Beyond Fetter Lane Holborn reaches HOLBORN CIRCUS, in the middle of which is an equestrian Statue of Prince Albert, by C. Bacon. Hatton Garden leads north-west to Clerkenwell Road, Charterhouse Street north-east to Smithfield and Charterhouse Square, and St. Andrew Street south towards Ludgate Circus.
Hatton Garden, now occupied largely by diamond merchants, takes its name from the garden belonging to the house of Sir Christopher Hatton, Lord Chancellor to Queen Elizabeth. A tablet with a bas-relief portrait and a device of clasped hands commemorates the residence at No. 5 of Giuseppe Mazzini, who, while living in this house, inspired Young Italy to undertake the struggle for freedom. Mirabeau was an earlier foreign visitor, lodging in Hatton Garden in 1784.
At the beginning of Charterhouse St., to the left, opens Ely Place, occupying the site of the town house of the Bishops of Ely, where John of Gaunt died in 1399. The garden was famous, and is mentioned in �Richard III.� (iii. 4):
�My Lord of Ely, when I was last in Holborn, I saw good strawberries in your garden there; I do beseech you, send for some of them.�
When forced to cede these grounds to Sir Christopher Hatton (at the picturesque yearly �rent� of a red rose, ten loads of hay, and ten pounds), the Bishop reserved in perpetuity the right to walk in his gardens and to gather yearly twenty bushels of roses. At the Restoration the bishops returned to Ely Place, but in 1772 they exchanged it for a mansion in Dover St. Ely Place is guarded at night by a watchman of its own, who calls the hours from 10 p.m. to 5. a.m. in the old-fashioned way.
The only relic of the episcopal abode is the beautiful little Ely Chapel (St. Etheldreda's; Pl. R 48, III; handbook 1/) built circa 1297, with an old oaken roof (restored). The Decorated tracery of the large east and west windows is superb, and the beautiful statue-niches between the side windows should be noted. The glass is modern. The vaulted crypt also is interesting (admission 3d.). St. Etheldreda's is said to be the only pre-Reformation church in the country belonging to the Roman Catholics (who purchased it in 1871). It is always open. The quiet cloister is planted with fig-trees. The mitre on the front of the Mitre Tavern in Mitre Court (No. 9 Ely Place) is supposed to be a relic of the bishop's palace. The name of Bleeding Heart Yard, to the north of Ely Place, is familiar to readers of �Little Dorrit�; and in Saffron Hill , close by, was Fagin's Thieves� Kitchen in �Oliver Twist.'
To the right, just beyond Holborn Circus, is the church of St. Andrew, built by Wren in 1686, on the site of an earlier church, the tower of which (110 feet high) he retained, casing it, however, with stone, and adding to the height (1704). It claims to be Wren's largest parish church.
The interior is richly decorated and has some stained glass of the 17th and 18th century, a lofty carved pulpit, and an altar of unusual form. The window at the end of the South gallery bears the arms of John Thavie, after whom Thavie's Inn was named Dr. Henry Sacheverell was rector of the church in 1713-24. Archbishop Bancroft (1554-1610) and Bishop Stillingfleet (1635-99) were earlier rectors. In this church Sir Edward Coke was married to Lady Elizabeth Hatton in 1598, Colonel John Hutchinson to Lucy Apsley in 1638, and William Hazlitt to Sarah Stoddart in 1808 (Mary Lamb being bridesmaid, and Charles Lamb the best man). Richard Savage was baptized here in 1697, and another unfortunate poet, Chatterton, interred in the graveyard of Shoe Lane Workhouse, has his burial recorded in the register of this church. Benjamin Disraeli ('being about 12 years of age') was here (in 1817) received into the Christian Church.
