Holborn: The Gallows: Tyburn Procession

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Sir Walter Besant, in The Fascination of London, published in 1903, continues his survey of Holborn with this look at the Tyburn procession to the gallows:

The gallows were in this parish from about 1413 until they were removed to Tyburn, and then the terrible Tyburn procession passed through St. Giles's, and halted at the great gate of the hospital, and later at the public-house called The Bowl, described more fully hereafter.

From very early times St. Giles's was notorious for its taverns. The Croche Hose (Crossed Stockings), another tavern, was situated at the corner of the marshlands, and in Edward I's reign belonged to the cook of the hospital; the crossed stockings, red and white, were adopted as the sign of the hosiers.

Besides these, there were numerous other taverns dating from many years back, including the Swan on the Hop, Holborn; White Hart, north-east of Drury Lane; the Rose, already mentioned.

In the parish also were various houses of entertainment, of which the most notorious was the Hare and Hounds, formerly Beggar in the Bush, which was kept by one Joe Banks in 1844, and was the resort of all classes.

This was in Buckridge Street, over which New Oxford Street now runs. In the last sixty years the face of the parish has been greatly changed.

The first demolition of a rookery of vice and squalor took place in 1840, when New Oxford Street was driven through Slumland.

Dyott Street (once George Street), Church Lane, Buckridge and Bainbridge, Charlotte and Plumtree, were among the most notorious streets thus wholly or partially removed.

In 1844 many wretched houses were demolished, and in 1855 Shaftesbury Avenue drove another wedge into the slums to let in light and air. There are poor and wretched courts in St. Giles's yet, but civilization is making its softening influence felt even here, and though cases of Hooliganism in broad daylight still occur, they are less and less frequent.

So much for a brief history of the parish. Its soil was from very early times damp and marshy.

To the south of the hospital was a stretch of ground called Marshlands, probably at one time a pond. Great ditches and fosses cut up the ground. The most important of these was Blemund's Ditch, which divided the parish from that of Bloomsbury. This is supposed to have been an ancient line of fortification.

Besides this, a ditch traversed the marshlands above mentioned, another encompassed the croft lying by the north gate of the hospital, and there were several others of less importance.

Next: Holborn: The Hospital of St Giles