London (England) -- Antiquities; London (England) -- History
The Manor of Holeburn, which was bounded on the east by the southern
part of the Farringdon Street portion of this stream, included both
sides of Shoe Lane; but how far west or north it originally extended is
not known. In the year 1300, Saffron Hill, Fetter (or Faytour) Lane, and
Fleet Street were all outside its bounds. Shoe Lane was known as Sho
Lane, at one end of which was a well, called Show Well, from which the
neighbourhood drew its water.[75]
It was here that the Dominicans, or Black Friars, made their first
settlement in 1222;[76] their monastery was in Shoe Lane, and in 1286,
when they moved to the eastern side of the Fleet, by Baynard's Castle,
Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, who was lord of the manor and a
justiciar, bought their old houses and established the first Lincoln's
Inn.[77] Two other inns of that name, one next to Staple Inn and one in
Chancery Lane, came into existence later, as we shall see presently.
Here the earl died in 1311, and he was buried in St. Paul's Cathedral.
By his will, proved in the Court of Hustings at the Guildhall, he
directed that the houses which he had acquired from the monks should be
sold;[78] but the inheritance of the manor of Holeburn descended to his
son-in-law, Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, the King's cousin and Steward of
the kingdom. Legal business was certainly transacted at his Inn. The
yearly accounts of the Earldom of Lancaster for that period show that at
his house in Shoe Lane, from Michaelmas, 1314, to Michaelmas, 1315, the
amount of L314 7s. 41/2d. was spent for 1,714 lbs. of wax, with vermilion
and turpentine to make red wax, and L4 8s. 31/4d. for one hundred and
twenty-nine dozen of parchment, with ink.[79] He was beheaded in 1322,
leaving no issue, and his widow, Alesia de Lacy, married secondly Ebulo
Lestrange,[80] in whose family the manor remained until 1480, when it
passed by marriage to the Stanleys, Earls of Derby.[81] In 1602 it was
sold by the widow of Ferdinando, fifth earl, to Lord Buckhurst,[82]
afterwards Earl of Dorset, under whose immediate successor it was broken
up for building purposes.
The street of Holborn was at first simply the King's Street; afterwards
it acquired the name of Holebourne-Bridge-strate. From Newgate to a
little way west of St. Sepulchre's Church the high-road was known as "la
Baillie"; from thence it bore the same name as the river, being carried
over the bridge on to the ridge along which the Romans had built their
military stone-way, known as Watling Street, out of which, in the year
1300, there turned two streets towards the south, namely, Scho Lane and
Faitur Lane, and two towards the north, one called "le Vrunelane,"[83]
afterwards Lyverounelane, then Lyver Lane, now Leather Lane, and the
other called Portpool Lane, now Gray's Inn Road.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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