INTRODUCTORY 
*5 
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 sing; 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 
