CHAPTER V - The St. John and Tillard Estate
The greater part of the development of the
precinct in its later form was accomplished
after 1716 under the ownership of Isaac
(after 1722 Sir Isaac) Tillard and his brother
William. But the first and most radical change of
the old precinct lay-out was made during the
ownership of the St. Johns. This was the con
struction of the wide western arm of Spital Square
as a continuation eastward of the entrance from
Bishopsgate Street to pass immediately north
instead of south of the third Earl of Bolingbroke's
house. A new terrace of six houses was con
structed on the north side of this arm of the Square
(Nos. 4–9 consec), and the redevelopment at this
time probably also included the construction of the
later No. 38 (formerly No. 37) facing east and
Nos. 37 and 36 (formerly Nos. 36 and 35) on the
south side of this arm between No. 38 and the
Earl's house. The Earl's house (later Nos. 34 and
35) was also probably rebuilt at this period. All
these buildings are shown on the plans prepared in
about 1711–12 for the proposed building of one of
the ’Fifty New Churches’. A comparison of these
plans with Ogilby and Morgan's map of 1677
leaves it uncertain whether the gateway from
Bishopsgate Street was moved one house-width
northward at this time. The old entrance to the
precinct and priory churchyard was henceforward
a cul-de-sac at its southern end but still retains the
name of Spital Yard previously given to the whole
open space before its reconstruction.
It is not certain when this rebuilding by the St.
Johns took place. Sir Paulet St. John's widow,
Elizabeth, had been interested in building within
the precinct in 1673 when ’a certaine void peeice
or parcell of ground (being already encompassed
about by buildings) now or late, in the possession
of Elizabeth Lady St. John’ within the Liberty of
Norton Folgate, was proposed by her son the
second Earl of Bolingbroke to be exempted from
the provisions of a Bill prohibiting building on new
foundations in London. (ref. 1) But the old lay-out still
existed in 1681–2 (see Plate 2).
In November 1711 the inhabitants of Norton
Folgate Liberty said there was much vacant
ground within the precinct of St. Mary Spital
belonging to the third Earl's mortgagee and heir
which was considered likely to be much improved
by building. (ref. 2)
The later Nos. 1 and 2 Spital Square, on the
north side of the entrance from Bishopsgate
Street, were not rebuilt at this time, and a
court-yard was left between Nos. 2 and 4. In
1711–12 this court is described as leading to the
coach-house and stables of Lord Bolingbroke.
The configuration of the north end of the court
shown on the plans of 1711–12 is similar to that
shown on Ogilby and Morgan. It may represent
the ’great base court or yard’ mentioned in 1580. (fn. a)
On 12–13 July 1716 the St. John estate in
Norton Folgate was conveyed by William, Lord
St. John, John Oneby of London, esquire, Edward
Skeate of London, gentleman, and Jeremy Sam
brooke of London, esquire, to Isaac Tillard of
Stoke Newington, esquire. (ref. 3) The premises were
described as being in Norton Folgate and the
parishes of St. Botolph Bishopsgate and St.
Leonard Shoreditch ’and the precinct of Saint
Mary Le Spittle without Bishopsgate or Some
or one of them’, and as lying ’at or neare the
Spittle Gate and in Hollywell Street [Shoreditch
High Street] in or neare Shoreditch French Court,
White Lyon Street in or neare Norton Folgate
and the New Court or Square within the Spittle
Gate’, together with nine acres of ground ’behind
or neare the said Messuages … commonly called
or knowne by the name or names of the Field
Ground and the Parke’. This latter ground pre
sumably included the area called Porter's Close on
Ogilby and Morgan's map of 1677.
The estate consisted of that part of the priory
precinct which had been granted to Stephen
Vaughan, lying in the Liberty of Norton Folgate
east of Bishopsgate Street, and in addition other
property granted to Stephen Vaughan adjoining
this to the north and lying in the parish of St.
Leonard Shoreditch (see pages 39, 42). After the
acquisition, perhaps in 1719, of property from the
Wheler family, the area of the Tillard estate was
virtually coincident with the eighteenth-century
boundary of the Liberty of Norton Folgate
except on the north where it was more extensive
(fig. 9).
At the time of the conveyance an old precinct
gate may still have survived. The previous year
part of the priory buildings is said still to have been
standing. In February 1714/15 John Bagford
wrote a letter prefaced to Thomas Hearn's
edition of John Leland's Collectanea: in this he
spoke of the remains of dissolved monasteries as
the oldest houses in London: ’the oldest I have
seen is now standing at the Spittle in Bishops-Gate
Street, being the Spittle House, strongly built with
Timber, with a Turret at one Corner, which I
take to be very ancient.’ (ref. 4) This does not seem
likely to refer to the Earl's house, and may perhaps
refer to the gateway, the 'grete gate' mentioned in
1676 (see page 45).
