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A plan of the premises demised to Nathaniel Withers

Commentary

Nathaniel Withers, a 'gentleman, of the Parish of St. Giles without Cripplegate' petitioned to acquire the lease of these thirty-three tenements in Bunhill Fields which had fallen into disrepair under the management of his grandfather since the previous lease was granted in 1652. When the City Lands Committee viewed the premises in February 1712/13 following Withers' new petition, it found them 'to be indifferently tenanted being all let to tenants at will and several of them are inmates inhabiting each a separate room, and that many of the houses are out of repair and water comes into the cellars'. Because of the number of tenements and the fact the houses had become multi-occupancy, the surveyor does not delineate interior space or room names; presumably many or most rooms had become sleeping chambers. The majority of the houses, which were brick-built and mostly of one-room plan size (with larger exceptions in the centre and to the left of the image), had substantial gardens attached behind them; the others had similar-sized yards. By 1712 these tenements, in the suburbs where noxious trades were permitted, appear to have housed a colony of metalworkers, judging from the several silver spinners’ and other sheds indicated. The following month Withers proposed to lay out one thousand pounds in new building within seven years, as a condition of his new lease.

Names

Withers, Nathaniel
Olley, John

Date(s)

1652
1712

Country

United Kingdom

Historical Region

Bunhill Fields
London

Description

Detail of coloured plan on paper

Format

Manuscript
Drawing

Type

Genre

Technical Drawing

Publication

Copyright

This research was undertaken by the Geffrye Museum in 2004
Image copyright Corporation of London Record Office

Location

Corporation of London Record Office (CLRO) Plans, (5492): City Lands and Bridge House Properties, Vol. 1: c.1680-1720, p. 95.

Record ID

RP1108