CHAPTER XIII - The Wood-Michell Estate
This estate was developed between 1718
and 1728 by Charles Wood of Lincoln’s
Inn, esquire, and Simon Michell of Lin
coln’s Inn and the Middle Temple, esquire. (fn. a) It
had formed part of that southern section of Loles
worth field which had been conveyed by William
Wheler of Datchet in 1649 to Edward Nicholas
and George Cooke in trust to raise portions for
his seven daughters. The southern part of the
Wood-Michell estate, including the north and
south sides of Fournier Street, had formed, with
other ground, one of the seven ‘lots’ into which
the daughters’ property was partitioned in 1675.
In the later seventeenth century this southern
part consisted mainly of a tenter ground and a row
of houses called the ‘Tenter Ground Range’. The
larger northern part of the Wood-Michell estate
had been known in the later seventeenth century
as ‘Joyce’ Garden’ and had been held since the
partition by the daughters in undivided seventh
parts. It was bounded on the north by Brown’s
Lane (now part of Hanbury Street), on the east by
property of Joseph Truman and Henry Coates on
the west side of Brick Lane and by Brick Lane
itself, on the south by the ‘Tenter Ground Range’
(now represented by the north side of Fournier
Street) and on the west by property on the east side
of Red Lion Street (fig. 4o). (fn. b)
In May 1672, after the decease of both William
Wheler and his wife, their seven daughters, and
the husbands of three of them, brought a petition
in Chancery against Nicholas and Cooke. (ref. 3) This
affirmed that the trustees had conspired with
Thomas Joyce of London, merchant, to deprive
the daughters of the benefit of a ‘great part’ of
their property. This part was ‘Joyce's Garden’,
forming in fact only a comparatively small part of
the daughters’ inheritance. The conspiracy was
said to have been made under pretext of leasehold
rights which Joyce claimed to possess by a lease of
March 1648/9, granted by William Wheler of
Datchet to one John Dashwood at a small rent.
Joyce claimed to be entitled thereby to the land for
thirty-one years from the expiry, in about 1670,
of earlier leases.
The petitioners contested the validity of such
leases, and further claimed that if they were in
force it was only under conditions and limitations
by which ‘several buildings and improvements
were to be made’. It appears from subsequent
descriptions of the ground that it was occupied by
Joyce as gardens.
From Joyce’s answer it seems that the lease of
1648/9 included property granted by the Whelers
in three leases of 1638–9 to William Wilton of
Stepney, gardener, Thomas Stafford of Stepney,
gardener, and Henry Coleman of Spital fields. By
1648 the ground appears to have contained a mes
suage, garden, shed and two little houses (in all,
three acres); a brick messuage, workshop, garden
and two tenements; and two brick messuages and
an orchard on which at least another six messuages
had been erected.
Joyce recited the assignment of the 1648/9
lease to him by John Dashwood in February
1660/1 for £270: the cumulative term then had
about forty-one years to run. Both parties to the
suit of 1672 agreed that a Chancery decree, made
in consequence of a complaint brought by Nicholas
and Cooke and Jane Wheler in 1663, had ordered
Nicholas and Cooke to make confirmatory leases
to Joyce: this judgement had been confirmed in
substance by a second judgement of May 1671.
Joyce claimed in 1672 that subsequent to this
assignment of 1660/1 he had spent £800 on
buildings, raising the yearly value of the property
from £20 to £140 per annum. (ref. 3) There is, how
ever, very little building shown on the ground in
Ogilby and Morgan's maps of 1677 and 1681–2.
The precise outcome of this suit is not known,
but Joyce appears to have remained in possession,
under the leasehold tenure which expired in about
1701.
Figure 40:
The Wood-Michell estate, lay-out plan. Based on the Ordnance Survey 1873–5
A. Sold to ‘Fifty Churches’ Commissioner, 1713
B. Sold to Anne Fowle by 1714/15
C. Acquirtd by Simon Michell. 1728
The means by which Wood and Michell
acquired the freehold of Joyce’s Garden, forming
the northern portion of their estate, is not known
in detail. By the beginning of the eighteenth
century it was shared between six surviving
daughters. One of these shares, that of Katherine
Wheler who married John Balch, was acquired by
Wood and Michell in July 1708, (ref. 4) and four other
shares were probably acquired in August 1713,
April 1714 and May and July 1716; (ref. 5) by March
1713/14 they certainly already had an interest in
the second of these. (ref. 6) By August 1717 they were
ible to make an agreement regarding building on
the estate (see page 188). It IB not clear, however,
why they had been able to sell part of Joyce’s Gar
den, as they did, by February I714/15 (ref. 7) (see
page 221). In February 1718/19 they acquired
the reversionary interest in another share; (ref. 8) they
had, however, begun to build in the previous year.
