Tower Street – Seething Lane – Naval Office

Stow, John (1525-1605)/ Strype, John (1643–1737): Tower Street Ward with its Divisions…

W.Innys and J.Richardson [et al] London 1754-55

copper engraved map; overall 42 x 45 cm, plate 30 x 36 cm. folds as issued; some foxing, staining and off-set; some discolouration in centrefold ; paper imperfections; o/w vg cond.

First published in 1720, Strype’s re-issue appears as a much larger and expanded, 2 volume publication of Stow’s ‘Survey’ which, originally, was published in 1598. Strype added to Stow’s original account numerous information about customs, institutions, monuments, charities, events like the Great Fire of London, the guilds and wards as well as detailed descriptions of the parish churches, and the city itself, and used a lot of Stow’s original 17th century material that was excluded by Stow himself.

Ward map with Table of Reference from Strype’s ‘A Survey of the Cities of Westminster, and the Borough of Southwark. Containing The Original, Antiquity, Increase, present State and Government of those cities. Written in the Year 1698….[corrected to 1598 in Vol II] Corrected, Improved, and very much Enlarged, in the year 1720, By John Strype….’. There are 25 ancient wards in the City of London which are still used for local elections. – ySomewhere on Tower Street, Lloyd’s Coffee House was founded by Edward Lloyd in 1688, establishing the insurance market Lloyd’s of London which in 1691 moved to Lombard Street and is now situated in Lime Street. – In the late 16th century, No 35 was the mansion of Sir Francis Walsingham (1530-1590), Secretary of State and Spy Master to Elizabeth I; where he died in 1590. In 1656, The Navy Office was built. Six years before the great Fire of 1666, Pepys’ household was located in a house near the Navy Office buildings in Seething Lane

John Strype was the son of Huguenot immigrants from Brabant who was educated at St. Paul’s School and later at Jesus College,Cambridge. After completing his studies in 1669, he became curate of Theydon Bois and afterwards in Leyton.Though never being inducted, he was licensed by the Bishop of London ‘to preach and expound the word of God, and to perform the office of priest and curate while it was vacant’. In 1711, he obtained the sinecure of West Tarring, Sussex. He died in Hackney where he held a position as lecturer until 1689, at the age of 94. – The Survey is one of his major works.