Colourful times in Clerkenwell

I am giving a talk on Tudor and Jacobean Clerkenwell under the title 'Trouble in Turnmill Street' at London Metropolitan Archives on Thursday 16 April at 11.00 am. It will be followed in the afternoon by a guided tour round Clerkenwell (not led by me). There is more information here (scroll down), and details of how to book here.

Turnmill Street (also called Turnbull and Turnball Street) was notorious as one of the wildest streets in London:

Here has beene such a hurry, such a din, such dismall drinking, swearing, and whoring, 't has almost made me mad: We have al liv'd in a continuall Turneball streete.

John Fletcher (1579–1625)

from The Scornful Ladie (co-written with Sir Francis Beaumont [1584–1616]; printed 1616)


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