Their ownership appears never to have included
the north-eastern part of Joyce's Garden, fronting east on Brick Lane, and north and south on
120-foot frontages on Brown’s Lane and the line
of Princelet Street. In March 1712/13 this was
owned by Joseph Truman, the brewer, who had
bought it from Samuel Hannott and his wife
Elizabeth in 1705. It had presumably formed
part of the Wheler estate. (ref. 9) The eastern end of
the south side of Princelet (formerly Princes)
Street, occupied by the site of No. 26 in that
street and of No. 63 Brick Lane, was also
probably never in Wood’s and Michell’s pos
session, while the eastern end of the north side
of Fournier Street occupied by No. 39 and the
Great Synagogue (formerly French Church) and
school had been sold by them by February
1714/15. All this eastern part of the Garden is,
however, included in this chapter together with
the north side of Hanbury Street, west of Brick
Lane, which was part of the Wheler estate never
owned by Wood and Michell.
In a deed of May 1702 the Joyce’s Garden
property is described as separated from Brick
Lane by a mud wall and from Brown’s Lane
partly by a brick wall and partly by a mud wall:
houses are mentioned fronting Brown’s Lane and
on the south and west sides but the greater part of
the property was not built on, as is shown on Gas
coine's map of the following year, and was partly
occupied by William Wilson, gardener. (ref. 10)
Wood and Michell acquired the southern part
of their property through one of the seven Wheler
daughters to whom it fell by lot in 1675. In that
year the partition among the daughters of their
part of Lolesworth field, excluding Joyce’s Gar
den, was decided on. In April/May one of the
seven parts was conveyed to a daughter by William
Bowdler and Henry Beresford, drapers of London,
to whom Nicholas and Cooke had conveyed the
daughters' inheritance in trust in February, (ref. 11) and
doubtless the other six parts were conveyed at
about the same time. (ref. 12)
Of the seven ‘lots’ or ‘schedules’ into which the
daughters’ property was divided, the seventh
schedule contained the ground later forming the
southern part of the Wood-Michell estate. This
included the irregular row of houses shown by
Ogilby and Morgan on the line of the later north
ern side of Fournier Street, called the ‘Tenter
Ground Range’, and the northern part of the
tenter ground south of this range, containing
houses and ‘tenters’ leased to ‘Rawlins Tryan’ (or
Rowland Tryon), houses and ground leased to
one Richards (previously to a Mrs. Williams), and
a ‘Spinning ground’ leased to John Bennett. (ref. 13)
Part of this tenter ground property was sold by
Wood and Michell to the ‘Fifty Churches’ Com
missioners to form the site of Christ Church,
Spitalfields, and its rectory (see page 152 and
Plate 7a), and the remainder was built or rebuilt
as Church (now Fournier) Street. The seventh
schedule also included ground in Smock Alley
(now Artillery Passage and part of Artillery Lane,
see Chapter XIV).
This schedule fell to the lot of Katherine
Wheler. In March 1679 she settled it on trus
tees, in contemplation of her forthcoming marriage
to John Balch, a silk thrower, and also settled
similarly her seventh-part of the reversionary
interest in the unpartitioned land leased to Joyce.
This reversionary interest had previously been
conveyed to the seven daughters by Bowdler and
Beresford in January 1678/9. (ref. 14)
After the death of John Balch, whose will was
made in October 1682 and proved in February
1682/3, (ref. 15) the tenter ground
and spinning groundproperty comprised in the seventh schedule
descended to his daughter Elizabeth, described in
1702 as of the Old Artillery Ground, who mar
ried John Atkinson and was dead without issue by
July 1708. Her seventh-schedule property and
her share in Joyce’s Garden (and also her share in
the site of Spitalfields Market) then came into the
joint possession of two coheirs, distant relations of
her father, Joan, wife of Henry Exon of North
Cory, Somerset, yeoman, and Elizabeth (then
aged about thirteen), the daughter of John Moore
of the same place. (ref. 16) In July 1708 an agreement
was made between Henry Exon and John Moore
on the one hand, and Wood and Michell on the
other, whereby the seventh schedule and other
property was conveyed to Edward Haulsey of
Staple Inn, gentleman, in trust for Wood and
Michell. (ref. 17)
The connexions which Wood and Michell
had with Somerset by birth (see above) and their
ownership of property in that county, which
appears in their wills, (ref. 18) may in part account for
their acquisition of the property from Exon and
Moore.
