Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 11.djvu/458

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NOTES AND QUERIES. pi a XL JON. 12, wi&

that there is not room for the demands north of Maiden Lane, i.e., one parcel of land 100 feet from north to south ; one lane of unrecorded width ; another parcel of land estimated elsewhere as 140 feet, from north to south ; another sewer of unre- corded width ; the Bishop of Winchester's Park, also indefinite ; and at least one row of houses and gardens.

Again, there was an unnamed lane between the two lots of land. How can it be ex- plained that north of Maiden Lane there never was any lane called " Globe Alley " never, in fact, any lane at all, at any time recorded ? while there was a lane, afterwards called Globe Alley, which led from, Dead- man's Place to the Globe Theatre, and a rectangular branch with the same name, leading from Maiden Lane southwards, ap- parently meeting at the Globe Theatre. How was it that Mrs. Piozzi, after her marriage to Thrale, became romantic over the place where she supposed, from common tradition, the ruins of the old theatre stood ? And it must not be forgotten that the land of Thrale, sold to Messrs. Barclay & Co., lay entirely to the south of Maiden Lane. The land now owned by them to the north was acquired at a comparatively late date. Stow and Speed's map, edition 1720, still retains Globe Alley south of Maiden Lane ; so that all topographical authorities seem to support the old attribution (see Dr. Martin's maps in his little book on ' The Site of the Globe ').

Again, the rendering of the boundaries depends on the reading of the terms. I have read many a description in such documents, both in Latin and English, which show that the terms used might mean either north or south. But there is one legal description which rises on my memory that of Richard Shakespeare's house in the Snitterfield property of the Ardens in the sixteenth century, which gives it as " abbutting on the High Street, against the north," where the other measurements and boundaries make it perfectly clear that the house lay to the north, and the High Street to the south. I have checked so many errors made by lawyers' clerks or translators that it is much the simplest way out of all the " con- fusion worse confounded " to believe that some one concerned made a mistake in the writing or reading. The testimony of the Sewers Books seems to be alluded to, but without references, in the whole-page Times article of last year. It seems to me, from my last notes, that if these are carefully read, with due collation of other authorities,

they give no support to the new supposition. In the Record of the Sewers Commission for Kent, Surrey, and London, in the County Council offices, there are a great many complaints brought against Thomas Brand and his tenants after 1569. On p. 143 also there is (1587) :

" Wee present Thomas Brand, or his tenant John Potter, to pyle, board, and fill up with earth nine poles of his wharfe lying in Maiden Lane against the common sewer there."

In 1594, p. 196b, is presented "Thomas Burte, Dier, for not repairing the sewer running betweene the back of his garden and the Park." In the same page we find :

"Jasper Morris, Dier, was fined because he had not repaired his encroachments made at the back- side of his garden into the sewer lying between his garden and the Park."

The two men last mentioned were tenants of two of the lots included in Burbage's lea.se, 1599, and this description fixes the site. The sewer in Maiden Lane was bounded north and south by Maiden La.ne itself.

In 1603, p. 381 :

" Ordered that the farmers of gardens adjoining the sewer on the south side of Maiden Lane, from George Archer's house until the corner of the Park, shall dense every one of them their parts of tha same sewer."

(This sewer runs from the south northerly, and is entered in all maps, showing that The Park lay to the south of Maiden Lane.)

On 30 Jan., 1605, p. 435b, two widows are to be fined 10s. each, if they do not repair their part of the sewer in Maid La.ne. On the same page " Burbidge," Heming, and others,

" the owners of the Playhouse called the Globe in Maid Lane, shall before the 20th Aprill next pull up, and take clene out of the Sewar, the props or posts which stand under their Bridge on the north side of Mayd Lane."

Apparently the other tenants were content to fling a board across from bank to bank of the sewers in front of their houses ; but the owners of the Globe, being more anxious for the comfort of their audience, had built a bridge, and, naturally, had put the pillars or props into the drain at the north end of the bridge, as the soil was not in their property. At the south end of the bridge, however, they had their own leased land to deal with, and could make supports where they pleased, probably due north of the northward end of Globe Lane. A farther charge was laid against Burbidge and Heming and the others that they shall,

before the 20th day of Aprill next, well and sufficiently pyle, boorde, and fill up 8 poles more or