Dean's Court

Names

  • Dean's Court
  • Deane's Yard
  • Prerogative Court

Street/Area/District

  • Dean's Court

Maps & Views

Descriptions

from A Dictionary of London, by Henry Harben (1918)

Dean's Court

North out of Carter Lane, at No. 26, to No. 5 S. Paul's Churchyard (P.O. Directory). In Castle Baynard Ward.

First mention: "Deane's Yard" (Leake, 1666).

Other name: "Prerogative Court" (O. and M. 1677).

So named from the Prerogative Office kept there, and Dean's Court from the Deanery, erected on its present site after the Fire.

At No. 5 is the Vicar-General's, Commissary and Consistory Court, etc., relics of Doctors' Commons.

from A Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster, by John Strype (1720)

In Carter lane, [is] Deans Court, by many called the Prerogative Court; for that the Prerogative Office is here kept. In which said Court is a very large House, built by Sir Joseph Sheldon, and now the Seat of the Deans of Pauls successsively. This Court is open and airy, and hath a passage into Great Carter lane.

from London Past and Present: Its History, Associations, and Traditions, by Henry Benjamin Wheatley and Peter Cunningham (1891)

Dean's Court, St. Paul's, the first turning under an archway on the right in St. Paul's Churchyard from Ludgate Hill. Here, on the west side, is the Deanery House of St. Paul's, built immediately after the Great Fire. Sancroft, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, was the first occupant. Tillotson, when Dean of St. Paul's, resided in it. Here in 1782 died Newton, Dean of St. Paul's and Bishop of Bristol; and here, September 24, 1867, died Dean Milman, the accomplished historian and poet, and author of The Annals of St. Paul's. Rooks build in the plane trees in front of the Dean's House.