London’s Alleys: Bleeding Heart Yard, EC1

This is a cobbled yard in Holborn surrounded on most sides by old warehouse buildings and may have been named after an old pub, or a murder.The murder legend is that the yard’s name commemorates the murder of Lady Elizabeth Hatton, the wife of Sir William Hatton, or maybe Elizabeth Hatton, Sir William’s daughter. Whichever Elizabeth it was, the story goes that one of them spent the evening of 26th Jan 1626 at Hatton House with the Bishop of Ely, and may have disappeared into the nigh