Figure 9:
The St. John-Tillard estate, lay-out plan. Based
on a plan in the Public Record Office and on the Ordnance Survey 1873–5
----- Boundary of estate
. . . . Norton Folgate Liberty boundary
Hatching denotes buildings swept away by
Commercial Street
Near the site of the later No. 22 Spital Square
an ’Old House’ is marked on some of the 1711–12
plans, approached by a flight of steps and traversed
by a winding passage: this may perhaps represent a
priory building converted into tenements. ’Old
buildings’ are also marked north of it, near the
later Nos. 18 and 19, but these are not readily
identifiable on Ogilby and Morgan and may not
have been ancient.
The development of the estate under the Til
lards consisted in Spital Square and Folgate Street
of the development of areas already wholly or par
tially built-up in the seventeenth century, and in
Elder Street, Blossom Street, Fleur-de-lis Street
and the northern cross-street called Porter Street
on Rocque and later known as Blossom Terrace,
of the construction of substantially new streets
built on the former Porter's Close and the ’Field
Ground and the Parke or Porter's Field’. The
completed lay-out is shown on Rocque's map of
1746 (Plate 3).
The greater part of the estate was intended for
mainly residential purposes and there seems to
have been no desire to provide improved access
from Bishopsgate Street to the built-up area of
Spitalflelds. The comparatively narrow western
entrance to Spital Square was left unaltered and
the Square was kept free of wheeled traffic by
bars or posts. The full width of Fleur-de-lis
Street was not carried west to Bishopsgate
Street or east to Wheler Street, from which it
was separated by part of the Wheler estate.
Access from Bishopsgate Street to Wheler Street
was provided by the existing line of White Lion
(now Folgate) Street which in consequence
probably had a less residential character than the
rest of the Tillard estate.
Most of the domestic buildings of the estate
were built between 1722 and 1727. The south
eastern part of the northern arm of Spital Square
and the northern side of the eastern arm were not
built until 1732–3 and the southern side of the
eastern arm probably not until 1739.
The Tillards were of Huguenot origin, and had
settled at Totnes in Devon in the sixteenth cen
tury, members of the family being mayors of that
town in the early seventeenth century. (ref. 5) Isaac
Tillard was knighted in May 1722, (ref. 6) and died in
May 1726 ’at his House in Spittal Square of
a Pleuretic Feaver’. He was described as ’a
Gentleman of Great Merit and of the Best of
Characters’ and as ’Colonel of the 2nd Regiment
in the Royal Hamlets’, a Lieutenant for the
City of London and Deputy Lieutenant for
the County of Middlesex and the Tower Hamlets, a Justice of the Peace, a Commissioner for
the Land Tax and Sewers for Middlesex and
the Tower Hamlets, and a Governor of St.
Thomas's Hospital. ’His Corps was interr'd at
St. Stephen Walbrook, the Herse being preceded
by a fine Detachment of Grenadiers, headed by
Mr. Triquet, (fn. b) all the Honourable Trophies of
Knighthood carried by Mourners, on Horseback,
and a Train of several Coaches and Six’. (ref. 7) In his
will Sir Isaac left two houses in Blow Bladder
Street and Panier Alley to Christ's Hospital, and
left £100 to St. Thomas's Hospital. He left,£100
to the overseers of the poor of Norton Folgate to
be laid out for the benefit of the liberty by them
acting together with ’so many of the inhabitants
of the said Liberty as are my tenants paying
Twenty pounds per annum rent’. He made his
brother William his residuary legatee. (ref. 8) William
Tillard, said to have been an officer of the East
India Company, (ref. 5) apparently lived in Spital Square
until its completion in 1739. In 1729 a deed was
witnessed by his rent gatherer and by his footman.
In 1741 he no longer lived in No. 34/35, which
he leased in 1742 (see page 70). In 1741 and in
his will, made in October 1743 and proved in
April 1745, he was described as of Featherstone
Buildings, Holborn. He left £100 to the Society
for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge and
£100 to St. Thomas's Hospital, and specified
that the Norton Folgate Girls’ Charity School
might continue to occupy its premises in Blossom
Street until 1750: he also left £50 to the poor of
the liberty. His property in Norton Folgate was
divided between his sons James and William, the
former being left the property in Spital Square, the
south side of Folgate Street, and Norton Folgate
High Street between the Square and Folgate
Street, and the latter being left the property on the
north side of Folgate Street, in Elder Street,
Blossom Street and Fleur-de-lis Street, and in the
High Street from Folgate Street north to ’the
alley leading … to Flower de Luce Street’. (ref. 9)
In 1745 and 1769 James Tillard was of St.
George's Bloomsbury and in 1745 William Tillard was of the Inner Temple. (ref. 10) In 1785 and
1794 the northern property was owned by William Tillard of Southampton Street, Bloomsbury. (ref. 11)
By 1808 the two properties were probably reunited, the southern portion at least being owned
by William Tillard, then described as of Gloucester Street, Bloomsbury. (ref. 12) In 1827 all the Tillard
estate in Norton Folgate was owned by James
Tillard of Petham, Kent, from whom it descended
to the Rev. James Arthur Tillard of Barnsley
near Cirencester, who in 1867 was possessed of
the reversionary interest. In that year he mortgaged his interest in the estate, the right being
reserved to him, after the expiry of certain life
interests and prior to the mortgagees taking
possession, to grant leases for twenty-one years,
repairing leases for sixty years or building leases
for ninety-nine years. In March 1871 the mortgage was paid off and in June the Rev. James
Arthur Tillard conveyed his reversionary interest
to his son the Rev. James Tillard of West Mailing,
Kent, who in turn mortgaged his interest, the
period of the mortgage being extended in 1881.
