Holborn: Shoe Lane

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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 Shoe Lane:

The earliest mention of Shoe Lane is in a writ of Edward II, when it is denominated "Scolane in the ward without Ludgate." In the seventeenth century we read of a noted cockpit which was established here.

Gunpowder Alley, which ran out of this Lane, was the residence of Lovelace, the poet, and of Lilly, the astrologer. The former died here of absolute want in 1658. His well-known lines,

"I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not honour more,"

have made his fame more enduring than that of many men of greater poetical merit.

In Shoe Lane lived also Florio, the compiler of our first Italian Dictionary.

Coger's Hall in Shoe Lane attained some celebrity in the latter half of the eighteenth century.

It was established for the purpose of debate, and, among others, O'Connell, Wilkes, and Curran, met here to discuss the political questions of the day.

On the west side of Shoe Lane was Bangor Court, reminiscent of the Palace or Inn of the Bishops of Bangor.

This was a very picturesque old house, if the prints still existing are to be trusted, and parts of it survived even so late as 1828.

It was mentioned in the Patent Rolls so early as Edward III's reign.

Another old gabled house, called Oldbourne Hall, was on the east side of the street, but this, even in Stow's time, had fallen from its high estate and descended to the degradation of division into tenements.

Next: Holborn: Hatton Garden