TO GO TO THE MANOR OF PICKT-HATCH (or TO PICKT-HATCH GRANGE), verb. phr. (old).—To whore: see GREENS and RIDE. [The PICKT-HATCH—a hatch with pikes—was a common brothel sign: specifically in Shakespeare’s time a notorious tavern-brothel in Turnbull St., Clerkenwell].—GROSE (1785).

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  1596.  SHAKESPEARE, Merry Wives of Windsor, ii. 2. Go—a short knife and a thong—TO YOUR MANOR OF PICKT-HATCH.

2

  1598.  JONSON, Every Man in his Humour, i. 2.

        From the Bordello it might come as well,
The Spittle, or PICT-HATCH.

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  1610.  JONSON, The Alchemist, ii. 1.

          Sur.  The decay’d vestals of PICT-HATCH would thank you,
That keep the fire alive, there.

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  d. 1618.  SYLVESTER, Du Bartas, 576.

        Borrow’d and brought from loose Venetians,
Becoms PICKT-HATCH and Shoreditch Courtizans.

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  1630.  Optick Glasse of Humours, 89. These be your PICKT-HATCH Curtezan wits that merit after their decease to bee carted in Charles waine.

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  1630.  Cupid’s Whirligig [NARES]. Set some PICKES upon your HATCH, and I pray profess to keep a bawdy-house.

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  d. 1635.  RANDOLPH (?) The Muse’s Looking-Glass [REED, Old Plays, ix. 244].

                            The lordship
Of Turnball so—which with my PICK-HATCH GRANGE
And Shoreditch farme, and other premises
Adjoyning,—very good, a pretty maintenance.

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  1638.  RANDOLPH, Hey for Honesty, i. 2. Why, the whores of PICT-HATCH, Turnbull, or the unmerciful bawds of Bloomsbury.

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