Balch had died in debt (ref. 19) and his daughter had
raised mortgages on the property in 1701–3;
these also were assigned in trust for Wood and
Michell in July 1711. (ref. 20)
The possession by Wood and Michell of that moiety of the seventh-schedule property which
descended to Elizabeth Moore was apparently
liable to question. The precise form of the agree
ment in July 1708 with her father, and Henry
Exon, is not known. Elizabeth was then about
thirteen years of age, and in the following month,
when Wood and Michell agreed to convey the
moiety of Spitalfields Market previously belonging
to Joan Exon, they agreed only that they would
cause Elizabeth Moore to convey the other moiety
when she came of age. (ref. 21)
In 1713 part of the seventh-schedule property
was sold to the ‘Fifty Churches’ Commissioners to
provide the site of the rectory and church. The
deed of sale recited that a few months earlier
Elizabeth, still under age, had petitioned the
Court of Chancery that she was entitled to one
moiety of the property and that the whole was
subject to a mortgage assigned to Wood and
Michell. The Master in Chancery had reported
that the proposed sale to the Commissioners was
for her benefit, but that half the purchase money
should, in consideration of her moiety, be applied
towards paying off this mortgage. (ref. 20) On the same
day that Haulsey, Wood and Michell, and John
and Elizabeth Moore had conveyed the two
moieties of the church and rectory site to the
Commissioners, Wood and Michell and their
trustee assigned to one of the Commissioners the
mortgage of the same site. (ref. 20)
In one of the plans made for the Commissioners
at the time of this sale part of the seventh-schedule
property not sold, and later forming the south side
of Fournier Street, is described as ‘Ground to be
lett to build on’ (see Plate 7a). Building did not,
however, follow immediately. A contributory
reason may have been that clarification of Wood’s
and Michell’s title perhaps had to await Elizabeth
Moore’s coming of age, which would have hap
pened in about 1716. In August 1717 Wood and
Michell were in a position to come to an agree
ment with Samuel Worrall, carpenter, regarding
building on the estate. (ref. 22) In April 1718, probably
shortly before building actually commenced,
Elizabeth Moore is said to have come to an agree
ment to convey all the land she had from Elizabeth
Balch, in possession or reversion, to Isaac Hull of
Stepney, gentleman, probably as a trustee. No
conveyance appears to have been made in com
pliance with this agreement until April 1732,
after the death of Charles Wood, when Elizabeth
agreed to convey the property to a trustee for
Simon Michell. (ref. 23) This conveyance was the sub
ject of an action in the Court of Exchequer, and
in 1737/8 an order of the House of Lords,
reversing a decree of that Court, required Simon
Michell and Charles Wood’s heir to convey
Elizabeth Moore's moiety of Spitalfields Market
to representatives of her interest. (ref. 24)
Nevertheless, from 1718 Wood and Michell
were able to grant building leases, and their
property in Joyce’s Garden and the tenter ground
was built up in streets by 1728.
