traitors who were also killed nearby."
https://www.yeoldemitreholborn.co…