Does anyone know why Sir Simon’s Arcade is so called?
Staff at the Lancaster Reference Library and the City Museum have been unable to ascertain the origin. Can anyone help?
Winnie Clark:
Andrew White informs us that the name comes from Sir Simon Lovat, a Jacobite sympathiser, whose portrait was painted by Hogarth and who was executed in London. There was a pub called after him on roughly the site of the present Diggles which was the chief coaching inn of Lancaster, and the Arcade took the name of the pub.
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If it’s the same Sir Simon in the painting by Hogarth, that would be Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat.
He was a Jacobite sympathizer known as The Fox, due to his cunning and some would say duplicitous character. He was executed in 1747 at or outside the Tower of London, having the distinction of being the last individual to suffer beheading in the UK.
His remains lie in St Peter ad Vincula church at the Tower.