Bleeding Heart Yard is a cobbled

courtyard A courtyard or court is a circumscribed area, often surrounded by a building or complex, that is open to the sky. Courtyards are common elements in both Western and Eastern building patterns and have been used by both ancient and contemporary ...

off Greville Street in the

Holborn Holborn ( or ) is a district in central London, which covers the south-eastern part of the London Borough of Camden and a part ( St Andrew Holborn Below the Bars) of the Ward of Farringdon Without in the City of London. The area has its roots ...

area of the

London Borough of Camden The London Borough of Camden () is a London borough in Inner London. Camden Town Hall, on Euston Road, lies north of Charing Cross. The borough was established on 1 April 1965 from the area of the former boroughs of Hampstead, Holborn, and St ...

. The courtyard is probably named after a 16th-century inn sign dating back to the

Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...

that was displayed on a pub called the Bleeding Heart in nearby Charles Street. The inn sign showed the heart of the

Virgin Mary Mary; arc, ܡܪܝܡ, translit=Mariam; ar, مريم, translit=Maryam; grc, Μαρία, translit=María; la, Maria; cop, Ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ, translit=Maria was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph and the mother o ...

pierced by five swords.Philpotts, Trey. ''A Companion to Little Dorrit''. Helms Information Ltd. 2003, p. 172.

Urban legend An urban legend (sometimes contemporary legend, modern legend, urban myth, or urban tale) is a genre of folklore comprising stories or fallacious claims circulated as true, especially as having happened to a "friend of a friend" or a family m ...

has it that the courtyard's name commemorates the murder of

Lady Elizabeth Hatton Elizabeth, Lady Coke (née Cecil, 1578 – 3 January 1646), was an English court office holder. She served as lady-in-waiting to the queen consort of England, Anne of Denmark. She was the daughter of Thomas Cecil, 1st Earl of Exeter, and Dorothy N ...

, the second wife of Sir William Hatton, whose family formerly owned the area around Hatton Garden. It is said that her body was found here on 27 January 1646, "''torn limb from limb, but with her heart still pumping blood.''"

In literature

Bleeding Heart Yard features in the

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...

novel '' Little Dorrit'' as the home of the Plornish family. Dickens wrote of it:

t was T, or t, is the twentieth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''tee'' (pronounced ), plural ''tees''. It is deri ...
a place much changed in feature and in fortune, yet with some relish of ancient greatness about it. Two or three mighty stacks of chimneys, and a few large dark rooms which had escaped being walled and subdivided out of the recognition of their old proportions, gave the Yard a character. It was inhabited by poor people, who set up their rest among its faded glories, as Arabs of the desert pitch their tents among the fallen stones of the Pyramids; but there was a family sentimental feeling prevalent in the Yard, that it had a character.Dickens, Charles

''Little Dorrit'', chapter 12.

Before Dickens, the courtyard was best known for its appearance in R. H. Barham's '' The Ingoldsby Legends'', a collection of poems and stories first published in ''Bentley's Miscellany'' beginning in 1837. In one of the stories, ''The House-Warming: A Legend Of Bleeding-Heart Yard'', Lady Hatton, wife of Sir Christopher Hatton, makes a pact with the devil to secure wealth, position, and a mansion in

. During the housewarming of the mansion, the devil dances with her, then tears out her heart, which is found, still beating, in the courtyard the next morning. It is from this legend, together with a case of mistaken identity, that the myth of

's murder — wife, not of Christopher, but of William Hatton — was born. "Bleeding Heart Square" by Andrew Taylor (published by Michael Joseph 2008 and by Penguin Books 2009). A gothic thriller and crime novel combined, "Bleeding Heart Square" is set in the 1930s in and around Bleeding Heart Yard and the adjacent Ely Place. Many of the street names in the area, e.g. Holborn Circus, Farringdon Road and Hatton Garden remain unchanged, but many have been altered, in keeping with a long and respected tradition among novelists. Bleeding Heart Yard is mentioned (as "Bleeding-Heart-Yard") in Stephen Vincent Benét's poem ''American Names'', as one of a list of

old world The "Old World" is a term for Afro-Eurasia that originated in Europe , after Europeans became aware of the existence of the Americas. It is used to contrast the continents of Africa, Europe, and Asia, which were previously thought of by the ...

places whose names are compared, unfavorably, with the place names of America. ‘Bleeding Heart Yard’ is the title of a 2022 crime novel by Elly Griffiths, the third in the Detective Harbinder Kaur series. The yard is the location of one of the main happenings in the plot.

The yard today

A French

restaurant A restaurant is a business that prepares and serves food and drinks to customers. Meals are generally served and eaten on the premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services. Restaurants vary greatly in appearan ...

, bistro and

tavern A tavern is a place of business where people gather to drink alcoholic beverages and be served food such as different types of roast meats and cheese, and (mostly historically) where travelers would receive lodging. An inn is a tavern that h ...

called The Bleeding Heart now occupies a number of the buildings in the courtyard. A gate at the south of the yard leads to

Ely Place Ely Place is a gated road of multi-storey terraces at the southern tip of the London Borough of Camden in London, England. It hosts a 1773-rebuilt public house, Ye Olde Mitre, of Tudor origin and is adjacent to Hatton Garden. It is privatel ...

. Greville Street links Bleeding Heart Yard to another notable street from Charles Dickens' novels:

Saffron Hill Saffron Hill is a street and ward in the south eastern corner of the London Borough of Camden, between Farringdon Road and Hatton Garden. The name of the street derives from the fact that it was at one time part of an estate on which saffron g ...

, which was the home of Fagin in ''

Oliver Twist ''Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy's Progress'', Charles Dickens's second novel, was published as a serial from 1837 to 1839, and as a three-volume book in 1838. Born in a workhouse, the orphan Oliver Twist is bound into apprenticeship with ...

''.

Notes

External links

Map showing Bleeding Heart Yard
''Streetmap.co.uk''. {{London history Charles Dickens Streets in the London Borough of Camden