Sun Tavern Author Elizabeth E. Tavares Editor Janelle Jenstad Encoder Lucas Simpson Junior Programmer Joey Takeda Programmer Martin Holmes Project Director Janelle Jenstad The Map of Early Modern Londonhttp://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/includes.xmlVictoria, BC, Canada
Department of English P.O.Box 3070 STNC CSC University of Victoria Victoria, BC Canada V8W 3W1
2016University of Victoria978-1-55058-519-3 Janelle Jenstad london@uvic.ca

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The Sun Tavern was a victualing house on the east side of New Fish Street, just north of London Bridge between lower Thames Street and Little Eastcheap.

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 Removed old geo coordinates now superceded by GeoJSON. Changed status to published. Changed status. Created file and added content from the .docx file submitted by contributor. Sun Tavern
Sun TavernVariant spellings include son, sonn, sonne, Sun, and Sunne. Sun Tavern

The Sun Tavern was a victualing house on the east side of New Fish Street, just north of London Bridge between lower Thames Street and Little Eastcheap. Settled just under St. Magnus, the tavern sat on the boundary between Bridge Within Ward and Billingsgate Ward. A small sign with an orb and a dot, the common marker of the symbol for the sun in this period, hung out into the street to mark its location (Digges).

The tavern may have been able to accommodate groups easily, as it was frequently used for meetings. 1491–1492 church records indicate a bill payd for a dyner whan Master parson with othere members of the St. Mary-at-Hill paryshe were with hym at the sonn (Littlehales 170–182). The same church’s record indicate an unpaid bill to the tavern in 1537 (Littlehales 376–380). It seemed to have been a regular place for playhouse landlord Philip Henslowe, members of the Lord Admiral’s Men, and playwrights including Ben Jonson. In the poem An ode to him [<name ref="PERS1.xml#JONS1">Ben Jonson</name>], Robert Herrick implied the regularity of convivial composition in tavern spaces: Ah Ben! Say how, or when Shall we thy Guests Meet at those Lyrick Feasts, Made at the Sun,We cannot verify that this toponym refers to Sun Tavern. Sugden’s Topographical Dictionary to the Works of Shakespeare and His Fellow Dramatists identifies the mention of Sun Tavern with both the Sun Tavern on New Fish Street and a Sun Tavern on Ludgate Street. See Sugden’s entries for Dog (Sugden 153) and Sun (Sugden 492). The Dog, the triple Tunne? Where we such clusters had, As made us nobly wild, not mad; And yet each Verse of thine Out-did the meate, out-did the frolick wine.Herrick 342

Dulwich College MS VII f45r. © David Cooper with kind permission of the Governors of Dulwich College. http://www.henslowe-alleyn.org.uk/images/MSS-7/045r.html
Henslowe’s accounts corroborate such activities. In March 1598, Henslowe lent the Admiral’s Men five shillings for to spend at the Readyng of that booke, in reference to Famous Wars of Henry I and the Prince of Wales just purchased from
Dulwich College MS VII f45r. © David Cooper with kind permission of the Governors of Dulwich College. http://www.henslowe-alleyn.org.uk/images/MSS-7/045r.html
Henry Chettle, Thomas Dekker, and Michael Drayton at the Sonne in new fyshstreate (Henslowe; Famous Wars). In addition to the table reading of the newly purchased play, either on the same day or later that month the company bought a play called Earl Godwin and His Three Sons from Drayton, Dekker, Chettle, and Robert Wilson, at which time Henslowe provided additional funds at the tavarn in fyshstreate for good cheare (Henslowe; Earl Godwin and His Three Sons, Parts 1 and 2).

Other literary allusions suggest the site was closely affiliated with the playhouse industry (Cerasano). In Thomas Middleton’s play, No Wit/Help Like a Woman’s, Master Weatherwise exclaims the Sun’s in New Fishstreet after a pageant of the signs of the zodiac (Middleton 2.1). The clown, Peccadill, threads puns about going to the sun to get dry—a euphemism for sobriety—throughout the play. Allusions to the Bull and Bear garden in the same scene reinforce a connection between the Southwark entertainment venues and the Sun Tavern (Middleton 2.1).

The play Wit of a Woman

Thomas Middleton (? 1627). No wit, help like a vvomans (London, 1657), 44. STC 165173. Used by permission of the Folger Shakespeare Library.
builds a similar series of puns when Bragardo sends his page out to buy a sugar loafe: and goe you to the Sunne, and fetch me a gallon of Ipocras (Wit of a woman). This toponym likely refers to the Sun tavern in New Fish Street, as Sugar Loaf Alley and Sugar Baker’s Yard were also nearby.

There were four taverns using the name of the Sun in this period, although the only one marked with a sign on the Agas map is that in New Fish Street. The water-poet John Taylor mentions other sites in Aldersgate Street and Cripplegate Ward (also mentioned by Stow) to complain about their relative expense: I haue fared better at three Sunnes many times before now, in Aldersgate-street, Criplegate, and new Fish- street; but here is the oddes, at those Sunnes they will come vpon a man with a Tauerne bill as sharp cuting as a Taylers Bill of Items. Taylor 125

Wenceslaus Hollar’s comparative survey of the site implies that it did not survive the great fire of 1666 (Hollar). A 1746 map of the city suggests that the site may have been reborn as The Star Inn (Rocque 26).