On the south side, Fleet Street presents a long line of historical associations—Bridewell, the Carmelites or Whitefriars, the Fleet Prison, Alsatia, and Sanctuary. These are all described in other parts of this work (see London in the Eighteenth Century). On the north side are the courts and streets of later origin. These, with the houses and shops of that side, present memories chiefly of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Roman remains have been found all along the river on the west of the City. In the year 1800 was discovered a sepulchral monument, now in the Guildhall Museum; a tessellated pavement was found in 1681, near St. Andrew’s, Holborn; in 1595, a stone pavement supported on piles was found near Chancery Lane, the piles proving the marshy character of the ground; the “old Roman bath” is in Strand Lane; in 1722, in digging for the foundations of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, an arch, a stone sarcophagus, and other Roman relics were found; and on Thorney Island itself numerous Roman remains have been discovered. In other words, there were Roman villas and residences all along the river from Ludgate to Westminster inclusive.

Fleet Street began to be settled before the thirteenth century; in 1228, one Henry le Buke slew another in Fleet Street and took sanctuary in St. Mary Overies, Southwark. In 1311, certain servants of the King’s household were arrested for a burglary in Fleet Street; at the same time complaints were made that the way from “La Barre du Novel Temple” and the Palace of Westminster was choked with bushes and thickets. One of the residents of Fleet Street supplied Edward II. with boots and tassels of silk in 1321. Shortly after, the houses from the Temple Church northwards were erected by the Templars.

The history of Fleet Street from the sixteenth century is much more detailed than can be given here; the reader must be referred to the special histories of the street and the locality. It suffered greatly in the Plague of 1625, when over 500 of the parishioners of St. Dunstan’s were carried off.

The Fire of London terminated on this side in the third house, east of St. Dunstan’s Church. The plan of the ruins drawn up by Wren and Hooke shows that Fleet Street was 37 feet in width west of Fetter Lane; at Water Lane it was 70 feet; at St. Bride’s Court 63 feet; thence to Bride Lane 32 feet; and to Fleet Bridge only 23 feet. Shoe Lane was only 9 feet wide at the south end; Water Lane 11 feet at the north, and 26 at the south; Salisbury Court 23 feet at the north end. After the Fire parts of Fleet Street were set back, and the street made more convenient for the increasing traffic.

Fleet Street is especially remarkable for its taverns, its booksellers, and its banking-houses. In a valuable paper contributed by Mr. Hilton Price to the ArchÆological Journal, December 1895, may be found a list as complete as can be hoped for of all the houses in Fleet Street with their signs. The learned writer has collected 315 signs, and has been able to fix 250 of them.

Among the taverns we may notice:

(1) The Devil, called also St. Dunstan’s, or the Old Devil, sacred to the memory of Ben Jonson. Here was the Apollo, a room in which all kinds of clubs and societies met and entertainments were held. Ben Jonson’s “Rules” are well known. They are painted in letters of gold on a black board still preserved in Childs’ Bank:

(2) The Rainbow, opened in 1657 as a coffee-house by one James Farre, barber surgeon. It was the second coffee-house in London.

(3) The Mitre, where the Society of Antiquaries dined from 1728 to 1775 on St. George’s Day. Here also the Royal Society held its meetings for some years.

(4) The Bolt in Tun, an ancient tavern of the fifteenth century. The Daily News now occupies its site.

(5) The Cock. Everybody knows Tennyson’s lines. The tavern has been taken down and the site built over.

Mr. Hilton Price enumerates nearly fifty more.

If the street was full of taverns, it was equally the favourite place of business for printers and booksellers. Again referring to Mr. Price’s paper we can compile the following list, omitting names of no importance in the commercial history of literature.

Richard Pynson (1493). At Temple Bar.

William How (1571-90). Printer over Temple Bar.

Ward and Mundee. Booksellers over Temple Bar (1578).

John Starkey (1660-81). At the Mitre, between the Temple gates. Publisher of Shadwell’s Plays.

Richard Tottell (1553-97). Printer between the Temple gates.

Bernard Lintot, No. 16. The Cross Keys and Cushion (1704-28). Publisher for Pope, Colley Cibber, and Gray.

Arthur Collins (1709-14). Publisher of the Peerage.

William Sandby (1786). Bookseller, afterwards partner in Snow & Co., Strand.

William Griffin (1556-71).

John MacMurray, afterwards John Murray, who succeeded William Sandby (1760-1812).

John Pemberton (1709-), No. 53, at the Golden Buck. Published (1716) The Cries of London.

Jacob Tonson. At the Judge’s Head (1682-98). Published Dryden’s works, and was secretary to the Kit Kat Club.

Edmund Curll. At the Bible and Dial (1709).

Richard Banks. At the White Hart (1539). Printer.

