27 Astonishing Things You Didn't Know About London

27. London Had "Elvis Chapels" For Quickie Weddings

Need to get married right now, no questions asked? Once upon a time, you could in London. For a reasonable fee, of course. Between 1613 and 1754, unique bylaws meant that quickie marriages could be carried out in an area surrounding the Fleet Debtors' Prison called "the Liberties of the Fleet". In this precursor to Scotland's famous Gretna Green, couples could be married without posting banns. Because the clergy there were immune from prosecution, couples could walk in off the street and get legally married in less than 15 minutes, just like in modern-day Las Vegas. By the 1740s more than half of all London weddings were performed within these boundaries. Most of these newlyweds weren't teenagers suffering from puppy love, either. The average groom was 29 and the average bride was 23. Changes to the law in 1754 ended the honeymoon period for the area around the prison. Knowing the end was coming, hordes of love-struck couples rushed to the Liberties of the Fleet and 100 couples alone were wed on the very last day of the arcane legal permissiveness, causing the notoriously debauched area to go out with a bang.