Bye-Bye Bow Street

They’ve closed Bow Street Magistrates’ Court and are going to turn it into a boutique hotel. (“We have the Crippin Room available, sir — that is, if you are by yourself.”) You can read an amusing account on The Times Online and as well a quick survey of the court’s 271 year history, which saw Oscar Wilde, suffragette Pankhurst, the afforementioned Dr. Crippin, and Lord Haw-haw, among others, occupy the wrought-iron dock.

The court is steeped in English history. For example, the second magistrate to sit there was the novelist (and magistrate, of course) Henry Fielding, who instituted constables called “bow street runners.” He was succeeded by his blind brother — “Blind Beak of Bow Street” — who made the runners into a serious force for London, and who, as it happens, is the protagonist in a series of historical detective stories by Bruce Alexander.Who, in otherwise decently historically accurate books had Fielding use a gavel. The titles are: Blind Justice, Murder in Grub Street, Watery Grave, Person or Persons Unknown, Jack, Knave, and Fool, Death of a Colonial, The Color of Death, Smuggler’s Moon, An Experiment in Treason, and The Price of Murder.