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Bread Street Ward is east of Castle Baynard Ward and Farringdon Within Ward. The ward takes its name from its main street, Bread Street, ſo called of bread in olde time there ſold
(Stow 1603).
Bread Street ran north-south from the Standard (Cheapside) to Knightrider Street, crossing Watling Street. It lay wholly in the ward of Bread Street, to which it gave its name.
Watling Street ran east-west between St. Sythes Lane in Cordwainer Street Ward and Old Change in Bread Street Ward. It is visible on the Agas map under the label Watlinge ſtreat
.
Noble Street
(Stow 1598, sig. O4v). This should not lead to confusion with Noble Street in Aldersgate Ward. There is an etymological explanation for this crossover of names. According to Ekwall, the name Watling
ultimately derives from an Old English word meaning king’s son
(Ekwall 81-82). Watling Street remains distinct from the Noble Street in Aldersgate Ward.
Friday Street passed south through Bread Street Ward, beginning at the cross in Cheapside Street and ending at Old Fish Street. It was one of many streets that ran into Cheapside Street market whose name is believed to originate from the goods that were sold there.
Pissing Alley or Pissing Lane ran east-west from the end of Basing Lane to Friday Street. On the Agas map, this location is named Piſſing La.
By the eighteenth century, this section of the street had been renamed Little Friday Lane. Modern Cannon Street replaced this street (Harben).
The city of London, not to be confused with the allegorical character (
PLACEHOLDER LOCATION ITEM. The purpose of this item is to allow encoders to link to a location item when they cannot add a new location file for some reason. MoEML may still be seeking information regarding this entry. If you have information to contribute, please contact the MoEML team.
Holborn ran east-west from the junction of Hosier Lane, Cock Lane and Snow Hill to St. Giles High Street, and passed through Farringdon Without Ward and Westminster.
St. Paul’s Cathedral was—and remains—an important church in London. In
St. Botolph without Bishopsgate stood on the west
side of Bishopsgate Street north of Bishopsgate. It was in Bishopsgate Ward. St. Botolph without
Bishopsgate is featured on the Agas map, south of Bethlehem Hospital and west of Houndsditch Street. It is labelled
S. Buttolphes.
St. Paul’s School was located on the eastern side of St. Paul’s Churchyard, west of the Old Change (Harben). It was founded by
Wood Street Counter had been removed there from Bread Street in
(Harben 166). Tracing its history back ever further, Carlin and Belcher note that the prison was initially located in the Broken Seld around
Wood Street ran north-south, connecting at its southernmost end with Cheapside Street and continuing northward to Little Wood Street, which led directly into Cripplegate. It crossed over Huggin Lane, Lad Lane, Maiden Lane (Wood Street), Love Lane, Addle Lane, and Silver Street, and ran parallel to Milk Street in the east and Gutter Lane in the west. Wood Street lay within Cripplegate Ward. It is labelled as Wood Streat
on the Agas map and is drawn in the correct position.
Cheapside Street, one of the most important streets in early modern London, ran east-west between the Great Conduit at the foot of Old Jewry to the Little Conduit by St. Paul’s churchyard. The terminus of all the northbound streets from the river, the broad expanse of Cheapside Street separated the northern wards from the southern wards. It was lined with buildings three, four, and even five stories tall, whose shopfronts were open to the light and set out with attractive displays of luxury commodities (Weinreb and Hibbert 148). Cheapside Street was the centre of London’s wealth, with many
The Three Cups Inn was located in Bread Street Ward at the southwest intersection of Bread Street and Watling Street. The Inn provided food, drink, and shelter for employees, guests, carriers and their horses. It was a hub for public transportation and shipping into and out of the capital and was a home to the inn holder, servants, and their families. It provided employment and a community meeting place. It acted as a landmark in the city for at least four hundred years.
The Julian calendar, in use in the British Empire until September 1752. This calendar is used for dates where the date of the beginning of the year is ambigious.
The Julian calendar with the calendar year regularized to beginning on 1 January.
The Julian calendar with the calendar year beginning on 25 March. This was the calendar used in the British Empire until September 1752.
The Gregorian calendar, used in the British Empire from September 1752. Sometimes
referred to as New Style (NS). Years run from January 1 through December 31.
The Anno Mundi (year of the world
) calendar is based on the supposed date of the
creation of the world, which is calculated from Biblical sources. At least two different
creation dates are in common use. See Anno Mundi (Wikipedia).
