A collection of descriptions and references to sounds drawn mainly from primary sources such as autobiographies, diaries and statutes, as well as novels written around the times they depict.
| Sub-category | 1st to 10th |
11th to 15th |
16th to 17th |
18th | Early 19th |
Late 19th |
Early 20th |
Late 20th |
| General sounds of street and town | 7 | 1 | 3 | 12 | 12 | 6 | ||
| Open-air markets | 1 | 2 | 2 | |||||
| Road traffic | 1 | 1 | 2 | |||||
| Communal living and confinement | 1 | 1 | 2 | 3 | ||||
| River traffic and related sounds | 5 | 2 | 3 | |||||
| Plague, war and disaster | 1 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 4 | |||
| Sound qualities of buildings | 1 | |||||||
| Sounds of crowds | 1 | 1 |
Period referred to: 1660s
Sound category: Ambient > General sounds of street and town
Title of work: The Diary of Samuel Pepys
Type of publication: Diary
Author: Samuel Pepys
Year of publication: 1667
Page/volume number: 1 July 1667
‘Waked by a damned noise between a sow gelder and a cow and a dog’
Up betimes, about 9 o'clock, waked by a damned noise between a sow gelder and a cow and a dog, nobody after we were up being able to tell us what it was.
Period referred to: 1590s
Sound category: Ambient > General sounds of street and town
Title of work: Skialethia, or a Shadow of Truth
Type of publication: Satiric verse
Author: Edward Guilpin
Year of publication: 1598
Page/volume number: Not known
‘There squeaks a cart wheel, here a tumbrel rumbles’
There squeaks a cart wheel,
Here a tumbrel rumbles,
Here scolds an old bawd,
There a porter grumbles.
Period referred to: End of 17th century
Sound category: Ambient > General sounds of street and town
Title of work: The London Spy
Type of publication: Journal/Social investigation
Author: Ned Ward
Year of publication: 1698-1700
Page/volume number: Chapter II
‘The music of sundry passing-bells, the rattling of coaches’
[. . .] for tho' we thought it ten o'clock when we left the blessings of dear Hymen's palace, yet it prov'd but the misers' bedtime, the modest hour of nine being just proclaim'd by Time's oracle from every steeple. The joyful alarm of Bow Bell call'd the weary apprentices from their work to unhitch their folded shutters and button up their shops till the next morning.
[. . .]
My ears were so serenaded on every side with the music of sundry passing-bells, the rattling of coaches, and the melancholy ditties of Hot Baked Wardens [pears] and Pippins! that had I as many eyes as Argus and as many ears as Fame, they would have been all confounded, for nothing could I see but light, and nothing hear but noise.
Period referred to: 1660s
Sound category: Ambient > General sounds of street and town
Title of work: The Diary of Samuel Pepys
Type of publication: Diary
Author: Samuel Pepys
Year of publication: 1660
Page/volume number: November 1660
‘I took much pleasure to have the neighbours
come forth into the yard to hear me’
So home to dinner, and so to the office all the afternoon, and at night to my viallin (the first time that I have played on it since I came to this house) in my dining room, and afterwards to my lute there, and I took much pleasure to have the neighbours come forth into the yard to hear me.
Period referred to: 1660s
Sound category: Ambient > General sounds of street and town
Title of work: The Diary of Samuel Pepys
Type of publication: Diary
Author: Samuel Pepys
Year of publication: 1660
Page/volume number: November 1660
Pepys and his wife are kept awake by a smoke-jack
The last night I should have mentioned how my wife and I were troubled all night with the sound of drums in our ears, which in the morning we found to be Mr. Davys's jack, but not knowing the cause of its going all night, I understand to-day that they have had a great feast to-day.
[A smoke-jack was a device lodged in a chimney flue, with a fan of blades like that of a jet turbine. Hot air rising up the chimney caused the fan to rotate, and this motion was transmitted downwards by gears to turn a meat-spit in the fireplace.]
Period referred to: 1660s
Sound category: Ambient > General sounds of street and town
Title of work: The Diary of Samuel Pepys
Type of publication: Diary
Author: Samuel Pepys
Year of publication: 1660
Page/volume number: February 1660
‘A drum came by, beating of a strange manner of beat’
After supper home, and before going to bed I staid writing of this day its passages, while a drum came by, beating of a strange manner of beat, now and then a single stroke, which my wife and I wondered at, what the meaning of it should be.
Period referred to: 1660s
Sound category: Ambient > General street sounds
Title of work: The Diary of Samuel Pepys
Type of publication: Diary
Author: Samuel Pepys
Year of publication: 1660
Page/volume number: January 1660
A dog’s barking keeps Samuel Pepys awake
Having been exceedingly disturbed in the night with the barking of a dog of one of our neighbours that I could not sleep for an hour or two, I slept late, and then in the morning took physic, and so staid within all day.