Copyright held by
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Further details of licences are available from our
Licences page. For more
information, contact the project director,
Born digital.
Whitehall Stairs was an important location in early modern London. Providing a point of access to the Thames from Whitehall, the stairs were used by both the public and members of the royal family. Although the stairs are rarely alluded to in early modern literature, they appear in a number of texts about daily life in London during the time period.
Most MoEML documents, or significant fragments with mol:
prefix and accessed through the web application
with their id + .xml
.
The molagas prefix points to the shape representation of a location on MoEML’s OpenLayers3-based rendering of the Agas Map.
Links to page-images in the Chadwyck-Healey
Links to page-images in the
The mdt (MoEML Document Type) prefix used on
The mdtlist (MoEML Document Type listing) prefix used in linking attributes points to a listings page constructed from a category in the central MDT taxonomy in the includes file. There are two variants, one with the plain _subcategories
, meaning all subcategories of the category.
The molgls (MoEML gloss) prefix used on
This molvariant prefix is used on
This molajax prefix is used on
The molstow prefix is used on
The molshows prefix is used on
The sb prefix is used on
Our editorial and encoding practices are documented in detail in the Praxis section of our website.
Whitehall Stairs was a historically significant site, providing access to the Thames from Whitehall Palace. While the stairs are not labelled on the Agas map, they were a part of everyday life in London. Few mentions of the Whitehall Stairs can be found in early modern literature; however, they are memorialized in a number of accounts of life in London, from legal records to personal diaries.
The Whitehall Stairs were not the only stairs leading to the Thames near Whitehall Palace. According to Cox and Norman, from the beginning there were two sets of river stairs at Whitehall, the public Whitehall Stairs, and the Privy Stairs
(Cox and Norman). As to why there were two sets of stairs, there may have been a public thoroughfare next to York Place, with a public landing on the Thames. If this public thoroughfare existed, then public rights had to be considered even by
when he acquired York Place and transformed it and the surrounding area into the Palace of Whitehall (Cox and Norman). Accordingly, the Privy Stairs were for the private use of the royals and favoured nobles dwelling at Whitehall, while Whitehall Stairs were intended for public use.
Nevertheless, royalty did on occasion use the public Whitehall Stairs. The King and Queen would be crowned on the
(who if they came to London by Water, were met at Gravesent by the Lord Mayor, the Aldermen, and Companies in their severall Barges, and in that solemn sort conducted unto White Hall stairs
(Heylyn 109).
Brief references to Whitehall Stairs occur often in early modern texts.
went by water from Southwark to White-Hall-stairs, where [she] landed, and went to the Inne where [they] took Coach; and many friends came to bid [them] farewell(Trapnel 7).
at Two of the Clock in the Afternoon that day took Water from Whitehall Stairs with himupon the request of a brewer (Touchstone 2). This reference suggests that Whitehall Stairs was a popular place from which to draw water, particularly for breweries. In the penny pamphlet
Take but a Pair of Oars from Black-friars to Whitehall Stairs, and the Academy will furnish you with as much Matter as will complete a dozen of these Pamphlets, with a great deal of Applause after the Publication(
White Hall stairs
(Pepys). On called [him] at Whitehall Stairs (where [he] went before by land to know whether there was any play at Court to-night)
before he joined her for the evening (Pepys).
As saw at White Hall stairs a fisher-boat, with a sturgeon that he had newly catched in the River
(Pepys). Whitehall Stairs remained an important riverside feature in London until the