St. Martin's Lane

(St.) Martins lane, a very spacious lane, betn St. Andrews str. end N, and that end of the Strand near Cha+ S. L. 630 Yds.

St. Martin's Lane, a very long Street, which butteth on Northumberland House in the Strand, and runneth Northwards beyond Long Acre, unto the new Buildings in Cook and Pye Fields. This Street is a very great Through-fare both for Foot and Horse, and is well inhabited, having good built Houses, especially the Western Side, from Hemming's Row unto Newport-street; and since the pulling down of the Brick Wall before the Houses, and the Courts laid open, with a fine Free-stone Pavement, secured from Carts and Coaches by handsome Posts set up, it hath much added to the Beauty of the Street, and the Conveniency of the Inhabitants. In this Street are a great many Courts and Alleys, for the describing of which I shall first begin at the End next to Newport-street, and so run down to the Strand. And there begin with those on the East Side.

St. Martin's lane, Opposite Northumberland house in the Strand; thus named from the church of St. Martin's in the Fields.

St. Martin's Lane, Charing Cross, is at the western extremity of the Strand, and opposite to Northumberland House.

St. Martin's Lane, Charing-Cross,—at 487, in the Strand, where the numbers begin and end, say 1 and 150, it extends to Long-acre.

Martin's (St.) Lane, Charing Cross, a street extending from Long Acre to Trafalgar Square; built circ. 1613, and then called "the West Church Lane." It is written "St. Martin's Lane " for the first time in the rate-book of St. Martin's in the year 1617–1618; but in 1608 a Treasury Warrant was issued to pay £100 towards making a vault [or sewer] for draining, etc., from St. Martin's Lane as far as St. Giles, so that the King's passage "through these fields shall be both sweeter and more commodious." The upper part was originally called the Terrace.¹ Under St. Martin's-in-the-Fields we have seen the obstacles to building in this neighbourhood; the injunctions issued on the subject (1633), and the pulling down (1634) of houses newly built. A few years later a commission was appointed for reforming the buildings and highways of London, one of the duties imposed being the improving of St. Martin's Lane.

May 14, 1662.—To London, being chosen one of the Commissioners for reforming the buildings, wayes, streetes, and incumbrances, and regulating the hackney coaches in the City of London, taking my oath before my Lord Chancellor, and then went to his Majesty's Surveyor's office in Scotland Yard, about naming and establishing officers, adjourning till the 16th, when I went to view how St. Martin's Lane might be made more passable into the Strand.—Evelyn's Diary.

St. Martin's Lane soon became lined with good houses; but Bishop Horsley (d. 1806) told Mr. Smith that "in his father's time [Bishop Horsley's father was clerk in orders at St. Martin's] the church was literally in the fields, and that he had often heard him say that there was a turnpike in St Martin's Lane."¹ The turnpike was a little north of Chandos Street. May's Buildings, just beyond, on the east side of the lane, bear the date 1739. Strype, writing in 1720, describes St. Martin's Lane as "a very long street, which butteth on Northumberland House in the Strand and runneth north beyond Long Acre unto the new buildings in Cock and Pye Fields." It is a great thoroughfare, "well inhabited, especially on the western side," and the "pulling down of the brick wall before the houses," and laying open of the courts, with "the fine freestone pavement, secured from carts and coaches by handsome posts set up," had "much added to the beauty of the street."²

