Re: Re: ‘Dutch Billys’

@Paul Clerkin wrote:

The birthplace of Swift in Hoey’s Court

That house is a bit of a puzzle! Swift was born in 1667 and his birth place is always given as 7 Hoey’s Court, but I’m not sure that the house in this print could be that early.

Of course this could always be another example of that long tradition of commemorating the birth place of famous people by attaching the historical footnote, or the plaque as the case may be, to the nearest decent house still standing at the time of the commemoration. (The Beethoven House in Bonn would be a good example)

This is Hoey’s Court in 1756 and again in 1872, after half the houses, probably including no. 7, had been demolished.

@phil wrote:

Interesting to note the ‘S’ shaped binders/retainers used here .

I can’t think what the special name for these things might be, but it’s ‘Tie Bars’ that connect them and hold the building together. I know people who lived in a house on the quays that was held together by tie-bars and they used to be terrified in storms because the tie-bars would ‘sing’.