6/29/2023 0 Comments Nell Gwyn by Charles Beauclerk![]() ![]() ![]() Her mother was drowned in a pond at Chelsea, probably while drunk, in July 1679. ![]() Her childhood occupations have been variously described as bawdyhouse servant, a street hawker of herring, oysters, or turnips, and cinder-girl. Nell grew up in squalid Coal Yard Alley, a poor slum off Drury Lane. Her mother 'Madam Gwynn', was born within the parish of St Martin-in-the-Fields, London, and is thought to have lived most of her life in the city, she was by most accounts an alcoholic who ran a bawdy house or brothel, where the young Nell is said to have 'served strong waters to gentlemen.' Her father was of Welsh descent, a soldier ruined by the civil war, he is said to have died in a debtors prison in Oxford, Nell probably had no memory of him. Nell was was the daughter of Thomas and Ellen Gwynn, her place of birth is disputed, with some sources stating Pipe Well Lane in Hereford, which was renamed Gwynne Street in the nineteenth century, while others state she was born in London. The remarkable life of Nell Gwynne, most famous of the many mistresses of 'the Merry Monarch', Charles II, a classic rags to riches story, began on 2 February 1650. ![]()
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