2»'» S. X, Nov. 24. '60.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



415 



likely schemes were caught at, and I am sure Mr. 

 TiERNEY will agree with me that it would have 

 been better that James should have made what he 

 could of this, than that he should have relapsed 

 into persecution. 



I am sorry that these remarks have assumed a 

 curt and seemingly uncourteous form. I beg that 

 Mr. TiERNEY will attribute this to an intimation 

 which I have received from the Editor that he is 

 only able to place a limited space at my disposal. 

 For the same reason I doubt whether I have been 

 able to do justice to myself. I have been forced 

 to content myself with merely indicating argu- 

 ments, and to omit the quotations on which they 

 are based. Still, I hope that I have said enough 

 to show where the truth really lies. 



S. R. Gardiner. 



TURNSTILES IN HOLBOEN. 



(2'"> S. X. 372.) 



If Little Turnstile is more modern in its erection 

 than Great Turnstile, as a passage or turning- 

 stile alley it is probably quite as ancient. I 

 suspect that when George Hutton printed Sir 

 Edwin Sandys's Europce Speadum (a very curious 

 book, by the bye), there were no houses erected 

 in the Upper or Little Turnstile Alley. The first 

 who attempted to build a cottage there met with 

 considerable^opposition ; for, from " time out of 

 mind," it was regarded as a public thoroughfare 

 of much value, leading as it did from St. Cle- 

 ment's and Lincoln's Inn Fields to the church of 

 St. Giles' and the old market in Bloomsbury. I 

 can illustrate this from an " Order of Sessions," 

 which I recently copied from the Middlesex County 

 Records. It is dated August, 1660 : — 



" This day, upon reading the humble petition of many 

 of the inhabitants of S'. Giles-in-the-Fields, in the 

 County of Middlesex, exhibited unto this Courte on be- 

 halfe of themselves and other parishes, thereby shewing 

 that, time out ofminde, there was a faire and cleare way 

 bothe to the Church and Markett through a faire and 

 large passage of old called and knowne by the name of 

 the Upp or Old Turnstile, in the head or upp part of 

 Hobborne ;' and that the saide passage is of late obstructed 

 and stopped by one Arthur Newman, who is now erect- 

 ing a small building in and uppon the ground where the 

 saide passage was, to the great prejudice and common 

 annoyance, not only of the neighbouring inhabitants 

 there', but of all other people that way passing, and 

 prayed that the saide buildinge now in erecting may be' 

 stopped and hindred, and that he may not proceed any 

 further therein. The Courte doth think it fitt, and there- 

 upon doth desire M' Wharton and M"' Jeggon, twoe of his 

 Majesty's Justices of the Peace for this County, to view 

 the saide building complained of, and to take some course 

 for the removal of the saide annoj'ance." 



The neighbourhood of the Holborn Turnstiles 

 was sadly disreputable. The brothels and ale- 

 houses of Whetstone Park were notorious long 

 before Hudibras was written. I have a copy of 



a Presentment of the Jury of Middlesex of the 

 1st Edward VI., in which they — 



" Present John Coke, Sadler, of the parishe of Saynct 

 Clements, who hathe twoe tenements at the Turne stylle 

 in Holbnrne, and thei that dwellythe in thej'm have byn 

 indyted before, we knowe not howe manj'e tj-mes for 

 evyll persons, and alwayes the saide Coke theire land- 

 lord, and other of theire afifynytie, bearethe theym oute 

 agaynst all good Justice." 



F. SOMNER MbBRYWEATHKR. 



Colney Hatch. 



CHARLES DIBDIN. 

 (2"i S. x. 247.) 



Although I cannot 'fully answer the inquiry of 

 E. J. S. as to the " ancestry of the father of 

 Charles Dibdin," I can offer him the result of 

 some*researches into the connection of the poet 

 with this town. 



His birth here is undoubted*, and although the 

 exact spot remains unknown, it is traditionally 

 recorded to have been " in a lane, by a singular 

 coincidence, within a short distance of the natal 

 place of Doctor Watts." The village of Dibden, 

 on the opposite shore of Southampton Water, a 

 few miles from this town, " called in Domesday 

 Depe-dene," from its " situation in a thickly 

 wooded dell," was a " place of importance at the 

 time of the Conquest, and had a fishery and sal- 

 tern." I have gathered these particulars from 

 local topographies, to show that the article in the 

 Penny Cyclopadia, which states that the poet's 

 " grandfather was a considerable merchant, and 

 founded the village of Dibden, which hears his 

 name^'' has, so far as the latter statement is con- 

 cerned, no foundation in fact. I have ascertained 

 by personal inquiry on the spot, and examination 

 of the memorials in the picturesque little church 

 and graveyard there, that no traditions connected 

 with a family of the name exist in the village ; 

 and through the courtesy of the present rector of 

 Dibden, the Rev. Edward Carlyon, I have learnt 

 that the name does not once occur in the parish 

 registers (which commence in 1556) till the very 

 end of the seventeenth century, when there was a 

 person of the name, I am informed, receiving 

 parish relief. One other item of information I 

 have obtained from an old resident whose grand- 

 mother remembered the incident, viz., that Incle- 

 don, who was a native of Cornwall, came here in 



* The entry of his baptism, which after some search I 

 have succeeded in discovering, is as follows: " 1745. 

 Charles, son of Thomas Dibdin, Clerk of this parish, 

 baptized in private March 4, received in^to) Church 29." 

 Several of the name reside still in this town, all in the 

 humbler walks of life : one living near, if not on the ver3- 

 spot of Dibdin's birth, informs me his father remembered 

 the embryo composer taking part in the " service of 

 song " in the parish church where he was (as above) 

 baptized, viz. Holyrood Church in this town. 