In 1905 the Rev. James Tillard died, as of
Penshurst, Kent, leaving the estate to his children.
Almost all the estate was subsequently sold, a
considerable part by auction in 1919. (ref. 13)
Builders on the Tillard Estate
Of the builders working on the Tillard estate the
most prominent in taking leases appears to have
been William Goswell who was a lessee in Norton
Folgate High Street, Spital Square, Elder Street
and Blossom Terrace. A William Goswell of
Norton Folgate, carpenter, took a lease from the
Earl of Bolingbroke in 1697 and was deceased
in 1728. The lessee from the Tillards, also a
carpenter, was probably a son, and occurs as party
to deeds from 1725 to April 1739, being described
as deceased in July 1739. (ref. 14) He was doubtless
the William Goswell who was one of the two
workmen named, together with the architect, on
the 1736 foundation stone of St. Leonard's
Church, Shoreditch. (ref. 15) Francis Goswell of
Blossom Street, bricklayer, occurs in 1725 as witness to a deed concerning William Goswell, who
in 1734 had his yard near Blossom Street, probably
on the west side in the vicinity of Blossom Place. (ref. 16)
Thomas Bunce of Thrall (now Thrawl) Street,
Spitalfields, plasterer, is known to have been a
party to deeds from 1724 to 1738. He was active
in Elder Street, Fleur-de-lis Street and Blossom
Street. He was probably responsible also for the
building of ’Bunches Alley’ which existed on the
north side of Thrall Street in 1732. (ref. 17)
Jonathan Beaumont, described as mason of
London, who took leases in Spital Square, Fol
gate Street and Elder Street, was apparently a
resident in Norton Folgate in 1729 when a ’Mr.
Jonathan Beaumont’ was an overseer of the poor
for the liberty. (ref. 18)
The responsibility for the actual building of the
individual houses on the Tillard estate is not easily
determined from the available records, as the
various lessees doubtless contracted some of the
work out to other builders. The doorcases in
clude distinct types for which the same builders
were presumably responsible but it is impossible to
associate the distribution of the types with the
identity of the lessees. One type is the Doric
doorcase with triglyphed entablature and rusti
cated pilasters which occurs at Nos. 24 and 26
Folgate Street (Plate 60b) and Nos. 17–19 Spital
Square (Plate 81c), with which Jonathan Beau
mont was associated, and at No. 10 Folgate Street
(and also formerly at Nos. 117–14 Spital Square),
with which Beaumont may also have been asso
ciated. The same type existed at No. 19 Folgate
Street for which Daniel Le Sueur took a building
lease, and still exists at Nos. 9–13 Elder Street
(Plate 63a), with which Thomas Brown, pavior,
and Thomas Bunce, plasterer, were associated. A
rather similar but richer doorcase is at No. 15
Elder Street (Plate 79c, 79d), also associated with
Brown and Bunce. Poorer versions of the same
type occur at No. 28 Elder Street (Plate 62c), of
which the building lease was taken by Isaac
Dupree, weaver, and at Nos. 17–25 Wilkes
Street (Plate 71a), on the Wood-Michell estate,
of which the building lease was granted to Marma
duke Smith, blacksmith, perhaps identifiable with
Marmaduke Smith, carpenter (see page 183).
The pedimented doorcase of No. 30 Elder
Street, of which the building lease was taken by
Isaac Dupree, is very similar to those formerly
at Nos. 30–32 Spital Square (Plates 80a, 80b, 80c),
built by William Goswell and with which the
name of Samuel Worrall, carpenter, is also associated.
The doorcases of Nos. 30–32 Spital Square
have affinities with that of No. 25 which, together with Nos. 21–24 and 26–27, was also
erected under a building lease granted to Goswell
(Plates 58, 59b). The doorcases of Nos. 21–27
are also similar, however, to that of the contemporary house facing Spital Square on the corner
of Church (now Nantes) Passage and Lamb
Street (Plate 64b). This was erected on the
Wheler estate under a building lease granted to
Samuel Worrall (see page 106). The brick
pilasters of this house are, in turn, reminiscent of
those on No. 4/6 Fournier Street (Plate 66b),
built a few years before by Marmaduke Smith,
carpenter, who probably witnessed one of the
deeds relating to Nos. 21–27 Spital Square. The
general character of these latter houses is, however,
distinct from that of No. 4/6 Fournier Street.
The building leases granted to Goswell relate
to houses, such as No. 29 Folgate Street (Plate 61b) and those formerly on the eastern arm of
Spital Square, of noticeably different character
and quality of construction.