Not very much is known of the two joint
owners responsible for the building-up of the
estate. Charles Wood lodged in 1712‘at one
Mr. Brawnes … a Haberdashers in Chancery
Lane'. (ref. 25) In 1729 he was one of the Commis
sioners of Sewers for the Tower Hamlets. (ref. 26) In
his will of December 1730, proved in April 1731,
he described himself as of Lincoln's Inn, esquire,
but left legacies to such servants ‘as shall be living
with me (in case I dye in Spittlefields) at the time
of my death’. From the testimony given to the
authenticity of the will, and other evidence, it
appears that he was living in Spitalfields in July
1730 and at the time of his death. He left all his
real and personal estate in Middlesex, Somerset and
Devon to his only son, Henry Byam Wood. He
appointed Byam Wood of Luckham, Somerset,
esquire, Robert Vincent of Ludgate Street,
stationer, and Edward Periam of Bartholomew
Lane, gentleman, guardians of his son, and gave
them authority to sell his estate in Middlesex. (ref. 27) (fn. c)
Simon Michell was responsible, in addition to
the building in Spitalfields, for the construction of
Red Lion Street, Clerkenwell (partly surviving as
Britton Street), in about 1719–21 on a site
acquired by him in about 1715, (fn. d) and for the re
building of the church of the Priory of St. John of
Jerusalem. (ref. 29) Nos. 21, 27, 54 and 59 Britton
Street (ref. 30) have wooden doorcases with cornice-hoods
and carved trusses, very similar to those of houses
on the Wood-Michell estate built under leases to
William Tayler, carpenter or joiner (No. 2
Wilkes Street and Nos. 16, 17 and 18 Fournier
Street), and were perhaps also built by him.
Michell is said to have purchased in 1721 the
church of the Priory of St. John of Jerusalem, and
to have rebuilt it: in 1723 he sold it to the ‘Fifty
Churches’ Commissioners, who converted it into
the parish church of St. John Clerkenwell. (ref. 31)
Michell, who in 1732 was a Commissioner of
Sewers for Holborn and Finsbury, (ref. 26) is said to have
lived in a large house in Red Lion Street and to
have been one of the first churchwardens of St.
John's parish. In 1903 the vestry-room of the
church contained a portrait of him and his wife,
and the church contained a mural tablet recording
his arms, (fn. e) and his descent from a Somersetshire
family. (ref. 32) According to a historian of Clerkenwell
writing in 1828, ‘Notwithstanding that Mr.
Michell was a liberal benefactory to St. John's, the
populace, by whom as a magistrate he had been
much disliked, were with difficulty restrained on
his interment here, from committing outrage on
his remains’. (ref. 33)
His will, made in May 1748 and proved in
September 1750, mentions the organ set up by
him in the church of St. John Clerkenwell, ‘when
a chapel belonging to me’, before its conveyance to
the Commissioners ‘made by me and Mr. Richard
Hatton deceased (who was my brother-in-law and
trustee)’. It also mentions leasehold property in
Turnmill Street, Clerkenwell, property in St.
Sepulchre's parish, a copyhold estate at Fulham,
and an estate at Alvington in Somerset. The
residue of his estate (which would have included
his moiety of the Spitalfields property, which is not
specifically mentioned) was to be sold when his
grandson John came of age and the money used to
buy land, other than building-land or farmhouses:
his trustees were in the meantime not
to let the land for longer than twenty-one
years. (ref. 34)
In the early years of the development of the
estate Wood and Michell granted some outright
conveyances of building sites on the north side of
Princelet Street and south side of Hanbury Street,
but subsequently granted only building leases. In
Princelet Street these were sometimes for sixty or
sixty-one years, but sometimes for ninety-nine
years, and in the later development of Wilkes
Street and Fournier Street leases for terms of
ninety-six, ninety-eight or ninety-nine years seem
always to have been granted.
When Wood and Michell acquired their
interest in the estate it had roads already established
on its eastern and northern borders, Brick Lane on
the east communicating between Whitechapel
and Bethnal Green, and Brown's Lane on the
north connecting Brick Lane and Wheler Street.
When the new church was built near the south-western
corner of the estate the attractions of the
area for residential purposes were increased and
provision was made for the construction of the
east-to-west street known as Church (later Fournier)
Street. The first building by Wood and
Michell was, however, in Princelet Street, to
connect Brick Lane with the ‘cross-street’ called
Wood Street (the southern part of the present
Wilkes Street), which was constructed to run
south from Brown's Lane to the new church. The
construction of Church Street by the rebuilding
of the old ‘Tenter Ground Range’ already existing
on its north side and the building of its south side
flush with the north side of the church was the
last part of the estate to be completed.
