05/06/2024
The Entrance of The Oxford Arms, Warwick Lane, ca. 1875, looking from Warwick Lane.
From: A.& J. Bool
The "Oxford Arm" Inn, demolished in 1878, was an excellent example of the galleried Inns now becoming every year more scarce. As was said by a writer in the Athenaeum of May 20th 1876: "Despite the confusion, the dirt, and the decay. he who stands in the yard of this ancient Inn may get an excellent idea of what it was like in the days of its prosperity, when not only travellers in coach or saddle rode in and out of the yard, but poor players and mountebanks set up their stage for the entertainment of spectators, who hung over the galleries or looked on from their rooms - a name by which the boxes of a theatre were first known." The "Oxford Arms" was situate, as shown in No.3, at the end of a short lane leading out of the west side of Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row. The buildings were disposed on four sides of a large courtyard, being bonded on the west by the old City Wall.
But little is known of the history of the "Oxford Arms." That it existed before the Great Fire is proved by an advertisement in the London Gazette for March, 1672-3, quoted in Cunningham's Handbook of London:- "These are to give notice that Edward Bartlett, Oxford Carrier, hath removed his Inn in London from the Swan at Holborn Bridge to the Oxford Armes in Warwick Lane, where he did Inn before the Fire. His coaches and wagons going forth on their usual days, Mondays, Wednesdays and Frydays. He hath also a hearse, with all things convenient to carry a Corps to any part of England." The Inn was within the area of the Fire, in which it no doubt perished, being rebuilt, however, a few years later on the old plan. In Strype's Stowe we read that the "Oxford Arms" was much frequented by persons attending the Market, i.e., Newgate Market, close by.
Up to the time of its close, it still did a considerable carriers' business, carts daily leaving the Inn for Oxford and other places. An old servant of the Inn told the writer that, in the days before the railroads, he had frequently seen wagons drawn by nine horses leave the Inn, a portion of the goods being packed after the Inn yard had been cleared. It must have needed careful handling to get such a team and such a load safely round the corner of the narrow street. Mr Samuel Hill, who has kindly communicated much of the above, says the sumptuous furniture of the Inn was sold in 1868, since which time its many rooms were let out in tenements. The site is now occupied by the new buildings and gardens of the Minor Canons of St. Paul's.
Warwick Lane still contains vestiges of another old Inn, the "Bell", reduced now to a mere receiving office. Here, in 1684, died Archbishop Leighton, who thus obtained what he had often desired, frequently saying that if he was to choose a place to die in, it should be an Inn.
As to the name "Warwick Lane," two passages in Stow's Survey give pictures so curious to read in this nineteenth century, that it is impossible to resist the temptation to quote them. "Then is Eldenese Lane, which stretcheth north to the high street of Newgate Market; the same is now called Warwicke Lane, of an ancient house built there by an Earl of Warwicke, and was since called Warwicke Lane. It is in record called a messuage in Eldenese Lane, in the parish of St. Sepulchre, the 28th of Henry VI." (p.128) Warwick Square now stands on the site of this house. This also: "Nearer to our time, I read, in the 36th of Henry VI., that the greater estates of the realm being called up to London, ....Richard Nevill, Earl of Warwick," came "with six hundred men, all in red jackets, embroidered with ragged staves before and behind, and was lodged in Warwicke Lane; in whose house there were oftentimes six oxen eaten at a breakfast, and every tavern was full of his meat; for he that had any acquaintance in that house might have there so much of sodden and roast meat as he could pick and carry on a long dagger."
The above description, written by Alfred Marks in 1881, was taken from the letterpress which accompanies the photograph.
