Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 4.djvu/237

 ii s. iv. SEPT. 16, ion.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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How would such an error in stamping occur ? Are there many like coins ? The one which I have came to me a good many years ago in small change. I kept it as a curiosity. I once asked a money- changer about it ; he told me that it was good as money. ROBERT PIERPOINT.

FIVES COURT, ST. MARTIN'S LANE: TENNIS COURT, HAYMARKET. (11 S. iv. 110, 155, 176.)

FROM COL. PRIDEATJX'S interesting reply (ante, p. 155) we learn the exact site of the Fives Court, St. Martin's Lane. It was near " The Horse and Dolphin " public-house at No. 25 (now rebuilt), called sometimes in sporting parlance " The Prad and Swimmer," a favourite haunt of " the Fancy." We also learn that the Fives Court was destroyed before February, 1820 ; and apparently the Tennis Court in Windmill Street then became an arena for boxing. Nothing material, however, has been said about the Tennis Court, Haymarket. I am therefore tempted to add a few words on this subject.

There can, I think, be no question that the building near the south-west end of James Street, now Orange Street, Hay- market, is the one referred to as follows by Phil Porter, in verses published 1682 :

Farewel, my dearest Piccadilly, Notorious for good dinners.

Oh, what a Tennis Court was there ! Alas ! too good for sinners !

Two views of this tennis court are before me. The one in " Old and New London,' vol. iv. p. 229, had been drawn when it was still used for its original purpose, which continued until some time in 1866. A com- parison of this with photograph 112, issued in 1886 by the Society for Photographing Relics of Old London, shows the alterations which took place when the structure was adapted for the business of a firm of army clothiers. It may be observed that windows were then inserted in the lower part, and the openings above, formerly protected by net- work, were glazed ? an effort was made to move the stone floor, which had a high reputation, but it had been worn too thin to be used elsewhere. The Society's photo- graph was taken from the north-west corner of the street, by the Haymarket. The brick house next to the tennis court on the east had by that time been rebuilt or

refronted, but beyond it appears a- building partly timbered, which, as we learn from a note by Mr. Alfred Marks, the accomplished Secretary, was then still known as " the Barn." It was opposite the end of Oxendon Street, and remained till about 1890. Query, had this been also at some time a tennis court ? Mr. Julian Marshall in his 'Annals of Tennis ' (1878) says :

" There were, indeed, formerly two courts here, but within the memory of the oldest inhabitant there has been no play in the second, which was used for storing the scenery of the King's Theatre."

The still existing, though much defaced tennis court, now occupied by wholesale booksellers and newsagents, has on it (not in its original position) a stone tablet with the inscription " James Street, 1673." In all probability, however, it is older, having been attached to the celebrated gaming- house called in cant language Shaver's Hall, which, according to Peter Cunningham, faced Piccadilly Hall, and was " erected in the reign of Charles I. by a gentleman- barber, servant to Philip Herbert, Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery." In this court, it is affirmed by Marshall, repeating a general tradition, " Charles II. with his* brother the Duke of York used frequently to play " ; and here, in the early sixties of last century, I first became acquainted with the splendid game of tennis. PHILIP NORMAN.

COL. PRIDEAUX'S quotation (ante, p. 155) from 'Doings in London' fixes the site of the Fives Court in St. Martin's Street. It is to be observed, however, that the many items " Fives - Court," " Raquet - Court," " Tennis - Court," in Lockie's ' Topography of London,' 1810 and 1813, and also the items " Five [sic] court, Petticoat lane," " Racket court, Fleet street," and " Tennis court " (three) in ' The New Complete Guide,' 1774-5, relate clearly to blocks of dwellings, and not to courts for games. As MR. A. FORBES SIEVEKING points out in his query, an ordinary fives court is all too small for a ring, and has no gallery ; it appears, then, that " Fives Court " was a generic name for a boxing-arena, or what was really a covered racquet, or even a tennis, court. The Tennis Court in Great Windmill Street was that of Piccadilly Hall, and survived to be converted into the Argyll Rooms, latterly the Trocadero ; the Tennis Court in James (now incorporated with Orange) Street, Haymarket, appertained to Shaver's Hall.

Their sites are named in Porter's rare map of about 1660. In The Builder of 2 January,