Holborn: Gray's Inn Road

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W. J. Loftie, adding to the incomplete work of Sir Walter Besant, in The Fascination of London, published in 1903, continues his survey of Holborn with this look at Gray's Inn Road:

Portpool Lane, marked in Strype's plan Perpoole, is the reminiscence of an ancient manor of that name.

The part of Clerkenwell Road bounding this district to the north was formerly called by the appropriate name of Liquorpond Street.

In it there is a Roman Catholic Church of St. Peter, built in 1863. The interior is very ornate.

Just here, where Back Hill and Ray Street meet, was Hockley Hole, a famous place of entertainment for bull and bear baiting, and other cruel sports that delighted the brutal taste of the eighteenth century.

One of the proprietors, named Christopher Preston, fell into his own bear-pit, and was devoured, a form of sport that doubtless did not appeal to him.

Hockley Hole was noted for a particular breed of bull-dogs. The actual site of the sports is in the adjoining parish, but the name occurring here justifies some comment.

Hockley in the Hole is referred to by Ben Jonson, Steele, Fielding, and others. It was abolished soon after 1728.

It was in a sponging-house in Eyre Street that Morland, the painter, died. In the part of Gray's Inn Road to the north of Clerkenwell Road formerly stood Stafford's Almshouses, founded in 1652.

At present Rosebery Avenue, driven through slumland, justifies its pleasant-sounding name, being a wide, sweeping, tree-lined road. Workmen's model dwellings rise on either side.

The northern part of Gray's Inn Road falls within the parish of St. Pancras. The part which lies to the north of Theobald's Road was formerly called Gray's Inn Lane.

In 1879-80 the east side was pulled down, and the line of houses set back in the rebuilding.

These consists of uninteresting buildings, with small shops on the ground-floor. On the west there are the worn bricks of Gray's Inn.

At the corner of Clerkenwell Road is the Holborn Town-Hall, an imposing, well-built edifice of brick and stone, with square clock-tower, surmounted by a smaller octagonal tower and dome. The date is 1878.

Gray's Inn Road is familiar to all readers of Dickens and Fielding, from frequent references in their novels.

John Hampden took lodgings here in 1640, in order to be near Pym, at a time when the struggle between the King and Parliament in regard to the question of ship money was at its sharpest.

James Shirley, the dramatic poet of the seventeenth century, is also said to have lived here, but was probably in Gray's Inn itself.

Next: Holborn: Gray's Inn: Fulwood's Rents