3-082-390 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

A bit of Old London, recently demolished, 1895. 'The "Three Tuns" in Chichester Rents, Chancery Lane". It is well that Mr. Herbert Railton has preserved for us, in the accompanying sketch, a part of London which has been recently "improved" out of existence. Proceeding from the bustling Strand, halfway up Chancery Lane, on the left-hand side, one arrives at Chichester Rents, a little alley leading from the main thoroughfare. Here, until a short while ago, stood the old and picturesque hostelry, The Three Tuns, a relic of former days when a man found his "warmest welcome at an inn." The house has been demolished, and in its place is being erected a modern establishment, doubtless more in keeping with the spirit of the age, but far less delightful to the eye. It does not require a very vivid imagination to picture Chichester Rents in the old days, with its dusty offices of law stationers, an alley in which poor Miss Flite might have lived in peaceful obscurity with her birds. The artist who, like Mr. Railton, loves to perpetuate on paper what disappears in bricks and mortar, will regret the old inn yclept The Three Tuns, even though in its place he sees a lofty structure gleaming, till London soot forbids, with white tiles'. From "Illustrated London News", 1895.