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Essex Street, London

1670s in LondonPages containing links to subscription-only contentStreets in the City of WestminsterUse British English from December 2016
Essex Hall, Essex Street
Essex Hall, Essex Street

Essex Street is a street in the City of Westminster that runs from Milford Lane in the south to Strand in the north. It is joined by Little Essex Street on its western side and Devereux Court on the eastern side. It was laid out by Nicholas Barbon in around 1675 or 1680 and contains a number of listed buildings.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Essex Street, London (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Essex Street, London
Essex Street, London Holborn

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Wikipedia: Essex Street, LondonContinue reading on Wikipedia

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 51.5125 ° E -0.1126 °
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Address

The Edgar Wallace

Essex Street 40
WC2R 3JE London, Holborn
England, United Kingdom
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Essex Hall, Essex Street
Essex Hall, Essex Street
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Grecian Coffee House
Grecian Coffee House

The Grecian Coffee House was a coffee house, first established in about 1665 at Wapping Old Stairs in London, England, by a Greek former mariner called George Constantine. The enterprise proved a success and, by 1677, Constantine had been able to move his premises to a more central location in Devereux Court, off Fleet Street. In the 1690s, the Grecian Coffee House was the favoured meeting place of the opposition Whigs, a group that included John Trenchard, Andrew Fletcher and Matthew Tindal. In the early years of the eighteenth century, it was frequented by members of the Royal Society, including Sir Isaac Newton, Sir Hans Sloane, Edmund Halley and James Douglas, and the poet and statesman, Joseph Addison. Classical scholars were also said to congregate there, and on one occasion, two of them fought a duel in the street outside because they fell out over where to position the accent on an Ancient Greek word. In the 1760s and 1770s it was a favourite haunt of Irish law students, especially "the Templers", those young Irishmen who were studying at the Middle Temple. They were attracted there by the presence of the poet and playwright Oliver Goldsmith, who "delighted to entertain his friends there". These friends included the future statesman Henry Grattan.The Grecian was the favourite coffee-house in London of the renowned Shakespearean scholar Edmond Malone. In April 1776, he wrote his father a letter from there, boasting "I am at present writing in a coffee-house, in the midst of so much noise and bustle—the celebrated anti-Sejanus (Mr. Scott) on one side and Mr. [Charles] Macklin [the actor] on the other—that I can't add anything more at present."By 1803, the Grecian was no longer the meeting place of radicals, scholars and scientists but of lawyers and it finally closed in 1843, becoming a pub. The site is now occupied by The Devereux public house, and is a Grade II listed building.

Essex House (London)
Essex House (London)

Essex House was a house that fronted the Strand in London. Originally called Leicester House, it was built around 1575 for Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, and was renamed Essex House after being inherited by his stepson, Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, after Leicester's death in 1588. The poet Philip Sidney lived in Leicester House for some time. The property occupied the site where the Outer Temple, part of the London headquarters of the Knights Templar, had previously stood, and was immediately adjacent to the Middle Temple, one of the four Inns of Court. The house was substantial; in 1590, it was recorded as having 42 bedrooms, plus a picture gallery, kitchens, outhouses, a banqueting suite and a chapel. Essex’s mother, Lettice Knollys, leased out the house for a while, but she moved in later with her new husband, Sir Christopher Blount, as well as her son and his family. After the executions of Blount and Essex in 1601, she continued to live there until her death, leasing part of the house to James Hay, the first Earl of Carlisle. Hay hosted a lavish banquet for the French ambassador in 1621 at Essex House involving sweetmeats costing £500 and ambergris used in cooking costing £300, and the total bill was £3,300.The house then became the property of Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex, who leased part of it to his brother-in-law, William Seymour, 1st Marquess of Hertford. After the English Civil War, the family lost ownership as a result of their debts. Following the Restoration and the death of William Seymour, Sir Orlando Bridgeman lived in the house for a time. When the Duchess of Somerset died in 1674, she left the house to her granddaughter, whose husband, Sir Thomas Thynne, sold it, along with the adjoining lands and properties. The main part of the house was demolished some time between 1674 and 1679. Essex Street was built on part of the site. One of those buildings was used in the mid-1770s as a Dissenters' meeting house known as the Essex Street Chapel, where Unitarianism was first preached in England. The denominational headquarters are still on the site, now called Essex Hall. Their building footprint is believed to include the Tudor chapel of Essex House.