Place Name
Named after a former inn or shop of this name, the falcon being a popular emblem. Sheila Fairfield in The Streets of London suggests it came from the emblem of the offices of Wynkyn de Word, the early printer and successor of William Caxton, the father of English printing, who had offices here in 1565. However, there is a suggestion it derives from an earlier house, Gillian Bebbington in London Street Names says it comes from a house standing opposite St Dunstan’s Church in Fleet Street. She writes: “A Mr Fisher bequeathed the Falcon to the parish, along with four houses in Falcon Court, in 1547. Fisher willed that the income should provide every poor parish householder with 12 pence a year; and just in case his generosity did not come to the attention of the Almighty he also ordered an annual service to be held at St Dunstan’s in memory of himself.” The Court is now mostly Neo-Georgian barristers’ chambers built in the 1950s.
