Clare Market

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Clare Market was an area of London to the west of Lincoln's Inn Fields, between the Strand and Drury Lane. It was named for the food market in established there, in Clement's Inn Fields, by John Holles, 2nd Earl of Clare. The area was not affected by the Great Fire of London, and the decrepit Elizabethan buildings survived until the area, by then a slum, was redeveloped by the London County Council in around 1900 to create the Aldwych and Kingsway.

The market mostly sold meat, although fish and vegetables were also sold. It was originally centred on a small market building constructed by Lord Clare in c.1657, but the retail area spread through a maze of narrow interconnecting streets lined by butchers' shops and greengrocers. Butchers would slaughter sheep and cattle for sale. An area was set aside for Jews to slaughter kosher meat.

An early theatre was in Gibbon's Tennis Court, in the Clare Market area. A club of artists, including William Hogarth, met at the Bull's Head Tavern in the market.

Parts of the London School of Economics now occupy the site.

[edit] External links

• Victorian London
• "St. Clement Danes: Clare Market", A History of the County of Middlesex: online draft (2002)
• "The Strand (northern tributaries): Drury Lane and Clare Market", Old and New London: Volume 3 (1878), pp. 36-44