Eminent Inhabitants.—Sir Thomas Mayerne, physician to James I., on the west side. He was living here in 1613, when it was called "the West Church Lane." Sir John Finett, author of Finetti Philoxenis, some Choice Observations touching the Reception, Precedence, etc., of Forren Ambassadors in England, 8vo, 1656. Daniel Mytens, the painter, on the west side, from 1622 to 1634, two doors off Sir Theodore Mayerne, and five from Sir John Finett. Prince Charles, afterwards Charles I., gave him the house for twelve years at the peppercorn rent of 6d. a year. Sir Benjamin Rudyerd, in 1624–1625; next to Sir John Finett. Abraham Vanderdoort, keeper of the pictures to Charles I.; on the west side. Sir Henry Wotton when Provost of Eton had his London lodgings in St. Martin's Lane.³ Sir William Alexander, afterwards Earl of Stirling, in 1631–1632. Carew Raleigh (Sir Walter's son), from 1636 to 1638, and again in 1664; west side. Sir John Suckling, in 1641. Sir Kenelm Digby, in 1641.⁴ Dr. Thomas Willis, the physician (d. 1675); his grandson, Browne Willis, the antiquary, caused a church to be dedicated to St. Martin because his grandfather the doctor died in St. Martin's Lane on St. Martin's Day. Willis was succeeded in his house and in his practice by Dr. Edmund Dickinson, a favourite of Charles II. Earl of Shaftesbury, in 1675–1677; west side, where is now No. 114. Dr. Thomas Tenison, vicar of St. Martin's, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury; west side, in 1683. Bernard Lintot, "at the Cross Keys in St. Martin's Lane, near Long Acre, where, in 1698, he published an edition of Vanbrugh's Provoked Wife." Ambrose Philips; two doors from Slaughter's Coffee-house, lower down, west side, from 1720 to 1725, when gone is against his name. Sir James Thornhill, in a large house, behind No. 104; the staircase had allegorical pictures from his pencil. Van Nost, the sculptor, and Francis Hayman, the painter, were afterwards successively its occupants. Sir Joshua Reynolds, nearly opposite to May's Buildings.¹ He afterwards removed to Newport Street, and lastly to Leicester Square. L. F. Roubiliac, the sculptor.

The studio in which Roubiliac commenced on his own account was in Peter's Court, St. Martin's Lane—a favourite haunt of artists: the room has since been pulled down and rebuilt, and is now occupied as a Meeting House by the Society of Friends.—Allan Cunningham, vol. iii. p. 35.

After Roubiliac left it, the room in Peter's Court was occupied by the St. Martin's Academy, the precursor of the Royal Academy.

In 1756 Roubiliac was rated to the poor of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields at £45. He afterwards removed to a studio on the west side, opposite Slaughter's Coffee-house, where he died January 11, 1762. Sir Francis Bourgeois, the founder of the Dulwich Gallery, was bom here in 1756. Fuseli, the painter, at No. 100 in 1784–1785. John Gwynn, the architect, author of London and Westminster Improved, and the friend of Dr. Johnson, and Samuel Wale, R.A., painter and draftsman, lived in two small houses, designed for them by James Paine at the end of the garden of the house (now Nos. 76 and 77) he had built for himself. The house next to this (No. 75) was long famous as Old Slaughter's Coffee-house, while No. 82 was known as New Slaughter's. Both have disappeared: Old Slaughter's was removed in 1843, to make way for New Cranboume Street; the site of New Slaughter's is occupied by the Westminster County Court.

I was introduced [about 1765] by Mr. Keir into a society of literary and scientific men who used formerly to meet once a week at Jack's Coffee House in London and afterwards at Young Slaughter's Coffee House. John Hunter was our chairman. Sir Joseph Banks, Solander, Sir C. Blayden, Dr. George Fordyce, Milne, Maskelyne, Captain Cook, Sir G. Shuckburgh, Lord Mulgrave, Smeaton, and Ramsden were among our members.—Edgeworth's Memoirs, vol. i p. 183.

The great banking-house of Coutts and Co. was established in this lane in the reign of Queen Anne, by one Middleton, a goldsmith, and John Campbell, a relative of the Duke of Argyll. No. 96, on the west side, was the house of Dr. Misaubin of "pill" celebrity.

Should I, perchance, be fashionably ill,
I'll send for Misaubin and take a pill.
Bramston, The Man of Taste, 1733.

