Cock Lane is a small street in Smithfield in the City of London, leading from Giltspur Street in the east to Snow Hill in the west.
In the medieval period, it was known as Cokkes Lane and was the site of legal brothels. It is famous as the site of the house (No. 25) where the supposed Cock Lane ghost manifested itself in 1762, and as being the place where the writer John Bunyan, who wrote England's first best-seller, died from a fever in 1688.
The junction of Giltspur Street and Cock Lane was known as Pye Corner, famous as marking the furthest extent of the Great Fire of London: commemorated by the Golden Boy of Pye Corner. This effigy was originally built into the front of a public house called The Fortune of War which used to occupy the site but was pulled down in 1910.
Famous quotes containing the word lane:
“We joined long wagon trains moving south; we met hundreds of wagons going north; the roads east and west were crawling lines of families traveling under canvas, looking for work, for another foothold somewhere on the land.... The country was ruined, the whole world was ruined; nothing like this had ever happened before. There was no hope, but everyone felt the courage of despair.”
—Rose Wilder Lane (1886–1968)