Thomas Fisher. At the White Hart (1600). Published first edition of Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Roger Warde. At the Castle, opposite the Conduit (1593). Printer.

Wynkyn de Worde. At the Sun, over against the Conduit (1502-34).

Thomas Berthelet. At the Lucrece, near the Conduit. King’s Printer (1528-55).

Thomas Marsh. At the Prince’s Arms (1556-87). Printer of Stow’s Chronicle.

Richard Pynson, at the George, near Clifford’s Inn. Printer (1493-1527).

Robert Copland, an assistant of Caxton (1508-47).

William Copland (1553-69). Printer of Juliana Berner’s Book of Hawking, etc.

In addition to this long list, Mr. Hilton Price gives the names of 702 booksellers and printers. It is true that their names cover two centuries at least, but they show conclusively that the real home of the book trade from the sixteenth century to the end of the eighteenth was Fleet Street. As we have seen, there were booksellers in St. Paul’s Churchyard, in Paternoster Row, in Little Britain at different times, but Fleet Street contained by far the greater number of those in the “trade.”

A third point of interest in Mr. Price’s list is that of the banking-houses and goldsmiths who kept “running cashes.” Among these are the names of Blanchard and Child, afterwards Child; James Chambers (1680), from whom are descended Messrs. Gosling and Sharpe; John Mawson & Co. (1677), the forerunners of Messrs. Hoare & Co.; James Heriot, brother of George Heriot of Edinburgh; and others of less note.

We must not forget to notice the residence of Izaak Walton. Mr. Price places it at the third house in the south-west corner of Chancery Lane. At the corner was the King’s Head Tavern; next, on the west side, the sign of the Harrow; the next house, sometimes called the Harrow and Crown, was Izaak Walton’s.

It is apparent from the preceding that Fleet Street, from the fourteenth century at least, has always been a place of great resort. The large number of taverns was chiefly due, without doubt, to the Inns of Court and the lawyers. Suitors from all parts of the kingdom had to come to Fleet Street; in its courts they found lodgings and in its taverns they found refreshment and feasting. The place was convenient also for the Court end of town, and for the people of the great nobles living in the Strand; there were no merchants in the street; the trade was all of the retail character, such as bookselling; when banks began to be established Fleet Street was much more convenient for the country gentlemen and nobles than Lombard Street; its coffee-houses were more easy of access to the lawyers, poets, wits, and actors who lived in the Inns of Court and about Covent Garden, than those of the City or Charing Cross.

The preceding lists do not exhaust the well-known names connected with Fleet Street. In addition, to mention only a few, are those of Cowley, the poet; Drayton; many of the early printers, successors of Caxton; many booksellers of note; Milton, Dr. Johnson, Goldsmith, Samuel Richardson, Tompion the watchmaker, Alderman Waithman, William Hone, Douglas Jerrold, the many distinguished writers who have created the Daily Telegraph, the Daily Chronicle, the Daily News, the Standard, and the host of papers and journals whose offices are in the street. In the burial-ground of St. Andrew’s, Shoe Lane, lie the remains of Thomas Chatterton; in Fetter Lane Wesley and Whitefield preached; in this street was published Abbott’s Weekly Register; we may also enumerate Sedley the poet, Jacob Tonson, John Hoole, Crockford of gambling fame, Sir Symonds D’Ewes, antiquary, Henry Woodfall, Printer “without Temple Bar,” and Charles Knight. It may, indeed, be fairly stated that, during the whole of the eighteenth and a large part of the nineteenth century, Fleet Street was the haunt of all the literary men of the time, and that at the present moment it is the most important centre of journalism. On the east of Ludgate is the office of The Times; all the other London dailies, and a great number of provincial and colonial journals, have their offices in Fleet Street. But poets, novelists, dramatists, and scholars are no longer found in this street; they belong to West End Clubs and no longer congregate in taverns and coffee-houses.

Bell Yard, Temple Bar, one side of which is now occupied by the High Courts of Justice, is called by Pope in 1736 a “filthy old place.”

Shire Lane, now built over by the Courts, was known also as Rogers Lane; it was also called Sheer Lane; this lane, in spite of an evil name, possessed many associations. Here, at an inn called the Trumpet, Isaac Bickerstaffe was supposed to receive his friends, and was fabled to have his residence. In this lane was founded the Kit Kat Club, a society of gentlemen devoted to the Protestant interest; here lived Elias Ashmole, the antiquary; here Sir Charles Sedley, the dramatic poet, was born; and here in a spunging-house Theodore Hook made the acquaintance of Dr. Maginn.

