A history of the gardens of the Royal College of Physicians of London
Editor – I was delighted to read Arthur Hollman's article on a neglected area of the College's history (Clin Med June 2009 pp 242–6). May I make some minor additions to the story?
At Knightrider Street, the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) almost certainly did not have a garden on the premises. Contrary to the usual perception, the RCP did not own the whole house. After Linacre's death, the majority of the building, including the garden, was clearly the property of Merton College, the RCP having only two rooms at the front, the will stating:
And ferther I will and bequeth the chappell and the chamber over the chappell wythin my howse where I now dwell wyth in the citie off London to the College of Phicicons of London and to ther successors for ever …
The College therefore would have had to look elsewhere for a garden.
At Amen Corner, there was undoubtedly a garden. In Stow's Survey of London, under ‘Farringdon Ward, infra or within’ he states that:
Now to turn up again to the north end of Ave Mary Lane, there is a short lane which runneth west some small distance, and there is closed up with a gate into a great house; and this is called Amen Lane.
This is presumably the house which the College bought, and is shown on the copperplate map. However the copperplate map is somewhat misleading on the issue of the garden. As noted in the article, it probably dates from 1558, and in 1611 the Stationers’ Company moved their hall from St Paul's Churchyard to ‘Abergavenny House’, or ‘Bergavenny House’ (rebuilt in 1654). This is referred to in all RCP legal manuscripts as forming the southern boundary of the College's site, and extended up to the City Wall, taking up the southern part of the garden shown on the copperplate map. The statement by Munk, referred to in the article, about a ‘College garden … reached to the church of St Martin Ludgate’ is actually referenced to McMichael's statement to this effect in The gold-headed cane,1 and I can only assume that McMichael had deduced this from the later woodcut Agas map (which is based on the copperplate).
Footnotes
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- © 2009 Royal College of Physicians
Reference
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- MacMichael W
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