Seething Lane

Map

The overlays that highlight 17th century London features are approximate and derived from Wenceslaus Hollar’s maps:

Open location in Google Maps: 51.510486, -0.079222

Summary

Pepys lived at the Navy Office on this street from July 1660, and often attended services at St Olave, on the corner with Hart Street.

See here for information on the house itself.

17 Annotations

First Reading

vincent  •  Link

For those luckier enough to take ones little brown bag and a cover for your strong water, one can share nostalgia and and questions with the ghosts.
http://www.squaremiletimes2.co.uk… Lane Gardens. - this garden is on the former site of the former Naval Office and official residence of the Clerk of the Acts.
Samuel Pepys resided here from July 1660 and is buried in nearby St Olave’s Church. A sculptured head of Pepys can be seen in the garden.

Grahamt  •  Link

A short history of Seething Lane:
Restoration London by Liza Picard has a short history of the Pepys household site in Seething lane from 1303 to 1673.
Pages 21-22 of Pheonix Press paperback edition (2002)

vicente  •  Link

from Dudley on Tue 27 Jul 2004, 6:59 pm | Link
"Walk down Seething Lane turn right into Crutched Frairs there is a serise of arches under Fenchurch St station by the name of French Ordinary Court. Just around the corner"
Nook and crannies of London:

michael j gresk  •  Link

walking?!?!? in london at night??? how safe is sam wandering the street at that hour ??? just curious..... MJG

dirk  •  Link

"how safe is sam wandering the street at that hour"

Maybe his boy is with him - with his new sword...

Richard Tames  •  Link

Re blank for Navy Office on map of 1676. The blue plaque now marking its site proclaims that it burned down in 1673.

Second Reading

Bill  •  Link

Seething Lane, Great Tower Street (east end) to Crutched Friars. The church of Allhallows Barking is at the corner in Tower Street Sieuthenestrate, or Suiethenestrate, is mentioned in the City records as early as A.D. 1281

James Wood  •  Link

Why is Seething Lane so named? Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable is silent on the subject. The OED offers no explanation. I do not have access to Britannica, and to date no one has volunteered an opinion among these annotations.

Bill  •  Link

James, check the annotation right above. (There should be a period after "Street.") Sieuthenestrate, or Suiethenestrate, is mentioned in the City records as early as A.D. 1281.

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

One weekday in June every year there is a charming ceremony held in Seething Lane gardens, presided over by Samuel Pepys' statue, of course. This article gives a brief history of Seething Lane and the background to the ceremony. It's up to you to figure out when the ceremony will be held each year ... https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/blog/…

Third Reading

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

Seething Lane connects All Hallows-by-the-Tower, Byward Street, with St Olave's Church, Hart Street. The lane is 125 meters long, so Pepys could leave his front door and be in either within 3 minutes if it was raining.

The term 'seething' originated from the Old English word sifeða that meant bran, chaff, or siftings. The street was named prior to the 13th century, when the lane was a narrow path, and grain was threshed there.
Another sign I saw yesterday said a seed market used to be held nearby, and originally it was called Seeding Lane.
Take your pick, James Wood.

Damned Ranter  •  Link

"By the west end of this parish church (Allhallows Barking) and chapel, lieth Sidon lane, now corruptly called Sything Lane, from Tower street up to Hart street." - Stow's Survey of London (1598- my edition 1929).

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

I wish I'd seen this YouTube before I made my Pepys' pilgrimage last year. The one detail he missed that I noticed is that the big new building on the other side of the park is today's Trinity House. The film is part of his Pepys' tour, and obviously the building wasn't there in the 1660's, so that's pretty irrelevant.

Watch to the very end, because that's where you'll see a rendition of how the entrance to the Navy pews was configured, and photos of the destruction of St. Olave's during the Blitz. How remarkable so much was saved, including the Grinling Gibbons font.

The film is about an hour long.
Good hunting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N…

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

In 1588 Sir Francis Walsingham helped save England by wielding a pen rather than a sword. A lawyer and politician by trade, the 56-year-old Walsingham was Queen Elizabeth’s principal secretary and key advisor.

He also functioned as her spymaster, overseeing an international espionage network out of his house on London’s Seething Lane. He employed a cadre of street operatives, code breakers, and informants at home and abroad to gather intelligence and neutralize threats to the realm.

As secretary of state, Walsingham advocated for a strong navy and supported commerce raiding against Spanish interests. His spies (such as Jan Wychegerde and Nicholas Oseley) provided detailed reports of Spanish military preparations in Flanders and Lisbon.

Walsingham’s penetration of Spanish diplomatic communications informed him when Philip II gave the order for the Armada to sail, so the English navy had time to concentrate along the axis of invasion.

Because of his efforts, the Armada was met by the might of the English navy when it arrived off English shores.
https://armadainvincible.com
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…

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References

Chart showing the number of references in each month of the diary’s entries.

1660

1668