The centre of the plan shows a large open space, now occupied by the diverging streets called Queen Elizabeth Street, Free-school Street, and Pair Street; and on the south side of the last-named street now stand the church and rectory-house of St. John, Horsleydown, and the union workhouse in Parish Street.
I do not know if Southwark fair were ever held on Horseydown, but it is worthy of observation, that when the down came to be built on, about the middle of the seventeenth century, the principal street across it from west to east, and in the line of foreground represented in the picture, was and is to the present day called Pair Street; and a street or lane of houses running from north to south, near to Dockhead, is called Three Oak Lane, traditionally from three oaks formerly standing there. The tree-o'ershadowed hostlery where the feast is being prepared, in the picture, may indicate this spot.
In Evelyn's time, however (Diary, 13th Sept. 1660), the fair appears to have been held at St. Margaret's Hill, in the borough, for he calls it St. Margaret's fair; and it continued to be held between St. Margaret's Hill and St. George's Church until the fair was suppressed by order of the Court of Common Council in 1762.
The portly figure in the centre foreground, with a red beard and a Spanish hat, must have occasioned the idea of its being a representation of King Henry VIII.; but the general costume of the figure is later than his reign, and the date on the picture shows the period of the scene to have been towards the end of Queen Elizabeth's reign.
The principal figures seem to me rather to represent some of the grave burgesses and young gallants of Southwark, with their wives and families, assembled on
