Shoe Lane

Map

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

Open location in Google Maps: 51.514885, -0.106187

5 Annotations

First Reading

language hat  •  Link

Branching off it to the left is Cockpit Court -- clearly an unsavory neighborhood!

Pedro  •  Link

Shoe Lane and Richard Lovelace Cavalier Poet

Perhaps there was a dash of thoughtlessness and extravagance about him also--for we must remember he was a poet. The end was, that Lovelace, the high-spirited cavalier, poet, and lover, died in obscurity and poverty in a lodging in Shoe Lane, Fleet Street--memorable in the history of another poet, Chatterton-and was buried notelessly at the end of Bride's Church.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich…

language hat  •  Link

The Companion calls it a "considerable lane."
It adds that the cockpit "is commemmorated by an undated token issued by Samuel Clever."

Second Reading

Bill  •  Link

Shoe Lane, Fleet Street, runs due north from Fleet Street into Holborn, by St. Andrew's Church. The earliest mention of Shoe Lane in the City records is in 4 Edward II. (1310) ... In the 17th century there was a noted cock-pit in Shoe Lane. It was sometimes visited by persons we should not have expected to meet there. Writing to his nephew from "St. Martin's Lane by the Fields," June 3, 1633, Sir Henry Wotton says: "This other day at the Cock-pit in Shoe Lane (where myself am rara avis) your Nephew, Mr. Robert Bacon came very kindly to me, with whom I was glad to refresh my acquaintance, though I had rather it had been in the theatre of Redgrave."
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

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References

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

1660

1661

1663

1668

  • Sep