Regnal dates are given as the number of years into the reign of a particular monarch. Our practice is to tag such dates with @calendar="regnal", and provide an equivalent date using a more systematic calendar (usually Julian) in a custom dating attribute.
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The Three Cups Inn was located in Bread Street Ward at the southwest intersection of Bread Street and Watling Street. It was east of Friday Street and north of Pissing Lane, situated between St. John the Evangelist church and All Hallows, Bread Street church. Though the inn is not labelled on the Agas map, other early modern maps did identify it; the
Three Cupps Inne, and the 1773 Noorthhouck map identifies it as the
3 Cupps Inn.
The earliest reference to the Three Cups Inn may be from To
The etymology of the inn’s name is unclear; however, the Three Cups was described by Wheatley and Cunningham as a favorite London sign
, and it served as the name of no fewer than five inns around London:
In the fifteenth century, By another codicil of the same date he leaves to the Wardens of the
le Three Coupes upon le hoop
in the parish of All Hallows in Bredestrete.
Into the late seventeenth century, alternate spellings of
(Bannerman 44).
The Three Cups was a home to generations of people. Births, marriages and deaths were common occurrences within its walls. The registers of All Hallows Church give the names of some of the people who lived and worked at the Three Cups. During the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century, for instance, the Rutts were inn holders of the Three Cups, and at pouls, a crysome
In obituaries and the like, applied to a child that died during the first month or shortly after baptism, and was shrouded in its chrisom-cloth
(Inholder
(Bannerman 173). He left his wife with six children under seven years of age to care for, in addition to the running of the Three Cups.whoe died in the house of
in All Hallows Church register (Bannerman 174, 175).
The precise relationship between
in the vault,
In midst of these tragedies,
Over a century later, the Three Cups continued to be a family home for the innholder. William J. James (c. fl. 1730-1780), the innholder of Three Cups in the 1760s, sent his sons, William James (b. 1756) and Samuel James (b. 1755), to St. Paul’s School located only a few blocks away, as can be seen in the school admission records: son[s] of William J., inn holder of the Three Cups Inn, Bread Street, admitted May 16, 1764
(Gardiner 130). Children working, playing and growing would have been a common sight at the Three Cups throughout its history.
We know the names of some of the servants of the Three Cups because they are mentioned in local death and marriage records. For example,
From very early in its history, the Three Cups and other London inns also hosted carriers, who were part of the early modern postal service. The Three Cups would have allowed for pickup and delivery of items to transport as well as a place for carriers and their horses to rest. The Water Poet,
The Carriers of Bathe doe lodge at the three cups in breadstreet they come on fridaies and goe on saturdaies.
Each passenger to pay 20s. to Bath, and 23s. to Bristol, and to allow 20lb weight to each passenger, goods, and all above to pay Three Half pences per Pound.
By 1786 the Royal Mail had established a mail route to Windsor from the Three Cups:
The following (excluſive of thoſe on the Crosſ Poſt-Roads,) are Mail Coaches already eſtabliſhed
According to Now on ye West side of Bredstréet, amongst diuers fayre and large houses for merchants, and faire Innes for passengers, had yee one prison house pertaining to the Sheriffes of London, called the compter in Bredstréete[.]
In
Right ho[ne]r[a]ble
:
Whereas I have received the Kings Ma[jes]ties most ho[ne]r[a]ble l[ett]res of Comision and your Lords directed unto mee and unto one R:C:
Soe it is right ho[ne]r[a]ble that accordinge to the tenor of the said Comission I repared to the signe of the 3 Cupps in Bread streete in the Citty of London vppon the 2 day of M: by nyne of the Clocke in the morninge for the execucion of the said Comissioners and Then and there in the absence of the said
OneIohn Thomas , Servant toMr. Bullock of Bristol, has been robbed and killed by Highwaymen. Whoever give Notice of the Persons aforesaid toMr. Bullock of Bristol or at the Three Cups in Bread Street, London, shall have their charges and 40s reward[.]
The Three Cups also served as a landmark well into the eighteenth century. A broker advertising ship sales regularly in the
William James Gambier, broker, over-against the Three Cups in Bread-Street(
219 miles from Birmingham to the Three Cups in Bread-street, in a few minutes more than 16 hours(
In Three Cups Inn, Very large, well built, and of a great Trade for Country Waggons and Carriers
(Strype). In Breadstreet is now inhabited by many Merchants and wealthy Traders, and hath in it on a very good Inn [the sign of the Three Cups] for carriers and other Travellers to the city[.]
