This district suffered severely during the three years after the Great Fire. Tower Hill lay on the eastern edge of the city of desolation. The poor proprietor of the Blue Bell tavern, which stood in picturesque angularities overlooking the hill before the catastrophe which reduced it, to quote its owner’s words, “to nothing but a ruinous heap of rubbish,” sought exemption, in 1669, from arrears of lawful dues. These old inns bordering Tower Hill were the scene of frequent “Parish dinners,” at which the consumption of food was so considerable as to lead one to believe that Tower Hill was noted in those days, as it is to-day, for its fresh air, which sharpens the edge of appetite. These feeds were partaken of by just as many “men of import in the parish” as could get into a small
[Illustration: THE TOWER AND TOWER HILL, SHOWING SITE OF THE SCAFFOLD, IN THE GARDEN]
room, “mine host’s best parlour.” On April 26, 1629, they consumed “5 stone of beefe, 2 legges of mutton, 2 quarters of lamb, 3 capons,” and so on. A few weeks afterwards they are at it again and “dine upon 5 ribbs of beef, a side of lamb, 2 legges of mutton, 2 capons; and did drink wine and beer to the value of £l:7s.” This reminds one of Falstaff’s feeds in Eastcheap and his capacity for imbibing Canary sack. At one meal, in _Henry IV._, Shakespeare makes the fat knight, if we go by the bill presented afterwards, drink sixteen pints of wine! In 1632 sack was sold in the City at 9d. per quart, claret at 5d., and Malmsey and muscadine at 8d.
In Queen Anne’s reign Tower Hill is described as “an open and spacious place, set with trees, extending round the west and north parts of the Tower, where there are many good new buildings, mostly inhabited by gentry and merchants.” In the contemporary drawings it is shown as an open space, but singularly devoid of trees. The artists may have been so intent upon crowding their pictures with tightly packed citizens gazing upon the decapitation of some unfortunate nobleman that they forgot to put in the trees. Certainly several of the fine trees that now adorn Trinity Square are of some age, and represent the survivors of that fragment of the ancient forest which crept up to the eastern side of the hill, and which we see so plainly marked in many of the old maps.