Lost London (27 page)
Authors: Richard Guard
B
EFORE THE ADVENT OF GLASS
-
FRONTED SHOPS
, much of the city’s trade was carried out by hawkers wandering the
streets.
They sold anything and everything, and to attract attention they all had their own cries. Here is a selection taken from Charles Hindley’s 1884 work,
A History of the Cries of London, Ancient and Modern
:
•
All that has to complain of corns! As fast as the shoe maker lames you I’ll cure you, you’ll not have to take the bus home when you’ve
used my corn salve!
•
Any hareskins cook? Hareskins!
•
Buy my diddle dumplings hot hot diddle diddle diddle dumplings hot
•
Catch ’em alive, only half a penny! (fly paper man)
•
Chairs to mend, old chairs to mend if I had the money I could spend I would never cry old chairs to mend
•
Cherries a ha’penny a stick come and pick come and pick! Cherries big as plums who come who comes?
•
Chestnuts all ’ot, a penny a score!
•
Dog’s meat! Cat’s meat! Nice tripe! Neat’s feet! Come and buy my trotters!
•
Fresh wo-orter creases!
•
Ha-a-aandsome cod! best in the markets! All alive alive o
•
Had had had had had haddick! All fresh and good
•
Here’s all hot pies! Toss and buy! Up and win’em!
•
Hot spiced ginger bread! Buy my spiced ginger bread! Smo-o-oking hot!
•
Hot spiced gingerbread nuts, nuts, nuts! If one’ll warm you, wha-at’ll a pound do? Wha-a-a-at’ll a pound do?
•
Now or never! Whelk! Whelk! Whelk!
•
’old your horse sir?
•
Round and sound, two pence a pound, cherries rare ripe cherries
•
Three a penny Yarmouth bloaters
•
Who will buy a new love song? Only a ha’penny!
•
Who’ll buy a bonnet for fourpence?
•
Wi-ild Hampshire rabbits, 2 a shilling
•
Young lambs to sell, young lams to sell, molly and dolly Richard and nell, buy my youngd lambs and I’ll use you well
I
N HIS EXHAUSTIVE WORK
L
ONDON
L
ABOUR
and the London Poor
, Henry Mayhew listed the various types
of street traders he had discovered making a precarious living in the capital.
His list is huge, with some of the professions still active today, though thankfully some have long gone.
T
YPES OF
S
TREET
S
ELLERS
Green Stuff | Pea soup and hot eels |
Pickled whelks | Fried fish |
Sheep’s trotters | Baked potatoes |
Ham sandwiches | Bread |
Hot green peas | Cat and dogs meat |
Coffee stall keepers | Ginger beer, sherbert and lemonade |
Milk | Curds and whey |
Rice milk | Water carriers |
Pastry and confectionary | Piemen |
Boiled pudding | Plum duff |
Cakes and tarts | Gingerbread nuts |
Hot cross and Chelsea buns | Muffin and crumpets |
Cough drops | Ice and ice creams |
Corn salve | Crackers and detonating balls |
Cigar lights and fuzees | Gutta percha heads |
Fly paper and beetle wafers | Walking sticks and whips |
Pipes, snuff and tobacco | Cigars |
Sponge | Washleather |
Spectacles and eyeglasses | Dolls |
Poison for rats | Second-hand musical instruments |
Second-hand weapons | Second-hand telescopes |
Live animals | Dogs |
Live birds | Birds’ nests |
Gold and silver fish | Coals |
Coke | Shells |
S
TREET
T
RADES
Screeves – writers of begging letters and petitions
Dog finders | Pure finders |
Cigar-end finders | Old wood gatherers |
Dredgers and river finders | Sewer hunters |
Mudlarks | Dustmen |
Chimney sweeps | Rat catchers |
Crossing sweepers | Bug destroyers |
Garret masters | Doll’s eye makers |
Coal heavers | Coal backers |
Ballast getters | Ballast heavers |
T
YPES OF
S
TREET
E
NTERTAINERS
Punch and Judy men | Strong men |
Exhibitor of mechanical figures | Jugglers |
Telescope exhibitor | Conjurors |
Street clowns | Silly Billy |
Ballet performers | Stilt vaulters |
Street photographers | Penny profile cutters |
Writer without hands | Chalker on flag stones |
Exhibitor of birds and mice | Snake, sword and knife swallowers |
Fantoccini man (puppet man) |
Borough
I
N
T
HE
C
ANTERBURY
T
ALES
, G
EOFFREY
C
HAUCER
immortalized this inn as the starting place of his journey:
In Southwerk at the Tabard as I lay
Redy to wenden on my pilgrymage
To Caunterbury with ful devout corage,
At nyght was come into that hostelrye
The Tabard was not only the most famous inn of London, it was also the most famous in literature and hence maybe the most famous pub in history.
Southwark, outside of the jurisdiction of the city, was the jumping-off point for citizens travelling southwards from the capital and contained a large number of coaching houses where traders
and pilgrims stayed before entering or leaving the city. The Tabard was first mentioned in 1304, the land having been purchased by the Abbot of Hyde to build himself a house and a hostelry
‘for the convenience of travelers’.
In
London Chaunticeres
(1659), the tapster of the inn charmingly described his morning work: ‘I have cut two dozen of toste, broacht a new barrel of ale, washt all the cups and
flagons, made a fire i’ the’ George, drained all the beer out of th’ Half Moon the company left o’ th’ floore last night, wip’d the tables, and have swept every
room.’ By then, the Tabard was a galleried coaching house with many separate rooms, hence ‘the George’ and ‘th’ Half Moon’. Other room
names
known to have existed at the inn include ‘Rose parlar’, ‘Clyff parlar’, ‘Crowne chamber’, ‘Keye chamber’ and the ‘Corne chamber’.
A tabard is a type of sleeveless coat but the name of the inn somehow changed – either through ignorance or design – to The Talbot (a breed of dog) sometime in the 17th century,
after which time both names were commonly used to describe it. It burnt down in the great fire of Southwark that destroyed 500 properties in 1676 but was rebuilt on roughly the same plans and
survived until 1875, when it was demolished.
Other famous coaching houses on Borough High Street included The White Hart (headquarters of Jack Cade’s rebellion in 1450), The King’s Head (formerly The Pope’s Head but
changed during the Reformation), The Queen’s Head, The Bull, The Christopher and The Spurre. Fortunately, one side of The George remains to this day, providing a fine example of what London
boozers must have once been like.
