Tabard Street

Kent street (Southwork) betn. Long lane by St. George's Church NWly, and Lock bridge SEly, L. 740 Yds; tho' the Houses and Trades here are but mean, generally speaking: Stow calls it Kentish str. and says its Name was given it as being the Highway or Road to Kent.

Kent street, extends from the end of Long lane, near St. George’s church, Southwark, to Kent road. It is observable that the principal business of this street is making of birch brooms, in which the masters are such great dealers, that in some of their yards several stacks of brooms may be seen of a considerable extent, and rising as high as the most lofty houses.

Kent-St., Southwark, commences a few houses on the right hand eastward of St. George's church and leads to the Bricklayers' Arms.

Kent Street, Southwark, from St. George's Church to the Old Kent Road, the old Canterbury and Dover road from London Bridge; the Southwark portion of the old street has been superseded as a great artery by the construction of Great Dover Street It was called Kentish Street in the reign of Edward VI.,¹ and it is so called by Stow, "for that," he says, "is the way leading into that country."² Kent Street is a curious example of how stationary as well as progressive a great city may be; the poor lodging-houses in this street continued till quite recently to be the most awful receptacles of the houseless in the country—worse than the "dry arches." But as the result of recent legislation and police supervision a marked improvement has taken place. And with that improvement sprung up a desire to wipe out, as far as possible, the old associations, and the Metropolitan Board of Works and the Newington Vestry in November 1877 acceded to the petition of the inhabitants, and changed the name from Kent Street to Tabard Street.

Kent Street, so called as being seated in the road out of Kent into Southwarke a street very long, but ill built, chiefly inhabited by Broom Men and Mumpers. But here are divers large yards wherein are vast stocks of Birch, Heath, and some only of Broom Staves, which the Broom Men dispose of to those that make the Brooms.—Strype, B. iv. p. 31.

December 5, 1683.—I was this day invited to a wedding of one Mrs. Castle, etc. ... She was the daughter of one Burton, a broom-man, by his wife who sold kitchen-stuff in Kent Street, whom God so blessed that the father became a very rich, and was a very honest man; he was Sheriff of Surrey, where I have sat on the bench with him.—Evelyn.

There are still several broom-makers in Kent Street, but now brush-makers and basket-makers are much more numerous.

Then in Kent Street is a lazar house for leprous people, called the Loke in Southwarke; the foundation whereof I find not.—Stow, p. 156.

Evelyn and Pepys give us glimpses of Kent Street in the terrible plague year of 1665.

September 7, 1665.—I went all along the City and suburbs from Kent Street to St. James's, a dismal passage and dangerous to see so many coffines exposed in the streetes, now thin of people; the shops shut up, and all in mournful silence, as not knowing whose turn may be next.—Evelyn.

November 14, 1665.—Captaine Cocke and I in his coach through Kent Streete, a sad place through the plague, people sitting sick and with plaisters about them in the street begging.—Pepys.

King James II. in his Memoirs represents Titus Oates as saying of him that "the Duke is a Rascal, a Papist, and a Traitor: he shall be hanged, says he, and I hope to live to see it; we will have no more regard for him than if he were a Scavenger of Kent Street."¹ "The inhabitants of Kent Street and St. Giles's," we are told,² "are mentioned by those of Wapping, Mile End, and the Borough with sovereign contempt."

You then, O ye beggars of my acquaintance, whether in rags or lace; whether in Kent Street or the Mall; whether at the Smyrna or St Giles's.—Goldsmith's Essays, ed. 1765, p. 43.

Goldsmith appears to have been familiar with the place, or at least with its name; it is here he has fixed the residence of Madame Blaize, who "freely lent to all the poor—who left a pledge behind:"

Let us lament in sorrow sore,
     For Kent Street well may say,
That had she lived a twelvemonth more
     She had not died to-day.—Goldsmith, An Elegy.

Besides "broom-men and mumpers," low lodging-house keepers and those who, like Madame Blaize, were ready to lend to all the poor "who left a pledge behind," there was yet another curious trader in Kent Street. In the Beaufoy Collection there is a 17th century tradesman's token issued by "H.E.M. at the White Beare in Kent Streete, a Farthing Changer." Mr. Burn thinks that H.E.M. "officiated as an agent in the collecting and interchanging with the issuers of farthing tokens."³ But as the customers to be looked for at the White Bear would in their several vocations of beggars or mumpers, tramps and hawkers of small wares, be very likely to find themselves at the close of the day possessors of an inconvenient excess of farthings, it is easy to understand that a publican who was also "a changer of farthings" for coins of a higher value and of more marketable use would be just the person to attract a Kent Street community to his house. It is noteworthy that only one other instance is known, and that occurs in an almost exactly similar locality: "Richard Rich in Litel Drury Lane, Changer of Farthings." From his device, a wheatsheaf, Rich was probably a baker. The White Bear has outlived Kent Street, and flourishes in Tabard Street, with a chandler's shop on one side and a brushmaker's on the other.

Kent Street ejectment. To take away the street door. A method practised by the landlords in Kent Street, Southwark, when their tenants are above a fortnight's rent in arrear.—Grose's Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1788.

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¹ Norton, p. 388.
² Stow, p. 150.


¹ Memoirs of James II., vol. i, p. 522.
² Captain Grose, Essays, p. 72.
³ Burn, Descriptive Catalogue, p. 146.

Kent Street. The present Tabard St., the name having been changed in 1877. It runs from St. George's Ch. in the Borough, Southwark, to the Old K. Rd., and until the formation of Gt. Dover St. was the main road from the S. into Lond. "It was ill-built," says Strype (B. iv. 31), "chiefly inhabited by Broom Men and Mumpers." It was an extremely disreputable slum throughout its history. In Greene's Quip, p. 226, he says, "When velvet was worn but in kings' caps, then Conscience was not a broom man in K.-St. but a Courtier." In News from Hell, the Cardinal speaks of "all the whores and thieves that live in Southwark, Bankside, and K.-St." When Harman (Caveat ii.) had his copper stolen, he "gave warning in Southwark, K. St., and Barmesey st., to all the tinkers there dwelling." In Three Lords, Dods., vi. 422, Simplicity asks: "Ladies, which of ye dwelt in K. St.?" In T Heywood's Hogsdon ii. I, one of the citizens' wives that come to the Wisewoman to have their fortunes told dwells in K.-st. In Davenant's Plymouth iv. I, Topsail cries: "What's here? K. st., or Bedlam broke loose?"