Ray Street
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Clerkenwell 101
28 Ray Street (originally named Hockley-in-the-Hole) was the infamous area notorious for animal fights such as bear baiting, bull baiting, and cock fighting. In 1709, the bear garden’s proprietor Christopher Preston was devoured by one of his own bears.
29 In Ray Street from the mid-1600s until the mid- 1700s there were sword-fights between men and fist-fights between women (holding half a crown in each fist to prevent hair-pulling and scratching). The most famous fighter was Clerkenwell’s very own Elizabeth Wilkinson, who in the late 1720s published an acceptance of a challenge from Ann Field, an ass-driver from Stoke Newington, telling readers that, “the blows which I shall present her with will be more difficult for her to digest than any she ever gave her asses”. Elizabeth would become known as the “Championess of America and of Europe” in her short, but dramatic fighting career.
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