Then on Monday, 11 April 1791, the
A fire broke out at the Three Cups Inn, Bread-Street at one o’clock on Saturday morning, which entirely demolished the same, and damaged several adjoining houses. A young man, clerk to the inn, it is fear, perished in the flames.
Three Cups Inn still remains(Wheatley and Cunningham 114).
During the latter half of the nineteenth century, the area in and around the site of Three Cups was subject to the Metropolitan Improvement Act of 1861. The act funded the creation of Queen Victoria Street and expanded Cannon Street, which cut right across the site of the Three Cups. Many of the inns for carriers became obsolete in the nineteenth century, as the railway took over transportation of people and goods. The inns fell out of use by travelers and shippers, becoming derelict tenement housing. The large inn-yards, the paved areas for wagons and coaches, were seen as a waste of space in a highly populated city. Charles Dickens, Jr. (b. 1837 d. 1896) described the area after the improvements:
Cannon-street is a street of wholesale warehouses, and a few sample goods in each window alone tell the passer-by the nature of the immense stock contained in them[.]
Today, the surrounding area is again as it was for centuries, with homes and businesses for wealthy merchants: today on the former site of the Three Cups sits a branch of Fidelity Worldwide Investment.
(MoEML consulted Taylor, Harben,
Project Manager, 2022-present. Research Assistant, 2020-2022. Molly Rothwell was an undergraduate student at the University of Victoria, with a double major in English and History. During her time at MoEML, Molly primarily worked on encoding and transcribing the 1598 and 1633 editions of Stow’s
Project Manager, 2020-2021. Assistant Project Manager, 2019-2020. Research Assistant, 2018-2020. Kate LeBere completed her BA (Hons.) in History and English at the University of Victoria in 2020. She published papers in
Programmer, 2018-present. Junior Programmer, 2015-2017. Research Assistant, 2014-2017. Joey Takeda was a graduate student at the University of British Columbia in the Department of English (Science and Technology research stream). He completed his BA honours in English (with a minor in Women’s Studies) at the University of Victoria in 2016. His primary research interests included diasporic and indigenous Canadian and American literature, critical theory, cultural studies, and the digital humanities.
Research Assistant, 2017-2019. Chase Templet was a graduate student at the University
of Victoria in the Medieval and Early Modern Studies (MEMS) stream. He was specifically
focused on early modern repertory studies and non-Shakespearean early modern drama,
particularly the works of
Data Manager, 2015-2016. Research Assistant, 2013-2015. Tye completed his undergraduate honours degree in English at the University of Victoria in 2015.
Director of Pedagogy and Outreach, 2015–2020. Associate Project Director, 2015. Assistant Project Director, 2013-2014. MoEML Research Fellow, 2013. Kim McLean-Fiander comes to
Janelle Jenstad is Associate Professor of English at the University of Victoria, Director of
Aradia Wyndham was a graduate student studying book history at the University of Iowa.
Programmer at the University of Victoria Humanities Computing and Media Centre (HCMC). Martin ported the MOL project from its original PHP incarnation to a pure eXist database implementation in the fall of 2011. Since then, he has been lead programmer on the project and has also been responsible for maintaining the project schemas. He was a co-applicant on MoEML’s 2012 SSHRC Insight Grant.
Playwright.
Sheriff of London
Cartographer. Carried on the cartographic work of
Historian and author of
Historian and author of
Poet.
Playwright. Buried at St. Saviour (Southwark).
Writer and biographer.
Guest of Three Cups Inn, Bread Street.
Servant of Three Cups Inn, Bread Street. Died of the plague.
Servant of Three Cups Inn, Bread Street.
Servant of Three Cups Inn, Bread Street.
Servant of Three Cups Inn, Bread Street.
Servant of Three Cups Inn, Bread Street. Husband of
Servant of Three Cups Inn, Bread Street. Wife of
Servant of Three Cups Inn, Bread Street. Husband of
Servant of Three Cups Inn, Bread Street. Wife of
Denizen of of Bristol. Master of
Servant of
Inn holder of Three Cups Inn, Bread Street.
Religious reformer, philosopher, and activist.
Member of the
Son of
Inn holder of Three Cups Inn, Bread Street. Husband of
Wife of
Daughter of
Daughter of
Son of
Daughter of
Son of
Inn holder of Three Cups Inn, Bread Street. Husband of
Wife of
Son of
Daughter of
Son of
Son of
Daughter of
Daughter of
Daughter of
Inn holder of Three Cups Inn, Bread Street.
Inn holder of Three Cups Inn, Bread Street.
Gentleman.
Plaintiff.
Defendent.
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