For those new to CabbieBlog or readers who are slightly forgetful, on Saturdays I’m republishing posts, many going back over a decade. Some will still be very relevant while others have become dated over time. Just think of this post as your weekend paper supplement.

Fire Brand (10.09.2010)

The word curfew derives from the Norman French Couvre le Feu – meaning put out your fire, and not as is commonly thought to tell citizens that they must not leave their homes, but since it is bedtime a bell would ring to remind them to extinguish all their fires, something a baker from Pudding Lane in 1666 clearly ignored.

First ordered by William the Conqueror this long lasting tradition is still maintained at Gray’s Inn with a curfew bell rung each evening in South Square, itself the centre of the legal profession since 1370.

Fire, that fear of nay mediaeval city, with its timber framed buildings by the end of the 12th century London’s houses were required to be made of stone on the lower parts and roofs had to be tiled.

Each ward was required to provide poles, hooks, chains and ropes for the demolition of a burning house. Later as homeowners could insure their houses, the insurance companies employed their own firemen to protect those insured properties.

Fire-marks denoting which building was insured with which company were affixed to the front of a building.

These fire-marks can still be found in Goodwins Court, and probably accounts for this little gem remaining intact, which made its first appearance in the rate books in 1690, being described then as a row of tailors.

Approached from St. Martin’s Lane (opposite the Salisbury Buffet public house) through a doorway up a couple of steps this intimate little alley seems positive Dickensian with a row of eight narrow late 18th century shop fronts working gas lamps and an attractive clock face over an archway giving on to Bedfordbury. Take Samuel Johnson’s advice to his companion Boswell when just arriving in London “to survey its innumerable little lane and courts”.