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| INTRODUCTION: (Text needed here). This site is incomplete and is a work in progress, as the names of streets, alleys, lanes, and buildings seem never to be at an end. We ask your patience if what you seek isn't here yet. |
Neighborhoods Streets Buildings
Neighborhoods
Bankside (variants)
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Streets
Angel Alley (variants)
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Elephant Alley (Elophant; Oliphant; Ollyfante; Ollyvant)
Location: Alley running between Bankside and Maid Lane, adjoining the plot of land immediately east of The Elephant, and running along the west side of The Crane. Shown in a plan of 1678 as being 109 feet and 10 inches long, and 4 feet wide. Sewer commission records of 1595 and 1625 suggest it had a drainage ditch. Strype described the alley in 1720 as 'a narrow dirty Passage into Maiden Lane'.
Named buildings: The Elephant (also known as Mr Goffe's Rents). In 1595, part of the brewer Henry Draper’s yard at The Beer Pot, which backed onto Maid Lane, was described as 'belonging to' (i.e. abutting?) the alley. The 1597 Clink token book locates Draper's Rents (six households) in the alley.
Residents: 21 out of 23 parishioners whose address was recorded as Elephant Alley by the parish clerk 1619-25 were noted by him as being poor; four were in receipt of parish financial aid, two of whom were 'base' children.
First recorded: 1593 (TLA P92/SAV/0244).
Maps and Plans: Leybourn, 11 (1678), reproduced in Sénéchal, p.24; Morgan (1682)
Sources: TLA SKCS/018 (5 Dec. 1595), SKCS/026 (17 Feb. 1624/5); Strype, p.28; TLA P92/SAV/0450, p.377; TLA SKCS/026, 4; TLA P92/SAV/0406 (various, John Boston's notebook); TLA P92/SAV/026, 4; P92/SAV/0372 (burials, Apr. 1609); TLA P92/SAV/0378 (burials, Apr. 1617); P92/SAV/0375 (burials, Nov. 1612); TLA P92/SAV/0377 (burials, May 1615).
See also: Angel Alley; Tallow Chandlers' Rents.
Globe Alley (variants)
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Horseshoe Alley (Horshow/e; Horshooe)
Name: The Clink token book of 1593 names it 'horshow allye Cowrte' and that of 1633 records the variant 'Horshead or horshooe Alley'. It is identified in a sewer commission record of 1630 as 'Horshooe alias Globe alley', presumably because it served as a key route to the playhouse for those arriving by river at Horseshoe Alley Stairs.
Location: Alley connecting Bankside and Maid Lane. Its northern end faced Horseshoe Alley Stairs and it ran south to emerge opposite the Globe on Maid Lane. A wooden sewer bridge on Maid Lane northside, maintained by the Chamberlain's/King's players, may have been located at the southern exit of the alley, designed to facilitate playgoer access across the six-foot-wide Maid Lane drainage ditch. Sewer commission records show that Horseshoe Alley also had a sewer or cross-ditch.
Named buildings: The Horseshoe; the Dutch Almshouse.
Other property or infrastructure: Edward Griffin’s bowling alley was located on Horseshoe Alley, where it is documented 1608-1638 and recorded as gone in 1640; one end of the building lay at the junction with Maid Lane. Another property in the alley is mentioned in a Cordwainers' Company record of 1628 as having been previously 'used for the Gaol or Prison called the Clinck'. This might have been an overflow facility or temporary lock-up; the main Clink prison was located further east.
Notable leaseholders: Gilbert Rockett (d. 1598); Henry Draper (d.1615); John Treherne (d. 1618); The Company of Cordwainers.
Notable residents (dates of residence*): William Sly, player (1593); Augustine Phillips, player (1593-1605); Thomas Black/Blackman (1604-24), waterman and witness for the King’s players in Burbage v Brend (1634); Edward Griffin (1593-1639), bowling-alley owner.
First recorded: 1588 (TLA P92/SAV/0243). The Horseshoe is documented earlier.
Maps and plans: Morgan (1682); Rocque (1746).
Sources: TLA P92/SAV/0244; TLA SKCS/029; TLA P92/SAV/0279; TLA SKCS/018, ff. 159v-161v, 220v-222v, 385r-391v; SKCS/026; SKCS/019; SKCS/033; SKCS/034; SKCS/035, 2; the Company of Cordwainers and John Pidgeon (deed, 1628), TLA CLC/L/CJ/G/020/MS24972/001.
References: Bowsher and Miller, p.92; Braines, pp.82-84; Sénéchal, p. 43-44.
See also: Globe Alley.
* See Introduction for an important note on token-book address identification.
Maid Lane (variants)
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Buildings
The Beer Pot (variants)
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The Bowling Alley (variants)
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The Clink (variants)
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The Crane (variants)
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Draper's Rents (variants)
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The Dutch Almshouse (variants)
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The Elephant (Allevant; Olyvante; Olyphaunt; Oliphant). Known in the token books as Mr Goffe's Rents 1606-20
(see Selected Leaseholders below).
Location: A property situated at the eastern end of Bankside, facing north towards the Thames. Described in 1501 as a tenement located directly west of the Hart, of which it had formerly been a part. Some confusion of name may have persisted, with the Red Hart or Red Horse noted as former or alternative names for The Elephant as late as 1605. The property stretched back southwards to Maid Lane and was bounded there by a six-foot-wide sewer ditch. A plan of 1678 shows its frontage as being 42 feet and 2 inches wide and records its length as 109 feet and 10 inches.
Function: Tenanted accommodation, perhaps also offering refreshments and temporary lodging. Shakespeare is widely assumed to have alluded to the property in Twelfth Night (1601): 'In the South Suburbes, at the Elephant / Is best to lodge' (TLN 1508-9). The token books record the property as a tenanted site from 1588, when fourteen households are listed there. A lawsuit of 1606 describes it as a 'great house' that is 'now devided into divers Tenementes'. The Elephant is not named by Stow as one of the former medieval stews, unlike neighbouring tenements, although his list is not exhaustive. By 1720 Elephant Alley had 'only a Brewhouse in it', according to Strype, perhaps the Elephant or the neighbouring Beer Pot.
Features: The building may have contained a victualling-house or tap-house. A plan of 1678 shows the property divided into a number of tenements and sheds, with a yard to the south.
Notable Owners: The Company of Tallow Chandlers (acquired 1503, part of a legacy that included neighbouring property The Crane).
Selected Leaseholders: William Cox (d. 1586); John Butler (d. 1603); John Gough (d. 1616), an innkeeper who also held the lease to The Falcon.
Residents: William Gill, 'vitler at the Oliphant', was presented to parish authorities on 8 January 1636/7 for having two men drinking in his house during a church service.
First recorded: 1355 ('tenement'); 1501 ('le Olyphaunt').
Maps and plans: Leybourn, 11 (1678), reproduced in Sénéchal, p. 43-44.
Sources: Monier-Williams, pp.215-253, esp. pp.229, 239 (transcribed property deeds); TLA P92/SAV/450, pp.325, 390; TLA P92/SAV/0243; TNA C2/JasI/B17/74, Butler v Gough (1606); Strype, 4.1, p.28; Stow, p.55; TLA P92/SAV/0521-0590, 550.
See also: Elephant Alley.
The Falcon (variants)
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The Globe (variants)
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