Echoes

On Sunday, we walked from the Golden Hinde at London Bridge to Hatton Garden. The reason for the walk was entirely prosaic, taking us from the place we had lunch to the place we were having tea.

Hatton Garden, in Clerkenwell, is named after Christopher Hatton, Lord Chancellor of England under Elizabeth I. A favourite of the Queen, in 1581 he was given the garden of the Bishop of Ely’s palace. The site has carried his name ever since (the site of the old palace, incidentally, is the adjacent Ely Place).

Hatton Garden was just one of the many signs of Elizabeth’s favour that enabled him to become fabulously rich. He built Holdenby House, then the largest private house in the land. The extravagance of Holdenby left Hatton nearly bankrupt, and he started investing in the voyages of Francis Drake to rebuild his wealth. The attempt failed and he died penniless, but not before Drake renamed his ship “The Golden Hind” in his honour (his coat of arms was topped by the image of a golden hind).

 

Perhaps this could be a new game. Based on the idea of six degrees of separation, find the historical link between any two places in central London. Given this city’s rich history, it’ll be there…