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Article EARLY HAUNTS OF FREEMASONRY. ← Page 2 of 5 →
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Early Haunts Of Freemasonry.
one of the Four Old Lodges . In the list of lodges for 1723 , we find lodges meeting at the Queen ' s Head , Turnstile ; at the Castle , Drurylane ; at the Sun , Clare-market ; at the Queen ' s Head , in Great Queenstreet itself , and elsewhere close at hand ; and later lists tell the same
tale of brethren meeting , and practising the rites of Freemasonry in and around the spot where now for more than a century has stood the head-quarters of the Craft . So let us conjure up memories of past days and picture to ourselves , if Ave can , what Great Queen-street was like in the good old time , when London was not a tenth of its
present size , and long before Freemasonry , as at present constituted , was known . Be it stated , then , in the first place , that AA'hat is UOAV Great Queenstreet AA as so named in honour of Queen Elizabeth , though it Avas not till the close of that illustrious sovereign ' s reign that it could boast of
being a roadway , with just a few houses on the south side . Originally , it was a mere footpath , leading from Lincoln ' s-inn-fields westAvards , and separating the southern or AldeAvych-close from the northern , which later on received the name of White-hart-close , and extended as far as Holborn . In Elizabeth ' s time , owing no doubt to increased
traffic , the footpath became a roadway ; but up to 1593 it could boast of no houses . EA en thirty years later there were onl y fifteen on the south side , which was quite open to the country . It requires a very considerable stretch of the imagination to picture to oneself green fields Avhere now is one of the busiest of the side thoroughfares of
London ; green fields Avhere now the Freemason and this magazine are printed and published . Well , even in our own time , there haA e been , perhaps , as conspicuous changes . But changes , if they strike us as haA ing been more marked two centuries and a half ago , Avere not so rapid as they are UOAV . The work of building additional houses was
not continued till after the Restoration of the Stuarts , and the south side Avas then completed from designs which are said to have been prepared by the great English architect , Inigo Jones , then deceased , and his pupil , Webbe . Then gradually inroads must have been made on the aforesaid green fields , for in Strype ' s edition of old " StoAv ' s
Suiwey of London , " Avhich was published in 1720 , that worthy , in describing it , says that , "after a narrow entrance it openeth itself into a broad street , and falleth into Lincoln ' s-inn-fields ; it is a street graced with a goodly row of large , uniform houses on the south side , inhabited by the nobility and gentry ; but the north side is but indifferent , nor , by consequence , so well inhabited . "
This description by old Strype is confirmed , or rather , be it said , was anticipated , by Evelyn , who makes mention of George Digby , second Earl of Bristol , having lived in it in 1671 , when his house was
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Early Haunts Of Freemasonry.
one of the Four Old Lodges . In the list of lodges for 1723 , we find lodges meeting at the Queen ' s Head , Turnstile ; at the Castle , Drurylane ; at the Sun , Clare-market ; at the Queen ' s Head , in Great Queenstreet itself , and elsewhere close at hand ; and later lists tell the same
tale of brethren meeting , and practising the rites of Freemasonry in and around the spot where now for more than a century has stood the head-quarters of the Craft . So let us conjure up memories of past days and picture to ourselves , if Ave can , what Great Queen-street was like in the good old time , when London was not a tenth of its
present size , and long before Freemasonry , as at present constituted , was known . Be it stated , then , in the first place , that AA'hat is UOAV Great Queenstreet AA as so named in honour of Queen Elizabeth , though it Avas not till the close of that illustrious sovereign ' s reign that it could boast of
being a roadway , with just a few houses on the south side . Originally , it was a mere footpath , leading from Lincoln ' s-inn-fields westAvards , and separating the southern or AldeAvych-close from the northern , which later on received the name of White-hart-close , and extended as far as Holborn . In Elizabeth ' s time , owing no doubt to increased
traffic , the footpath became a roadway ; but up to 1593 it could boast of no houses . EA en thirty years later there were onl y fifteen on the south side , which was quite open to the country . It requires a very considerable stretch of the imagination to picture to oneself green fields Avhere now is one of the busiest of the side thoroughfares of
London ; green fields Avhere now the Freemason and this magazine are printed and published . Well , even in our own time , there haA e been , perhaps , as conspicuous changes . But changes , if they strike us as haA ing been more marked two centuries and a half ago , Avere not so rapid as they are UOAV . The work of building additional houses was
not continued till after the Restoration of the Stuarts , and the south side Avas then completed from designs which are said to have been prepared by the great English architect , Inigo Jones , then deceased , and his pupil , Webbe . Then gradually inroads must have been made on the aforesaid green fields , for in Strype ' s edition of old " StoAv ' s
Suiwey of London , " Avhich was published in 1720 , that worthy , in describing it , says that , "after a narrow entrance it openeth itself into a broad street , and falleth into Lincoln ' s-inn-fields ; it is a street graced with a goodly row of large , uniform houses on the south side , inhabited by the nobility and gentry ; but the north side is but indifferent , nor , by consequence , so well inhabited . "
This description by old Strype is confirmed , or rather , be it said , was anticipated , by Evelyn , who makes mention of George Digby , second Earl of Bristol , having lived in it in 1671 , when his house was