Note 53 — XXIII-XXIV.—Nos. 3 and 4, GATE STREET.

The houses to the south of Fortescue’s premises seem to have been built originally as three houses. The southern boundary of Fortescue’s houses is said to be “a greate house lately built by the said William Newton.” This, according to the Hearth Tax Rolls, was the Earl of Northampton’s mansion. Then came “a faire messuage or howse of one Master Crewe,” and to the south of this, at the corner of Great Queen Street, and having a width from north to south of 42 feet, was in 1648 a plot of ground on which “Henry Massingberd intends to erect a house.” (Close Roll, 24 Chas. I. (3411.) Indenture between Humfrey Newton and Henry Massingberd.) If, however, only one house was built on this plot, it was divided quite early, as the premises already appear in two occupations in the Hearth Tax Roll for 1666.