The Fleet: Its Rivers, Prison, and MarriagesAshton, John
History
The Fleet: Its Rivers, Prison, and Marriages
Ashton, John
Fleet Prison (London, England); Fleet, River (England)
On the other or east side of the Fleet was a tributary brook called
Turnmill brook--a name now surviving in Turnmill Street--which, even in
this century, drove flour and flatting mills, and we have indisputable
evidence of its industrial powers, in an advertisement in the _Daily
Courant_ September 17, 1714, which calls attention to a house in
Bowling (Green) Alley,[69] Turnmill Street, which had the power of
utilizing "a common sewer with a good stream, and a good current,
for purposes of a Mill;" and it was on Turnmill Brook that Cave, the
publisher, in 1740, went into an unprofitable partnership with one
Lewis Paul, of Birmingham, to work a mill for the utilization of a
patent taken out by Paul for a "Machine to spin wool or cotton into
thread, yarn, or worsted." This experiment, however, was not a success.
[Illustration]
The Fleet flowing to its bourne,[70] the Thames, was bridged over at
Holborn. Stow says: "Oldbourne bridge, over the said river of Wels more
towards the north, was so called, of a bourn that sometimes ran
down Oldbourne hill into the said river. This bridge of stone, like as
Fleet bridge from Ludgate West, serveth for passengers with Carriage,
or otherwise, from Newgate toward the west and by north." This was
written in 1598.
[Illustration]
After the great fire of 1666 the Fleet was widened, and canalized,
from the Thames, to Holborn Bridge; thence, to its source, it took
its natural course, and, although there were then three bridges over
it, from Holborn to Newgate Street, set close, side by side, yet
it was considered too narrow for the traffic, as we see in an Act
of Parliament passed in 1670 (22 Car. II., cap. 11), entitled "An
additional Act for the Rebuilding of the City of _London_, Uniting
of Parishes, and Rebuilding of the Cathedral and Parochial Churches
within the said City." Section 7 says: "And, whereas the Way or Passage
of _Holborn-Bridge_ is now too strait, or incommodious for the many
Carriages and Passengers daily using and frequenting the same, and is
therefore necessary to be enlarged; Be it therefore likewise enacted,
That it shall and may be lawful for the said Mayor, Aldermen, and
Commons, so to enlarge and make wider the same, as that the said Way
and Passage may run in a Bevil Line from a certain Timber house on the
North side thereof, commonly called or known by the Name or Sign of the
_Cock_, into the Front of the Buildings of a certain Inn called the
_Swan_ Inn, situate on the North side of _Holborn Hill_, as aforesaid."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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