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Ram Alley, now known as Hare Place, was a small alley that ran north-south off of Fleet Street, opposite Fetter Lane. Once a conventual sanctury
, Ram Alley developed into a chartered abode of libertinism and roguery
(Beresford 46).
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Ram Alley, a mere seven feet wide, ran southwards from Fleet Street, opposite Fetter Lane. Its end point was a footway between two legal institutions: the Inner Temple and Serjeants Inn. Edward H. Sugden also mentions that the street was well known as the rear exit from another inn, the Mitre, which fronted onto Fleet Street.
The alley was named after an inn, marked by the sign of the Star and Ram, which had originally belonged to the
An unlabelled alley in the correct location as Ram Alley appears on the Agas map. The alley is marked on both the Ogilby and Morgan map of
Ram Alley was a place of sanctuary for criminals. Those seeking to evade capture would run into Ram Alley, which, like the Whitefriars nearby, still claimed right of sanctuary: that is, the immunity from arrest. A there is a door leading out of Ram Alley to the tenement called the
(Kent 494). The freedom was requested under common law by several of the London the resort of sharpers and necessitous persons of very ill fame, and of both sexes
(Nares 719). Even in [i]t was a place of evil reputation, inhabited chiefly by cooks, bawds, tobacco-sellers, and ale-house keepers
and adds that [t]he worst of its dens was the Maidenhead, near the Temple end of it
(Sugden 426). Walter George Bell calls it Ram Alley of evil association, perhaps the most pestilent court in London
(Bell 252). Perhaps this unsavoury reputation is why it is not mentioned by
Parish records show a fear that the alley should become a refuge of the poor, with residents taking in unwelcome lodgers—particularly foreigners—into their midst. One such incident is noted in the wardmote inquests of the Parish of St. Dunstan in the West from Item, we present
(
The eponymous setting of a comic play, Ram Alley’s famous inns were invoked by And though Ramme ſtinks with Cookes and ale, / Yet ſay thers many a worthy lawyers chamber, / Buts vpon Rame-alley
(Barry sig. C1v). Later, he makes reference to the predatory sexuality for which the area was also known, demanding,
geographical and social specificity
(Hanson 233), but, in his essay on the relationship between the audience and actors in the play, Jeremy Lopez nuances this point, arguing that the play seems to be about being in Ram Alley, but it’s really about its spectators knowing that they’re not
(Lopez 202). He suggests that the play portrays the area and uses its stereotypical attributes to appeal to those playgoers who lived in the city but outside the area of the Whitefriars itself.
The alley is referred to by several other contemporary writers, who also focus on its key associations. The alley’s reputation as a place to flee the forces of the law is again shown in I need no more inſconſing now in Ram-alley, nor the Sanctuary of White-fryers, the Forts of Fullers-rents, and Milford-lane, whoſe walls are dayly batter’d wth the curſes of bawling creditors
(Brome sig. C8r), giving a list of places where men could evade pursuit. In Ille but ſtep up / Into Ram-Alley-Sanctuary, to Debtor, / That praies and watches there for a Protection
(Brome,
The Rabelaisian account of the area in a Sanctuary to all perſons whatſoever
(Head sig. A2v). It was
, he tells his reader in a prefatory epistle, an account of an imaginary journey pen’d laſt long Vacation, when all I had to do, was to hide my ſelf from the Inquiſition of my cruel Creditors; for which purpoſe I lodg’d in Ram-alley
(Head sig. A2r).
Writing the satirical
The association of the alley with food and drink is demonstrated by mine old hoſt of Ram-Alley
(Jonson 2D2v). In [t]he knaue thinkes ſtill hee’s at the cookes ſhop in Ramme-alley, / Where the Clarkes diuide and the Elder is to chooſe
(Massinger sig. E2v). but let the fiſh-wiues take heede, for if moſt of them proue not ſcoldes
(Nashe sig. B4v). Sugden suggests the fishwives may have harangued the cooks of Ram Alley because they illicitly sold flesh on Fridays or in Lent.
The provision of food is connected with the area’s predatory sexuality, which had been referred to so casually in the Woman that cries hot Gray Peaſe about the Streets, coming up Ram Alley in Fleete-ſtreet
(cold hand
, she loſt all power of Reſiſtance
, and along with it her peas, which she had afterwards to ſcrape up her Ware as well as ſhe could, for the uſe of ſuch longing Ladies as are affected with ſuch Diet
(
As well as food and drink, the area was also known for another popular vice in the early modern capital, the smoking of tobacco—the supplying or indulgence of which habit was often found unacceptable by the members of the legal profession whose property abutted the alley. The Parish of St. Dunstan in the West’s wardmote register of Item, we present
(
laid complaint against(Timothy Louse andJohn Barker , of Ram Alley,for keeping their tobacco shoppes open all night and fyers in the same without any chimney and suffering hot waters [spirits] and selling also without licence, to the great disquietness and annoyance of that neighbourhood
Finally, in Maſter of the Motion
or puppet-master, you ſhall likewiſe ſee the amorous conceits and Love ſongs betwixt
(Day sig. G1v-G2r). Sugden notes that
The modern day Hare Place remains an alleyway cutting through to the Inner Temple from Fleet Street, and appropriately emerging next to a wine merchant.