Literary London: Wood Street

When need to some more wood for your woodpile in medieval London, you’d head to the sellers of Wood Street - just off Cheapside in the City of London. The street today bears little resemblance to its earlier incarnation; having been almost totally destroyed during the blitz very little of its’ pre-1940 heritage now remains. But it would be a mistake to see this as ‘new’ part of London, as it has its place in history and particularly in literature.

If you visit the Wood Street virtual tour you can read about the Wordsworth memorial fountain, and the street’s inclusion in The Reverie of Poor Susan. The plane tree that was perch to the thrush was in the churchyard of St Peter’s - the churchyard had remained after the church itself was destroyed in the Great Fire of London. But this wasn’t the only literary allusion to Wood Street - Charles Dickens arrived from Kent and supped at The Cross Keys here, a post inn where the coaches from the provinces terminated. He later had his character Pip do the same in Great Expectations:

The journey from our town to the metropolis was a journey of about five hours. It was a little past midday when the four–horse stage–coach by which I was a passenger, got into the ravel of traffic frayed out about the Cross Keys, Wood Street, Cheapside, London.

We Britons had at that time particularly settled that it was treasonable to doubt our having and our being the best of everything: otherwise, while I was scared by the immensity of London, I think I might have had some faint doubts whether it was not rather ugly, crooked, narrow, and dirty.

London as crooked, narrow and dirty? Wood Street today couldn’t be thought so with its glass edifices and open courtyards. But in the 17th century, the area’s close knit streets and alleys proved a perfect conduit for… plague!

Anon the coach comes: in the mean time there coming a News thither with his horse to go over, that told us he did come from Islington this morning; and that Proctor the vintner of the Miter in Wood-street, and his son, are dead this morning there, of the plague; he having laid out abundance of money there, and was the greatest vintner for some time in London for great entertainments.
Samuel Pepys diary, Monday 31 July 1665

The Mitre on Wood Street was a hang out for both Pepys and that notorious bad boy of English literature, Ben Jonson. The writer of Volpone, The Alchemist and Bartholemew Fair was imprisoned in the Fleet Prison for his ’seditious’ play The Isle of Dogs. A year later, his dispute with another actor, Gabriel Spencer, led to a duel in which Spencer was killed and Jonson was tried for murder. Although found guilty, he avoided execution by claiming ‘benefit of clergy’ - by being able to read and recite Psalm 51 and appearing in robes, a person (whether strictly clergy or not) could gain a more lenient punishment, or even acquittal.

Jonson is said to have known Shakespeare and perhaps frequented the Mermaid Tavern - another Wood Street inn. So as you explore this little corner of the City of London in our Wood Street virtual tour, you can imagine the tread of the literary giants there long before before the modern-day lawyers and bankers.

Tags: ben jonson, charles dickens, cheapside, city of london, London, samuel pepys, william wordsworth, wood street

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 24th, 2009 at 9:22 am and is filed under Famous Londoners, London History & Information. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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Literary London: Wood Street

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