Hatton Garden

Hatton Garden

North from Holborn Circus, at No. 8, to Clerkenwell Road (P.O Directory).

Outside the City boundary.

First mention: O. and M. 1677.

Called "Hatton Street" in Hatton, 1708, and Strype, 1720.

Named after Sir Christopher Hatton, who resided here in Hatton House.

See Ely Place.

Hatton street, commonly called Hatton Garden, after my Lord Hatton, the Ground Landlord) a very uniform, spacious, streight and pleasant str. betn. Holbourn (near the Bridge) S. and Hatton Wall N. L. 460 Yds, and from P C. NWly, 840 Yds.

Hatton Garden, is a very large Place now, containing several Streets: Viz. Hatton street, Charles street, Cross street, and Kirby street; all which large Tract of Ground was a Garden, and belonged to Hatton House; now pulled down, and built into Houses. Which said Streets are very gracefully built, and well inhabited by Gentry; especially Hatton street, which is spacious, and in a strait Line comes out of Holbourn, and runs Northwards to Hatton Wall. And at the corner of this Street and Cross street, there is a handsome large Chappel, but not yet finished. In Cross street, over against Kirby street, is Hatton Yard; a very large Place, taken up with Stables and Coach Houses; and hath a passage into Vine street.

Hatton garden, Holborn, a broad straight and long street, in which the houses are pretty loft; but tho' they are plain and unadorned on the outside, yet there being something like regularity in the buildings, they appear to great advantage; and the street affording a fine vista, may justly be reckoned among the handsomest within the liberties of the city. Mr Strype observes, that here was anciently situated the mansion house of the Bishop of Ely; adjoining to it was an orchard and pasture of about forty acres inclosed with a wall, which falling to the Crown at the death of Bishop Cox, she granted it to the Lord Chancellor Hatton, and his heirs for ever. Upon which the house was pulled down, and Hatton Garden, and several other streets erected on this estate. Strype's Stow.

Hatton-Garden, Holborn-Hill,—at 106, the second coach-turning on the R. west from Fleet-market, here the numbers begin and end, viz. 1 and 108, it extends to the Hatton-wall.

Hatton-Garden, Holborn-hill, is the second coach turning on the right hand westward fo Farringdon-street. It occupies a portion of the ancient palace and gardens of the Bishops of Ely, which was given to that see by William de Quada, Bishop of Ely, in the reign of Edward I. It is described as the manor of Oldbourne, with the appurtenances. In the reign of Elizabeth there were forty acres of orchard and pasture-land belonging to this palace, and enclosed with a wall (hence Hatton-wall), part of which, at the western corner, was granted to Sir Christopher Hatton, for a term of tweny years, whereon he built a magnificent house, and afterwards prevailed on the queen to apply to Bishop Cox to alienate the whole, with the garden behind it. The Bishop refused to injure the property of his successors, but at his death, when the temporalities devolved to the crown, Elizabeth granted the house and gardens to Sir Christopher and his heirs for ever. The house has since been pulled down, and the streets called Hatton-garden, Great and Little Kirby-streets, Charles-street, Cross-street and Hatton-wall, laid out and built upon the site of the mansion and garden.

Hatton Garden was so called from having been built upon the garden of Hatton House, built by Sir Christopher Hatton, Lord Chancellor in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The broad street now known as Hatton Garden was originally called Hatton Street, and is so named in Strype's Map.

Hatton Garden is a very large place now, containing several streets, viz. Hatton Street, Charles Street, Cross Street, and Kirby Street, all which large tract of ground was a garden, and belonged to Hatton House; now pulled down, and built into houses.—Strype, B. iii p. 255.

Hatton Street (commonly caled Hatton Garden, after my Lord Hatton the ground landlord), a very uniform, spacious, straight, and pleasant street, between Holborn (near the Bridge) south, and Hatton Wall north. Length 460 yards.—Hatton, 1708, p. 39.

June 7, 1659.—To London, to take leave of my brother, and see y^e foundations now laying for a long streete and buildings in Hatton Garden, design'd for a little towne, lately an ample garden.—Evelyn.

Dangerfield, the "Protestant witness" in the trials for the asserted Popish plot of 1680, was condemned in 1685 by the Privy Council for a libellous paper published five years before, and sentenced to be "whipped from Aldgate to Newgate and from Newgate to Tyburn." After undergoing this terrific punishment he was put half dead into a hackney coach to be carried back to Newgate, but at the corner of Hatton Garden the carriage was stopped by "a Tory gentleman of Gray's Inn": what occurred the following extract will tell:—

One of their punishments was to be whipped to Tyburn, which when Dangerfield had undergone and was returning in a coach, one Mr. Francis asking him in derision, How his back did, he made a very abusive reply, upon which the gentleman in a passion thrusting at him with his cane, unfortunately hurt his eye, on which he dy'd some days after; this proving a capital crime, the gentleman was try'd and condemn'd for it, and though he was one that deserved well of his Majesty, yet he could not be prevailed upon to grant his pardon, but suffered him to be hang'd on the same gallows that Dangerfield had been whipt to.—Clarke, Life of James II., vol. ii. p. 27.

Mr. Wycherley visited her [the Countess of Drogheda] daily, at her lodgings, while she staid at Tunbridge, and after she went to London at the lodgings in Hatton Garden, where, in a little time, he got her consent to marry her.—Dennis's Letters, 8vo, 1721, p. 223.

Mirabeau, when in England in 1784, lodged in the house of a Miss Van Haren, a Dutch lady, in Hatton Garden. He was living here when he was robbed as was supposed by his secretary, Hardy.

[See Cross Street; Ely Place; Nursery; Paradise.]

Hatton Garden was then an esteemed situation for the gentry; no shops were permitted but at the lower end, and few parts of the town could vie with it. We lived in a part of it which afforded us, beside a wide street in front and a sharp descent within a few yards, an opening behind overlooking a good garden, and, without the intervention even of a chimney, a view of the fields, where Pentonville was afterwards built; but this situation like all others in succession, is ruined by trades and low associations.—Miss Hawkins, Memoirs, Anecdotes, etc., 1824, vol. i. p. 314.

Hatton Garden is now the chosen home of diamond merchants.