Praefectus Praetorio
R.I.P. Brother of the Quill
Chapter 3 The Seven Dials
The sheer size and congestion of London was totally alien to Rebecca. The simple country girl had never seen more than a dozen people together at a time outside of church. Naturally shy, this cacophony of people and noise left her completed disoriented. When she did get the courage to ask directions, her Kentish accent caused strangers to act like she was speaking a foreign language and just waved her off. At last, an elderly woman took pity on her and listened carefully and looked at her letter. Finally, she understood and gave her directions to St. Giles Parish in the West End.
Rebecca made her way down Cheapside past the gleaming white stone of new St. Paul's Cathedral to her left, an incredible sight to a farm girl. Then on to Newgate Street, passing the grim facade of Newgate Prison. By this time the girl was quite tired from the long walk and took a scotch bait.
Continuing through the late-afternoon down Holborn, she was astonished at the life around her. Prostitutes often lined the streets, soliciting clients, even baring a breast in invitation. Gin houses were a frequent sight. The “Gin Craze,” which had started in the 1680’s with the accession of William of Orange and a boycott of French brandy, had snowballed as the unregulated and low taxed spirits made drunkenness affordable to the lower classes. One of the gin houses Rebecca passed had a sign, “Drunk for a penny, dead drunk for tuppence, clean straw for nothing.”
She followed Holborn as it became High Holborn. This brought her to St. Giles Parish. From there she turned left a short way to Seven Dials.
Though the Seven Dials area had only been laid out as a new development thirty-five years earlier in 1690 and intended to attract wealthy tenants like nearby Covent Garden Piazza, it never succeeded as such. The sundial column at the intersection of seven roads was built with six faces, with the column itself acting as the gnomon of the seventh dial. By 1723, the area was already on its way to being a low-rent, shabby slum. Within a few years after this, each of the seven apexes would house a pub.
It was dusk when Rebecca came to the seven intersection. Comparing her letter, she identified St. Andrew’s Street and turned north past a busy street market. A half-block up she came to #27 (Rebecca knew her numbers and add and subtract them; her father had taught her.)
The big wooden door was shut and locked and there was no light to be seen inside even now in the gathering gloom of early evening. Rebecca knocked softly at first. However, after waiting several minutes she began knocking louder and louder and yet got no answer. She couldn’t read the notice tacked to the door, “Bankruptcy. Sheriff Sale June 5th.”
Rebecca made such a commotion banging and crying for attention, that an upper window nearby opened and the inhabitant yelled out, “Stop that noise or I’ll have the constable on you.”
Rebecca asked, “I’m to meet Villiam Dodge. Ha'ant yew sin 'im?”
“Dodge? He hasn’t been here these two days, since he got took off by the bum trap. Now go away and keep the peace or I’ll have ye arrested.”
Tired, hungry, thirsty, and penniless, now Rebecca was frightened. She was alone in a big strange city. The one person she knew was nowhere to be found. Too exhausted to go on, she went into the small alley between buildings and slumped on the ground. After an hour or so, the girl had cried herself to sleep.
The sheer size and congestion of London was totally alien to Rebecca. The simple country girl had never seen more than a dozen people together at a time outside of church. Naturally shy, this cacophony of people and noise left her completed disoriented. When she did get the courage to ask directions, her Kentish accent caused strangers to act like she was speaking a foreign language and just waved her off. At last, an elderly woman took pity on her and listened carefully and looked at her letter. Finally, she understood and gave her directions to St. Giles Parish in the West End.
Rebecca made her way down Cheapside past the gleaming white stone of new St. Paul's Cathedral to her left, an incredible sight to a farm girl. Then on to Newgate Street, passing the grim facade of Newgate Prison. By this time the girl was quite tired from the long walk and took a scotch bait.
Continuing through the late-afternoon down Holborn, she was astonished at the life around her. Prostitutes often lined the streets, soliciting clients, even baring a breast in invitation. Gin houses were a frequent sight. The “Gin Craze,” which had started in the 1680’s with the accession of William of Orange and a boycott of French brandy, had snowballed as the unregulated and low taxed spirits made drunkenness affordable to the lower classes. One of the gin houses Rebecca passed had a sign, “Drunk for a penny, dead drunk for tuppence, clean straw for nothing.”
She followed Holborn as it became High Holborn. This brought her to St. Giles Parish. From there she turned left a short way to Seven Dials.
Though the Seven Dials area had only been laid out as a new development thirty-five years earlier in 1690 and intended to attract wealthy tenants like nearby Covent Garden Piazza, it never succeeded as such. The sundial column at the intersection of seven roads was built with six faces, with the column itself acting as the gnomon of the seventh dial. By 1723, the area was already on its way to being a low-rent, shabby slum. Within a few years after this, each of the seven apexes would house a pub.
It was dusk when Rebecca came to the seven intersection. Comparing her letter, she identified St. Andrew’s Street and turned north past a busy street market. A half-block up she came to #27 (Rebecca knew her numbers and add and subtract them; her father had taught her.)
The big wooden door was shut and locked and there was no light to be seen inside even now in the gathering gloom of early evening. Rebecca knocked softly at first. However, after waiting several minutes she began knocking louder and louder and yet got no answer. She couldn’t read the notice tacked to the door, “Bankruptcy. Sheriff Sale June 5th.”
Rebecca made such a commotion banging and crying for attention, that an upper window nearby opened and the inhabitant yelled out, “Stop that noise or I’ll have the constable on you.”
Rebecca asked, “I’m to meet Villiam Dodge. Ha'ant yew sin 'im?”
“Dodge? He hasn’t been here these two days, since he got took off by the bum trap. Now go away and keep the peace or I’ll have ye arrested.”
Tired, hungry, thirsty, and penniless, now Rebecca was frightened. She was alone in a big strange city. The one person she knew was nowhere to be found. Too exhausted to go on, she went into the small alley between buildings and slumped on the ground. After an hour or so, the girl had cried herself to sleep.
] - was part of a major road, the Via Trinobantina, running from Essex to Hampshire though Londinium. In the middle ages, the section from St. Giles west was named Tyburn (now the location of Marble Arch) for the Village of Tyburn. This, in turn, was named for Tyburn (meaning boundary stream) Brook.
