Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(UK Und.) an area of wasteland between Farringdon Road and Saffron Hill, London, where bookmakers, touts, thieves and tipsters congregated.

1869

J.C. Parkinson Places and People 284: The words ‘house or place’ could not apply to ‘the Ruins;’ and the public and authorities seemed to concur that bets could be booked, and lists kept, and fools swindled [...] in defiance of the law.