Search -
Traditions of London, Historical and Legendary, by Waters
Traditions of London Historical and Legendary by Waters Author:William Russell General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1859 Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million book... more »s for free. Excerpt: THE DEVIL'S GAP. " Jonathan Crouch was, it is believed, the last permanent tenant of the Devil's Gap." -- London Gazette, 1756. I May avoid disappointing a certain class of minds by at once stating that the Devil's Gap was nothing more than an archway and tenement, situate at the west end of Great Queen Street, Lincoln's-inn Fields. It was taken down in 1756, in consequence of its dilapidated condition, which dilapidated condition was, I believe, mainly attributable to the catastrophe involved in the final unravelment of the somewhat-tangled web of circumstance which I am about to place before the reader. At the commencement of the reign of Charles the Second, of scandalous memory, and about ninety years previous to its final demolition, the Devil's Gap wore a look of dull, grimy substantiality ; and the tenement which the archway supported was in part occupied by Jonathan Crouch, Attorney- at-law, whose office was lighted backward by a glazed door leading out upon a lead-covered platform, enclosed by a low wooden railing, whereon a laundress, who occupied some portion of the tenement, had the privilege of drying clothes. Whether Mr. Jonathan Crouch was tenant-in- chief or a lodger I know not, but he merely had his office at the Devil's Gap, his private residence being at No. 12, Great Queen Street. The Crouch family, at the time I am writing of, consisted only of Mr. Crouch and his son Job, a tall, lanky, taciturn youth, about two-and-twenty years of age, Mrs. Crouch having died when her only son was but a few months old. Jonathan Crouch, though very far indeed from being a niggardly man as regard...« less