Holborn: The Liberty of Saffron Hill, Hatton Garden and Ely Rents

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UK:England & Wales South;Inset London,1903 map
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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 the Liberty of Saffron Hill, Hatton Garden, and Ely Rents:

Opposite St. Andrew's Church was formerly Scrope's Inn. According to Stow,

"This house was sometime letten out to sergeants-at-the-law, as appeareth, and was found by inquisition taken in the Guildhall of London, before William Purchase, mayor, and escheator for the king, Henry VII, in the 14th of his reign, after the death of John Lord Scrope, that he died deceased in his demesne of fee, by the feoffment of Guy Fairfax, knight, one of the king's justices, made in the 9th of the same king, unto the said John Scrope, knight, Lord Scrope of Bolton, and Robert Wingfield, esquire, of one house or tenement late called Sergeants' Inn, situate against the Church of St. Andrew in Oldbourne, in the city of London, with two gardens and two messuages to the same tenement belonging to the said city, to hold in burgage, valued by the year in all reprises ten shillings."

This, as may be judged from the above, was not a regular Inn of Chancery, but appertained to Serjeants' Inn.

Crossing Holborn Circus to the north side, we come into the Liberty of Saffron Hill, Hatton Garden, and Ely Rents.

This Liberty, is coterminous with the parish of St. Peter, Saffron Hill.

Hatton Garden derives its name from the family of Hatton, who for many years held possession of house and grounds in the vicinity of Ely Place, having settled upon the Bishops of Ely like parasites, and grown rich by extortion from their unwilling hosts.

The district was separated from St. Andrew's in 1832, and became an independent ecclesiastical parish seven years later.

As the Liberty of Saffron Hill, Hatton Garden, and Ely Rents, it has a very ancient history.

It was cut in two by a recent Boundary Commission, and put half in Holborn and half in Finsbury Borough Councils.

Next: Holborn: Ely Place