Bleeding Heart Yard is a courtyard off of Greville Street.
This cobbled courtyard is probably named after a 16th-century inn sign dating to the Reformation that was displayed on a pub called ’The Bleeding Heart’ in nearby Charles Street. The sign showed the heart of the Virgin Mary pierced by five swords.
The yard was laid out in the 1680s by Abraham Arlidge, leasing the old dung hill of Ely Palace where pigs kept by locals were foraged.
The courtyard’s name may also commemorate the murder of Lady Elizabeth Hatton, the wife of Sir William Hatton, whose family had owned the area around Hatton Garden. It is said that her body was found here on 27 January 1626, "torn limb from limb, but with her heart still pumping blood."
The yard features in the Charles Dickens novel ’Little Dorrit’ as the home of the Plornish family.
Greville Street links Bleeding Heart Yard to another notable street from Charles Dickens’ novels: Saffron Hill, which was the home of Fagin in Oliver Twist.
A gate at the south of the yard leads to Ely Place.
