INTRODUCTORY 15 



attached to it. These are called Nevill Court, from the 

 site having been within the precincts owned by Ralph 

 Nevill, Bishop of Chichester, Chancellor in the time of 

 Henry III., who built a great palace near here. One of 

 the row belongs to the Moravian Mission, or United 

 Brothers, a sect who trace their origin to John Huss. 

 They settled in this house in 1737. This old-world 

 corner opens out of Fetter Lane. A small wooden 

 paling separates the minute strips of blackened garden 

 from a narrow paved pathway. There were many such 

 gardens in this locality less than a century ago. Charles 

 Lamb, when aged six, went to school to a Mr. Bird in 

 Bond Stables, off Fetter Lane, now vanished ; and, re- 

 turning to the spot in 1825, he recalled the early asso- 

 ciations : " The school-room stands where it did, looking 

 into a discoloured, dingy garden. . . . Oh, how I re- 

 member . . . the truant looks side-long to the garden, 

 which seemed a mockery of our imprisonment." Would 

 that some antiquarian millionaire — if such a combination 

 exists ! — might take into his head to preserve Nevill 

 Court, to restore the houses and renovate the gardens, 

 and preserve this relic of Old London, to give future 

 generations some idea of what the smaller dwelling- 

 houses in the old city were like. In most districts these 

 little gardens were the usual appendage to dwelling- 

 houses. Pepys, living in Seething Lane, often mentions 

 his garden. It was there he sat with his wife and taught 

 her maid to smg ; it was there he watched the flames 

 spreading over the town at the time of the Great Fire ; 

 and in it his money was buried during the scare of the 

 Dutch invasion. So carelessly, indeed, was the money 

 hidden that 100 gold pieces were lost, but eventually 

 most of them recovered by sweeping the grass and sifting 