In October 1718 Wood and Michell petitioned
the Tower Hamlets Commissioners of Sewers for
permission to make a sewer from houses they were
then building in Princes or Princess (now Princelet)
Street and Brown's Lane. In November they
were granted permission to make a sewer along
Brown's Lane ‘and so from thence to return
southwards crosse Joyces Garden towards the
Church so far as their land extends’, apparently
along the line of Wood Street, and to make a
sewer running ‘from about the middle of the said
intended Crosse sewer … thro Princesse Street’
to the common sewer in Booth Street. The Commissioners
reserved the right to allow anyone to
make a drain from houses in Red Lion Street,
across the land of Wood and Michell ‘lying on the
west side of the cross street intended to be built by
them’, that is, Wood Street. (ref. 35)
Builders on the Estate
Of the builders employed by Wood and Michell
on their estate the most prominent was Samuel
Worrall, a carpenter, whose yard and dwelling
house (which last still survives with a rebuilt front)
lay between Princelet and Fournier Streets. (fn. f) He
first occurs in an agreement of August 1717, to
which reference is made in a deed of September
1718, between himself and Wood and Michell
relating to building on all or part of Joyce’s Gar
den. (ref. 22)
The details of this agreement are not
known, but if it was intended to lease the whole
property to Worrall as chief contractor this
arrangement must have been abandoned as all the
building leases were granted by Wood and Michell
alone or with their trustees. Worrall, however,
witnessed leases granted to William Tayler, as he
did a deed concerning No. 30 Spital Square on the
Tillard estate, and was probably the chief builder
on the Wood-Michell estate. He was employed
on the carpenter’s work in Christ Church from
November 1723 after the death of James Grove,
the carpenter first employed. He was also em
ployed in 1733–4 to build houses on the east
corner of Tabernacle Yard (later Church Passage
and now Nantes Passage) and Lamb Street, on the
Wheler estate (see page 106 and Plate 64b). In
1723 he was elected overseer of the poor for the
hamlet of Spitalfields (ref. 36) and in 1729 gave evidence,
as churchwarden of the hamlet, to a Parliamen
tary Committee on the readiness of the church for
consecration. (ref. 37) In 1744 he was one of the trustees
making an assignment of the parish almshouses in
Crispin Street. (ref. 38) A Samuel Worrall of Spitalfields
undertook in 1745 to provide seven of his work
men in arms to resist the Young Pretender. (ref. 39) In
1747 ‘Mr. Samuel Worrall of Spittle fields, Sur
veyor’ was asked by the ‘Fifty Churches’ Com
missioners to report to them on the value of work
to be done at St. John’s Clerkenwell, adjoining
Michell’s property there, (ref. 40) and in 1752 a Samuel
Worrall was a member of a parish committee
which considered the acquisition of the former
French church in Black Eagle Street. (ref. 41) In 1755
Worrall assigned the lease of a house on the south
side of Lamb Street as a ‘carpenter and builder’. (ref. 42)
He appears to have occupied his house at the back
of Princelet Street until at least 1759. (ref. 43)
In July 1727 Worrall mortgaged his lease of
Nos. 31–37 (odd) Fournier Street and of his
dwelling-house and yard to Richard Michell, the
son of Simon Michell, and another mortgagee, to
secure £1,000. By September 1732 he had re
deemed the mortgage. (ref. 44)
On Rocque’s map of 1746 the yard in front of
his house is marked as a ‘timber yard’. This may
represent an aspect of his business, as a Samuel
Worrall of Spitalfields, timber merchant, witnessed
a deed in January 1734/5. (ref. 45)
A Samuel Worrall was concerned with property
in Kingsland Road, Shoreditch in 1725. (ref. 46)
In November 1739 a deed relating to property
in Crispin Street, to which William Goswell was a
party, was witnessed by a Samuel Worrall of
Gloucester, notary public. (ref. 47) The relationship of
this witness to the builder is not known, but it may
indicate that the builder was connected with the
Worrall family which was active in building
enterprises in Bristol in the eighteenth century. (ref. 48)
A West Country connexion might partly explain
Worrall’s employment by Wood and Michell
who had Somerset origins and interests. (fn. g)
The Spitalfields carpenter was undoubtedly re
lated to the Samuel Worrall who was master of
the Masons’ Company in 1739 and who, together
with John Worrall, provided the design for the
Town Hall of Berwick-on-Tweed between 1750
and 1755, both being described as of London. (ref. 50)
In 1735 the lease of the house built by Samuel
Worrall, carpenter, on the corner of Lamb Street
and Tabernacle Yard was assigned by Samuel
Worrall, ‘citizen and mason of London’, to John
Worrall of Spitalfields, carpenter. (ref. 51) The propor
tions and design of the church-like Berwick Town
Hall may be reminiscent of Christ Church,
Spitalfields.
