Piccadilly was long noticed for the variety and extent of its Inns and Taverns, although few remain. At the east end were formerly the Black Bear and White Bear (originally the Fleece), nearly opposite each other. The Black Bear was taken down 1820. The White Bear remains: it occurs in St. Martin's parish-books, 1685: here Chatelain and Sullivan, the engravers, died; and Benjamin West, the painter, lodged, the first night after his arrival from America. Strype mentions the White Horse Cellar in 1720; and the booking-office of the New White Horse Cellar is to this day in "the cellar." The Three Kings stables gateway, No. 75, had two Corinthian pilasters, stated by Disraeli to have belonged to Clarendon House: "the stable-yard at the back presents the features of an old galleried inn-yard, and it is noted as the place from which General Palmer started the first Bath mail-coach." (J. W. Archer: _Vestiges_, part vi.) The Hercules' Pillars (a sign which meant that no habitation was to be found beyond it) stood a few yards west of Hamilton-place, and has been mentioned. The Hercules' Pillars, and another roadside tavern, the Triumphant Car, were standing about 1797, and were mostly frequented by soldiers. Two other Piccadilly inns, the White Horse and Half Moon, both of considerable extent, have given names to streets. The older and more celebrated house of entertainment was Piccadilly Hall, which appears to have been built by one Robert Baker, in "the fields behind the Mews," leased to him by St. Martin's parish, and sold by his widow to Colonel Panton, who built Panton-square and Panton-street. Lord Clarendon, in his _History of the Rebellion_, speaks of "Mr. Hyde going to a house called Piccadilly for entertainment and gaming:" this house, with its gravel-walks and bowling-greens, extended from the corner of Windmill-street and the site of Panton-square, as shown in Porter and Faithorne's Map, 1658. Mr. Cunningham found (see _Handbook_, 2nd edit. p. 396), in the parish accounts of St. Martin's, "Robt Backer, of Pickadilley Halle;" and the receipts for Lammas money paid for the premises as late as 1670. Sir John Suckling, the poet, was one of the frequenters; and Aubrey remembered Suckling's "sisters coming to the Peccadillo bowling-green, crying, for the feare he should lose all their portions." The house was taken down about 1685: a tennis-court in the rear remained to our time, upon the site of the Argyll Rooms, Great Windmill-street. The Society of Antiquaries possess a printed proclamation (_temp._ Charles II. 1671) against the increase of buildings in Windmill-fields and the fields adjoining Soho; and in the Plan of 1658, Great Windmill-street consists of straggling houses, and a windmill in a field west.