Cheapside

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Cheapside is a street in Cheap ward of the City of London that links Newgate Street with the junction of Queen Victoria Street, Cornhill, Threadneedle Street, Princes Street, Lombard Street and King William Street (via a small section called 'Poultry'). In medieval times it was known as 'Westcheap', as the opposite to Eastcheap.

Contents 1 History 2 Literary connections 3 Contemporary Cheapside 4 Etymology and usage 5 References 6 External links

[edit] History

Cheapside is the former site of one of the principal produce markets in London, cheap broadly meaning "market" in medieval English (see below Etymology and usage). Many of the streets feeding into the main thoroughfare are named after the produce that was originally sold in those areas of the market, for example, Honey Lane, Milk Street, Bread Street and Poultry.

In Medieval times, the royal processional route from the Tower of London to Westminster would include Cheapside. And during during state occasions such as the first entry of Edward I's's second wife, Margaret of France, into London in September 1299, the conduits of Cheapside customarily flowed with wine.^[1]

During the reign of King Edward III (in the 1300s) tournaments were held in adjacent fields. The dangers were however not limited to the participants since a wooden stand, built to accommodate Queen Philippa and her companions, collapsed during a tournament to celebrate the birth of the Black Prince in 1330. No one died but the King was greatly displeased and were it not for the Queen's intercession, the stand's builders would have been put to death.

On the day preceding her coronation during January 1559, Queen Elizabeth I passed through a number of London streets in a pre-coronation procession and was entertained by a number of pageants, including one in Cheapside.

Meat was brought in to Cheapside from Smithfield, just outside Newgate. After the great Church of St Michael le Querne, the top end of the street broadened into a dual carriageway known as the Shambles (referring to an open-air slaughterhouse and meat market), with butchers shops on both sides and a dividing central area also composed of butchers shops. Further down, on the right, was Goldsmiths Row, an area of commodity dealers. From the 14th Century until the Great Fire, the eastern end of Cheapside was the location of the Great Conduit.

[edit] Literary connections

It was the birthplace of John Milton, and Robert Herrick. It was for a long time one of the most important streets in London. It is also the site of the 'Bow Bells', the church of St Mary-le-Bow, which has played a part in London's Cockney heritage and the tale of Dick Whittington. Thomas Middleton's play A Chaste Maid in Cheapside (1613) both satirizes and celebrates the citizens of the neighbourhood during the Renaissance, when the street hosted the city's goldsmiths.

Geoffrey Chaucer grew up around Cheapside and there are a scattering of references to the thoroughfare and its environs throughout his work. The first chapter of Peter Ackroyd's Brief Lives series on Chaucer also colourfully describes the street at that time.^[2]

William Wordsworth, in his 1797 poem 'The Reverie of Poor Susan', imagines a naturalistic Cheapside of past:

And a river flows on through the vale of Cheapside.

Jane Austen, in her 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice, characterizes Cheapside as a London neighbourhood frowned upon by the landed elite:^[3]

"I think I have heard you say that their uncle is an attorney in Meryton"

"Yes; and they have another, who lives somewhere near Cheapside."

"That is capital," added her sister, and they both laughed heartily.

"If they had uncles enough to fill all Cheapside," cried Bingley, "it would not make them one jot less agreeable."

"But it must very materially lessen their chance of marrying men of any consideration in the world," replied Darcy.

Charles Dickens, Jr wrote in his 1879 book Dickens's Dictionary of London:

" Cheapside remains now what it was five centuries ago, the greatest thoroughfare in the City of London. Other localities have had their day, have risen, become fashionable, and have sunk into obscurity and neglect, but Cheapside has maintained its place, and may boast of being the busiest thoroughfare in the world, with the sole exception perhaps of London-bridge. "^[4]

Hugh Lofting's book Doctor Dolittle, published in 1951, names a quarrelsome London sparrow with a Cockney accent Cheapside. He lives most of the year in St. Edmund's left ear in St. Paul's Cathedral and is invited to the African country of Fantippo to deliver mail to cities because the other birds are not able to navigate city streets.

In a more contemporary treatment, the Cheapside of the Middle Ages was referenced in a derogatory sense in the 2001 movie A Knight's Tale—as being the poor, unhealthy and low-class birthplace and home of the unlikely hero.

Also, Mary "Jacky" Faber lived there in Bloody Jack by L. A. Meyer

[edit] Contemporary Cheapside

Cheapside today is a street of offices and developments of retail outlets encouraged by the City of London's planning policies from the beginning of the millennium.^{[citation needed]} It can no longer be described as "the busiest thoroughfare in the world" (as in Charles Dickens, Jr's day) and is instead simply one of many routes connecting the East End and the City of London with the West End.

Cheapside was extensively damaged during Luftwaffe Blitz raids in late 1940 and particularly during the The Second Great Fire of London. Much of the rebuilding following these raids occurred during the 1950s and 1960s and included a number of unsympathetic contemporary attempts at recreating the centuries-old architecture that had been destroyed. In recent years many of these buildings have themselves been demolished as a programme of regeneration takes place along Cheapside from Paternoster Square to Poultry.

[edit] Etymology and usage

Cheapside is a common English street name, meaning "market-place", from Old English ceapan, 'to buy' (cf. German kaufen, Dutch kopen), whence also chapman and chapbook.^[5] There is originally no connection to the modern meaning of cheap ('low price', a shortening of good ceap, 'good buy'), though by the 18th century this association may have begun to be inferred.

Other cities and towns in England that have a Cheapside street include Barnsley, Birmingham, Bradford, Brighton, Bristol, Derby, Halifax, Lancaster, Leicester, Luton, Manchester, Nottingham, Reading, and Ascot. There is also a Cheapside in the Capital City of Barbados, Bridgetown and in London, Ontario, Canada.

[edit] References

Sources consulted

• A Glossary and Etymological Dictionary: Of Obsolete and Uncommon Words William Toone (Bennett: London, 1834)
• Kings and Queens of Britian, Williamson, D. (1986), Salem House, ISBN 0-88162-213-3.

Endnotes

[edit] External links

• View, looking eastwards, of Cheapside in early Stuart times, showing the Cheapside Cross and the Standard

• The Cheapside Initiative official website