Map

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

Open location in Google Maps: 51.512359, -0.116870

3 Annotations

First Reading

David Quidnunc  •  Link

Looking at the Streetmap street map, the block just north of the Bell's old location, where the BBC apparently is headquartered, is shaped like . . . a bell. Coincidence?

The actual spot where the Bell was would be about where the clapper is on the map's bell.

Second Reading

Bill  •  Link

Bell (The), WESTMINSTER, a great tavern and stableyard on the north side of King Street, Westminster, cleared away when Great George Street was formed. It was a tavern at a very early date. In Sir John Howard's Journal of Expenses, in 1465 and 1466, are several such entries as, "My Master spent for his cotes at the Belle at Westmenstre, iijs., viijd." Pepys used to dine, and Lord Sandwich to put up, at the Bell. Sir W. Waller, in his Vindication (p. 104), describes a dinner at the Bell, of which there is also an account in Denzil Holles's Memoirs, p. 153. In Queen Anne's time the October Club used to meet here.
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

Third Reading

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

BEWARE -- there are 2 Bell inns -- Bill's post is about the other one.

@@@

L&M: The Bell on the Strand was a large inn, known as The Bell at the Maypole. It was north of what then was the Strand, near the present church of St. Mary-le-Strand. It was kept by Thomas Lisle (1664). "A place of great resort by horses, coaches and waggons" (Strype 1720). 26 hearths 1664.

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References

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

1660

1661

1668

  • Feb