Convivial Eccentricities
Busby’s Folly and Bull Feather Hall
At Busby’s Folly, a bowling-green and house of public entertainment, upon the site of the Belvidere Tavern, Pentonville, there met on the 2nd of May, 1644, a fraternity of Odd Fellows, members of the Society of Bull Feathers Hall, who claimed, among other things, the toll of all the gravel carried up Highgate Hill. A rare tract, entitled, Bull Feather Hall, or the Antiquity of Horns amply shown, 1664, relates the manner of going from Busby’s Folly to Highgate:—“On Monday, being the 2nd of May, some part of the fraternity met at Busby’s Folly, in Islington, where, after they had set all things in order, they thus marched out, ordine quisque suo:—First, a set of trumpets, then the controller, or captain of the pioneers, with thirty or forty following him with pickaxes and spades to level the hill, and baskets withal to carry gravel. After them another set of trumpeters, and also four that did wind the horn; after them, the standard, alias an exceeding large pair of horns fixed on a pole, which three men carried, with pennants on each tip, the Master of the Ceremonies attending it, with other officers. Men followed the flag, with the arms of the society, with horned beasts drawn thereon, and this motto:—
‘To have, and not to use the same,
Is not their glory, but their shame.’
“After this came the mace-bearer, then the herauld-at-arms, with the arms of the society. The coat I cannot rightly blazon, but I remember the supporters were on one side, a woman with a whip in her hand, besides that of her tongue, with a menacing look, and underneath the motto, Ut volo, sic jubeo; on the other side, a man in a woeful plight, and underneath him, Patientia patimur.” In this order they marched, attended by multitudes of people. This club, as the tract informs us, used to meet in Chequer Yard, in Whitechapel, their president being arrayed in a crimson satin gown and a furred cap, surmounted by a pair of antlers; and on a cushion lay a cornuted sceptre and crown; the brethren drank out of horn cups, and were sworn on admission, upon a blank horn-book. They met twice a-week, “to solace themselves with harmless merriment and promote good fellowship among their neighbours.”
Busby’s Folly was afterwards called “Penny’s Folly.” Here Zucker, a high German, who had performed before their Majesties and the Royal Family, exhibited his Learned Little Horse from Cowland, who was to be seen looking out of the windows up two pair of stairs every evening before the performance began. Curious deceptions, “Comus’s philosophical performances,” and the musical glasses, were also exhibited here.