Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 6.djvu/167

 NOTES AND QUERIES.

135

.and Boadicea. This attribution is not well founded, but it persisted^encouraged by Oonyers finding here fcr Sir Hans Sloan > the remains of an elephant. In the next century Stukeley moved the site of the historic encounter further east. The name Battle Bridge identifies to-day a thoroughfare further north. The original district of Battle Bridge was improved by speculative builders, who in 1821 desiring a change re-named it King's Cross. ALECK ABRAHAMS.

The messuage or tenement was almost certainly an inn or tavern. Where exactly it was situated we shall learn when MB. DE

'-CASTRO'S ' List of Coft'ee-houses, Taverns, and Inns ' ('ante, pp. 29, 59). which has now reached F, reaches P. The celebrity who

gave the house its sign i? " Geerge-a-Greene Hight Pinner of merry Wakefield town," of

.whom mention occurs CN.E.D.,' s.v.) as

early as 1592, whose deed^ are celebrated in a ballad or chapbook of which the Dictionary (s.v. Pinder) gives all the title as : ' The Finder of Wakefield : Being the merry History of George a Greene the lusty Pinder

of the North.' Pinder or Pinner is the officer of a manor whose duty it is to pin, pind, or impound stray beasts.

JOHN R. MAGRATH. Queen's College, Oxford.

There existed so late as 1 850, but removed to the Farringdori Road, a stone bearing the
 * inscription : ~ ~,

This is Bagnigge

House neare

The Finder A

Wakefeilde

1080.

Bagnigge House, the supposed summer residence of Nell Gwynne in her zenith, stood on land lying between the present Gray's Inn Road and King's Cross Road, approximately on the site of Messrs. Cubitt's building yards ; the premises became 'later a renowned place of entertainment as Bagnigge Wells. A modern public-house, the Pindar of Wakefield, stands on the east side of Gray's Inn Road, and is presumably somewhere near the point where flourished the historic tavern reputed to have been much frequented by waggoners on the Great Xorth Road. The price whieh MR. SOUTHAM shows to have been paid for the premises -indicates that it was still a valuable property jin 1741. It is p?rhaps somewhat irrelevant to remark that a pinclar was a man who took

charge of strayed cattle in pinfold or pound until claimed, on which he held a lien for their keep.

Battle Bridge was the name of the locality on which King's.Cross station and adjoining streets now stand ; a small bridge arched the Fleet river. The change of name took place in 1830, the present appellation being derived from a hideous statue of George IV. which stood at the centre of six roads. It is supposed that it was hereabouts that Boadicea, Queen of the Iceni, was so severely routed by Suetonius Paulinns ; and a later Roman occupation has been suggested by a find in 1845 of an urn of gold and silver coin of the reign of Constantine.

Battle became the dust and cinder heap of London ; the debris and offal mounting in course of time to veritable hillocks. The cinders were eventually purchased by Russia for use in the rebuilding of Moscow.

J .PAUL DE CASTRO.

1 Essex Court, Temple.

THE SIXTH FOOT (WARWICKSHIRE REGI- MENT) (12 S. vi. 64). The following is taken from Cannon's ' Historical Records of the British Army ' :

"In 1709 the 6th proceeded to Barcelona, where they Landed, and reposed in quarters in Catalonia until the following spring.

" When the army took the field in the summer of 1710, the 6th proceeded to the camp at Balaguer, where they were reviewed by King Charles on June 10.... King Charles moved forward, and on July 27 a cavalry action was fought on the grounds near Almanara, when upwards of forty squadrons of the enemy's best cavalry, and a brigade of infantry, were over- thrown with great slaughter. .. .The 6th Foot hastened to the scene of the conflict ; but the enemy were routed before the infantry had an opportunity to deploy their ranks.

" At Saragossa on Aug. 20., 1710. . . .Advancing steadily up the rising ground, the 6th, and three other battalions under Major-General Wade, gained the crest of the enemy's position, and while the dragoons fought with deadly fury in the vale below, the four regiments raised a British shout, and rushing upon a brigade of the enemy's foot, broke its ranks with a fearful crash. A few battalions made a resolute resistance, but were overpowered and nearly annihilated. While the 6th were* fighting on the high grounds on the left, the battle became general along the line ; and eventually King Charles gained a most decisive victory. .. .The behaviour of the British troops was applauded ; they exhibited thirty standards and colours which they had captured from the enemy as trophies of their valour ; and were thanked by King Charles for the eminent service they had rendered to his cause. Colonel Thomas Harrison of the Sixth was sent to England with the news of this victory to Queen Anne.

" Tradition has connected the badge of the Antelope, borne on the colours of the regiment, with its services in Spain ; and as the Sixth cap- tured several colours at Saragossa. which colours were taken to England by their colonel, Thomas Harrison, and presented to Queen Anne, it is not