Note 164 — XXXII.—GREAT QUEEN STREET (General.)

On 31st October, 1617, a warrant was issued to Thos. Norton, “Surveyor of His Majesty’s Wayes and Passages,” calling attention to the fact that in spite of the King’s commands, “sundry persons have gotten and used false keyes for opening the lockes and gates of His Majesties private passages through the feildes neere the Cittie of London, and that divers unruly coachmen, carters, and others, have and doe use with great hammers and other like tools to breake open the said gates.” (Privy Council Register, XXIX., 153.) This warrant seems almost too late to refer to Great Queen Street, and yet the fact that it also deals with the steps to be taken against “one Holford and his tennantes” for their default in allowing “the streete in Drury Lane in his Maties ordinary way” to be very noisome, seems to point to the Theobalds route. Perhaps the fields north of Holborn are referred to.