Hockley-in-the-Hole was an area where bear-baiting and duelling took place in the 18th century.
Hockley-in-the-Hole was situated roughly where the Ray Street Bridge stands, north of the junction of Clerkenwell Road and Farringdon Road.
It stood in the valley of the Fleet and its name seems to have been derived from the frequent flooding of the Fleet - Hockley, in old English, meaning ’a muddy field’. By 1756 the locality was narrow, and surrounded by bad housing. Soon after that, the road was widened, raised and drained.
On the later site of the ’Coach and Horses’ in Ray Street, stood the Bear Garden, which, in Queen Anne’s time, rivalled the Southwark Bear Garden of Elizabethan days. The earliest advertisement of the ’amusements’ here occurred in the Daily Post dated 10 July 1700.
In 1774 the notorious name of Hockley-in-the-Hole was formally changed to that of Ray Street.
