The oldest inhabitant now
at Ratcliff remembers that there was a cross here--the name survived
until the other day, attached to a little street, but that is now
gone. It is mentioned in Dryden. And on the Queen's Accession, in
1837, she was proclaimed, among other places, at Ratcliff Cross--but
why, no one knows. Once the Shipwrights' Company had their hall here;
it stood among gardens where the scent of the gillyflower and the
stock mingled with the scent of the tar from the neighbouring
rope-yard and boat-building yard. In the old days, many were the
feasts which the jolly shipwrights held in their hall after service at
St. Dunstan's, Stepney. The hall is now pulled down, and the Company,
which is one of the smallest, worth an income of less than a thousand,
has never built another. Then there are the Ratcliff Stairs--rather
dirty and dilapidated to look at, but, at half-tide, affording the
best view one can get anywhere of the Pool and the shipping. In the
good old days of the scuffle-hunters and the heavy horsemen, the view
of the thousand ships moored in their long lines with the narrow
passage between was splendid. History has deigned to speak of Ratcliff
Stairs. 'Twas by these steps that the gallant Willoughby embarked for
his fatal voyage; with flags flying and the discharge of guns he
sailed past Greenwich, hoping that the King would come forth to see
him pass.
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