THE FLEECE COVENT GARDEN
The Restoration did not mend the morals of the taverns in Covent Garden, but increased their licentiousness, and made them the resort of bullies and other vicious persons. The Fleece, on the west side of Brydges-street, was notorious for its tavern broils; L'Estrange, in his translation of Quevedo's Visions, 1667, makes one of the Fleece hectors declare he was never well but either at the Fleece Tavern or Bear at Bridge-foot, stuffing himself "with food and tipple, till the hoops were ready to burst." According to Aubrey, the Fleece was "very unfortunate for homicides;" there were several killed there in his time; it was a private house till 1692. Aubrey places it in York-street, so that there must have been a back or second way to the tavern—a very convenient resource.
John Timbs
Club Life of London Vol. II
London, 1866