Note 258 — A BOOK FOR A RAINY DAY (continued 2)

The Old Bun House at Chelsea flourished for nearly a century and a half, and yielded a livelihood to four generations of the same family. In its best days it was the resort of royalty and rank. Queen Charlotte presented Mrs. Hand with a silver mug, containing five guineas. The shop had a pleasant arcaded front, and, besides buns, offered its customers the sight of a number of curiosities. As many as fifty thousand people would assemble here on Good Friday mornings, and it is clear that Mrs. Hand had reason to issue her curious notice. The site of the Bun House and its garden is on the north side of the Pimlico Road, between Union Street and Westbourne Street. The name of Bunhouse Place, at the back, commemorates the establishment, which disappeared in 1839.

The danger of a mob assembling outside a London bun-shop on Good Friday morning has passed away. Mr. Henry Attwell sadly observed, in Notes and Queries, April 28, 1900, that “the last Good Friday of the nineteenth century” found the hot-cross bun degenerated from a spiced bun (“the spice recalling to the few who cared about its religious suggestiveness the embalming of our Lord”) into a vulgarised currant bun marked with deep indentures for convenience of division, instead of the old slight cross in which there was a touch of mystery.