Memorials of St. James's street : together with the annals of Almack's / by E. Beresford Chancellor, M.A., with sixteen illustrations.

  • E. Beresford Chancellor
Date:
1922
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Memorials of St. James's street : together with the annals of Almack's / by E. Beresford Chancellor, M.A., with sixteen illustrations. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    royal residence, and thus may have extended to the junction of Pall Mall and St James’s Street. In Strype’s time it had blossomed into the Mayfair of many stories, having been transferred, according to that authority, to “ the road leading to Tyburn.” So much for the fair, which only indirectly interests us here. Return we to the Calendar of State Papers, where, under date of 26th October 1638, I find a communication from Inigo Jones to the Council, in which the great archi¬ tect reports that, “ according to your order of the 19th inst. concerning the divisions made in several parts of St James’s Fields, and a bridge of bricks begun for the passage of carts into the said field, I have spoken with Archibald Lumsdale [Lumsden, mentioned before], the tenant, and showed him your order for demolishing the bridge, &c., all of which he has undertaken shall be done by Thursday next.” An entry more directly bearing on our subject is the following:—“ Aug. 14th, 1656. Order for staying of building in Lincoln’s Inn Fields and St James’s Fields. Gabriel Beck to see to this,” as it is probable that part of that building was the development of St James’s Street itself, which, as we have seen, first appears as a regular street about three years later. The forming of the street naturally required that the water supply should be put on a proper footing, and on 16th May 1664 we accordingly have the “ Petition of Fras: Williamson and Ralph Wayne to the King, for leave to convey to the inhabitants of Piccadilly, St James’s Fields, Haymarket and the neighbourhood, water from springs which they have found near, they compounding with the inhabitants at reasonable rates, on account of the great expense they have been at in the new invention of an engine which by perpetual motion will drain level or mines, though 50 fathoms deep, for which