A group of inns which remained more recently were Ridler's "Bell and Crown," the old "Bell," and the "Black Bull," all on the north side of Holborn. Of these, the most picturesque was the "Bell," about which I have been able to ascertain some curious facts. The earliest notice of it that has come to light was on the 14th of March, 1538, when William Barde sold a messuage with garden called the "Bell," in the parish of St. Andrew, Holborn, to Richard Hunt, citizen and girdler. The latter, who died in 1569, gave thirty sacks of charcoal yearly for ever, as a charge on the property, to be distributed to thirty poor persons of the parish. After various changes of ownership, in 1679-80 it passed into the hands of Ralph Gregge, and his grandson sold it in 1722 to Christ's Hospital. In the deed of sale three houses are mentioned and described as "formerly one great mansion-house or inn known as the Bell or Blue Bell." About two years before, the front of the premises facing Holborn had been rebuilt, when the sculptured arms of Gregge were let into the wall in front; these arms are now at the Guildhall Museum. The "Bell" became a coaching house of considerable reputation, that part of the business being about the year 1836 in the hands of Messrs. B. W. and H. Horne, who, as coach proprietors, were second only to William Chaplin. For many years, until finally closed in September, 1897, the house was managed by the Bunyer family. It was the last galleried inn on the Middlesex side of the water, the galleries being perhaps as old as the reign of Charles II. A still older portion was a cellar built of stone immediately to the left of the entrance, which might almost have been mediæval. The rest of the building seems to have dated from the early part of the eighteenth century. There is a sympathetic reference to the old "Bell" by William Black in his _Strange Adventures of a Phæton_. Another noteworthy "Bell" Inn was that in Carter Lane, whence Richard Quyney wrote in 1598 to his "loveing good ffrend and contreyman Mr. Willm Shackespere," the only letter addressed to our greatest poet which is known to exist. There is still a Bell yard connecting Carter Lane with Knightrider Street. The first scene of the _Harlot's Progress_, by Hogarth, is laid in front of an inn, with the sign of the "Bell" in Wood Street. Above the door are chequers.