The Parish of St Clement Danes: Fickett's Field

Jousting Knights, circa 1445 Giclee Print 12" x 9" $34.99 Unframed

Sir Walter Besant, in The Fascination of London, published in 1903, continues his survey of the Strand district with a look at the parish of St Clement Danes:

The parish of St Clement Danes has changed very greatly since ancient times, when a large part of it, stretching from Lincoln's Inn Fields to the Strand, was known as Fickett's Field, and was the jousting-place of the Templars.

This portion became gradually covered with houses and courts, which were at first fashionable dwelling-places, and were associated with noble names. These degenerated until, at the beginning of the present (twentieth) century, a vast rookery of noisome tenements, inhabited by the poorest and most wretched people, covered the greater part of the parish to the north of the Strand.

The erection of the new Law Courts, 1868, entirely swept away numbers of these tenements, and opened out the parish to the north of the church.

The change thus effected paved the way for further reformation, and though the streets about the site of Clare Market are poor and squalid, they show a beginning of better things, and no longer own such an evil reputation as they did.

Next: The Strand district: The Beggar's Opera