This house has a large staircase, curiously painted of figures viewing a procession, which was executed for the famous Dr. Misaubin, about the year 1732, by a painter of the name of Clermont, a Frenchman. Behind the house there is a large room, the inside of which Hogarth has given in his Rake's Progress [should be Marriage à la Mode], where he has introduced portraits of the Doctor and his Irish wife.—Smith's Nollekens, vol. ii. p. 228.²

In a great room, on the west side, nearly opposite Old Slaughter's, N. Hone, the painter, exhibited in 1775 his celebrated "Conjuror," intended as a satire upon Sir Joshua Reynolds's mode of composing his pictures. Thomas Major, the landscape engraver (d. 1799) lived at No. 113. In Cecil Court, in 1776, Abraham Raimbach, the engraver of some of Wilkie's best pictures, was born. At No. 60 were the workshops and timberyard of Chippendale, the famous cabinetmaker, whose furniture and designs have lately come again into the highest fashion. At the corner, pulled down when Garrick Street was formed, was Cobb's, a great rival of Chippendale, but showing none of his fancy or fertility.

The south end of St. Martin's Lane was cleared away in order to improve the approach to Charing Cross, and to make way for the National Gallery. Here, opposite the church, stood the Watch House, or Round House as it was formerly called;¹ and by it the stocks, on the post or upright of which were carved "two figures, most admirably executed, of a man flogging another with the cat-o'-nine tails."²

1742.—There has lately been the most horrible scene of murder imaginable; a parcel of drunken constables took it into their heads to put the laws in execution against disorderly persons, and so took up every woman they met, until they had collected five or six and twenty, all of whom they thrust into St. Martin's Roundhouse, where they kept them all night, with doors and windows closed. The poor creatures, who could not stir or breathe, screamed as long as they had any breath left, begging at least for water; one poor wretch said she was worth eighteen-pence, and would gladly give it for a draught of water, but in vain! So well did they keep them there that in the morning four were found stifled to death, two died soon after, and a dozen more are in a shocking way. In short it is horrid to think what the poor creatures suffered: several of them were beggars, who from having no lodging, were necessarily found in the street, and others honest labouring women. One of the dead was a poor washerwoman, big with child, who was returning home late from washing. One of the constables is taken, and others absconded; but I question if any of them will suffer death.—H. Walpole to Sir Horace Mann (Letters, vol. i. p. 191).

One of them, William Bird, the keeper of the Round House, was tried and acqtiitted. Shenstone tells a little more on the subject

The suppression of the —— and the suffocation of four in the round-house by the stupidity of the keeper engrosses the talk of the town. The said house is rebuilding every day (for the mob on Sunday night demolished it) and redemolished every night. The Duke of M——gh, J—— S——, his brother. Lord C—— G——, were taken into the round-house, and confined from eleven at night till eleven next day.—Shenstone to Mr. —— (Works, 1769, vol. iii. p. 49).

Walpole says that the three yotmg noblemen thus consigned to the Round House were "Jack Spencer [brother of the Duke of Marlborough], Mr. Stewart, and Lord George Graham," youngest son of the Duke of Montrose, and that they were taken the same night as the unfortunate women, "by the same men, who broke into a bagnio in Covent Garden," and found them there. This south end of St. Martin's Lane is now called St. Martin's Place. No. 6 is the vicarage of Martin's-in-the-Fields, where was taken "the first practical step in the work of revision" of the Scriptures, and where "the Revisers of 1881 took their farewell dinner," after the completion of their arduous undertaking.³ No. 8, the Alpine Club; and the St. Martin's-in-the-Fields vestry hall. At the north end of St. Martin's Lane is Aldridge's Horse Mart, established 1753, "for the Public Sale by Auction of Horses and Carriages," and now the oldest establishment of the kind in London.

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¹ Postman, of February 1705.

¹ Smith's Nollekens, vol. ii. p. 236.
² Strype, B. vi. p. 68.
³ Reliq., Wott., p. 454, etc.
⁴ Howell's Letters, ed. 1737, p. 407.

¹ Malone's Life of Sir J. Reynolds, p. 11.
² Dr. Misaubin died in 1734. See a story in Richardsoniana, p. 160.

¹ Smith's Nollekens, vol ii. p. 233.
² Ibid.
³ Edinburgh Review, July 1881, p. 166.