The Joseph Worrall of White’s Row, carpen
ter, who was elected headborough in April 1792
was perhaps also a relation. (ref. 52)
A ‘Marmaduke Smith’ (or Smyth) also occurs
on a number of occasions as a builder on the estate.
He was sometimes described as a carpenter of
Spitalfields and sometimes as a citizen and black
smith of London; it is not certain whether the
same person is indicated by these designations.<A Marmaduke Smith, carpenter, was one of the contractors working on the London Custom House in 1717-21 (see London Topographical Record, vol.XXI, 1958).>
No. 5 Princelet Street was occupied in 1724 and
1725 by Marmaduke Smith, carpenter, (ref. 53) the
house having been built under a building lease to
Marmaduke Smyth, citizen and blacksmith.
No. 4/6 Fournier Street was built under a build
ing lease to Marmaduke Smith, carpenter, in 1726
and was presumably thenceforward occupied by
him as his initials are on a rainwater-head and in
1727 he was described as of Church (Fournier)
Street: (ref. 54) he appears subsequently to have acquired
the freehold. (ref. 43) The excellence of the ironwork,
however, indicates that a blacksmith of some skill
may have worked on the house. A Marmaduke
Smith of Spitalfields, gentleman, witnessed a deed
relating to a house in Spital Square on the Tillard
estate in 1734 (see page 66), and a Marmaduke
Smith similarly described in 1735 was a legatee
under the 1715 will of Thomas Slemaker,
probably the bricklayer employed on the founda
tions of Christ Church. (ref. 55) (fn. h)
The third builder conspicuous on the estate was
William Tayler (or Taylor), sometimes described
as carpenter of Spitalfields and sometimes as
citizen and joiner of London, by which the same
individual is almost certainly meant. The ‘citizen
and joiner’ was granted the building leases of
houses on the north side of Fournier Street and
the west side of Wilkes Street, most of which are
architecturally unremarkable and some of which,
now rebuilt, may have been indifferently con
structed: they include, however, some doorcases
of good joiner's work similar to those built on the
Michell estate in Clerkenwell (see above) and
also similar to those of Nos. 16 and 18 Fournier
Street, built under leases to the ‘carpenter of
Spitalfields’ who was also responsible for the
building of No. 14 Fournier Street, in which he
lived, and which possesses the finest wooden door
case in Spitalfields. He was described as ‘gentle
man’ in July 1726 (ref. 57) and as ‘esquire’, of Church
(Fournier) Street in September 1734. (ref. 58) He was
doubtless the William Tayler (or Taylor) em
ployed by the Weavers' Company in 1729,
together with William Goswell of Norton Fol
gate, to build their almshouses in that liberty.
Goswell himself built No. 6 Princelet Street
and occurs as witness to a building lease of Nos. 23
and 25 Fournier Street.
Edward Grange of Spitalfields, carpenter, who
built two houses in Fournier Street, was also
employed in Norton Folgate, on the Tillard
estate, in building the south side of Blossom Ter
race. In the 1720’s he was also active on the
Bacon estate in Bethnal Green. In 1735 he was
one of the overseers of the poor for Christ Church,
Spitalfields, who took an assignment of the lease of
the parish workhouse in Bell Lane. (ref. 59) He was
perhaps the Edward Grange of Spitalfields who
undertook in 1745 to provide six of his workmen
in arms to resist the Young Pretender. (ref. 39)
Builders other than carpenters or joiners do not
often occur in the building leases granted by
Wood and Michell. Henry Conyers, bricklayer,
occurs in Fournier Street, and Samuel Phipps,
also a bricklayer, in Princelet Street, being des
cribed in 1728 as ‘bricklayer, citizen and ar
mourer'. (ref. 60) In 1735 Phipps witnessed a deed to
which Marmaduke Smith was a party, relating to
property east of Brick Lane. (ref. 61) Edward Buckingham, mason, of St. Clement Danes, John
Ummandine, citizen and glazier, and Daniel
Bray, citizen and painter, also occur as grantees in
Princelet Street only, but they may well have later
worked on other houses on the estate.