On the south side of Fleet Street, Wynkyn de Worde, the printer, lived in Falcon Court; in Mitre Court was the Mitre, where Dr. Johnson and Boswell met to drink port. The Royal Society used to dine at the Mitre (1743-80). Sarah Malcolm, whose portrait was taken by Hogarth, was hanged opposite Mitre Court for the murder of Lydia Duncombe, Elizabeth Harrison, and Anne Price. Ram Alley, now Hare Court, opposite Fetter Lane, was one of the later places of sanctuary; that is to say, a place where bailiffs and writs were not admitted. It had a passage into the Temple and another into Serjeant’s Inn, and was, as might be expected, a place of evil reputation.

The date of the first building of St. Dunstan’s Church is not known, but it was before the thirteenth century. It narrowly escaped the Fire, and was extensively repaired in 1701. The church, which was taken down in 1829-30, was a later edifice; it occupied part of the present street, and had a row of shops along its south side. It was famous for its “Saints,” a couple of figures which struck the hours. They were purchased by the Marquis of Hertford and set up at St. Dunstan’s Villa, Regent’s Park. The statue of Queen Elizabeth, originally on the west front of Ludgate, was happily preserved, and still stands over the vestry of the new church.

This church stands on the north side of Fleet Street, between Fetter Lane and Chancery Lane, in the ward of Farringdon Without. It escaped the Great Fire, but very narrowly. It was extensively repaired in 1701, and towards the close of 1829 taken down; the new building, the work of John Shaw, was set back 30 feet from the former site, and consecrated in 1833. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1318.

The patronage of the church was in the hands of: The Abbot and Convent of Westminster as a Rectory, who gave it to Henry III. about 1272, when he founded the Domus Conversorum, then the Custos Domus Conversorum; Edward II. and his successors; the Abbot and Convent of Alnwick, October 29, 1386—a vicarage was ordained here in 1437, in the same patronage, and so continued up to 1540; Henry VIII.; William James, 1556; Lord Dudley, by grant of Edward VI.; Sir Richard Sackvill, Knt.; George Rivers; Simeon Trustees since 1834.

Houseling people in 1548 were 110.

The interior of the present church is octagonal in shape, containing seven recesses, separated from each other by clustered columns and pointed arches, with a clerestory above. The roof is groined and is formed by eight beams of iron, united at the centre. The tower, which rises at the south, contains three stories, and is surmounted by an octagonal lantern; the whole is terminated by a high open parapet. At each angle of the tower there are large pinnacles. The total height of the steeple is 130 feet. The body of the church is chiefly composed of brick, but the tower is of yellow freestone.

Chantries were founded here: For Richard Bardelby, Prebendary of Dunnington in York, who died in 1316, at the altar of St. Michael; by Robert Hez, whose endowment fetched £10: 19: 8 in 1548, but there hath been no priest found for twenty years before that time, and so the money is employed in repairs of the church; for Nicholas Coningstow, John Knape at the Altar of St. Katherine; by John Burrel de Askham, for himself and for John de Langeton and Simon Flemyng, for which the King granted his licence, May 8, 1375. Here was founded the Brotherhood of Our Lady and St. Dunstan, wherein was the Guild of St. Anne, endowed by William Chapman, valued at £11 in 1548, when Randall Smith was chaplain; within the same Guild was a Chantry, founded by William Marshall, whose endowment fetched £22 in 1548, when William Neale was chaplain; and yet another Chantry was endowed in the same Brotherhood by William Westwood, and for which the King granted his licence July 22, 1440, at the Altar of St. Mary in the south part of the church.

A large number of monuments belonging to the old church are affixed to the walls, commemorating Gerard Legh, a member of the Inner Temple, who died 1563; Cuthbert Fetherstone, the King’s doorkeeper, who died 1615; Alexander Layton, a famed swordsman, who died 1679, and others. Among later monuments are those of two Sir Richard Hoares, both Lord Mayors, in 1712 and 1745, whose descendants were liberal benefactors of the new church. Ralph Bane, Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, and Oglethorpe, Bishop of Carlisle, were buried here in 1559, also Dr. Thomas White, founder of Sion College. Here, too, were baptized the great Earl of Strafford in 1593, and Bulstrode Whitelocke in 1605, author of the Memorials of English Affairs. William Tyndale was a frequent preacher in this church, and in more recent times William Romaine was appointed Lecturer (1749). In 1895 a stained-glass window at the north-west was erected in memory of Izaak Walton.

A considerable number of gift sermons are recorded by Stow: Dr. White gave £18; Mr. Adams gave £2. The total of the smaller contributions was £5: 6: 8.

There were two charity schools, one for fifty boys, four of whom were taught navigation; the other for forty girls, who were fitted for service. These were established in 1708, and an infants’ school was founded shortly after in Fetter Lane. The three still exist as “fee-paying” church schools.

Among the clergy of the church have been William Tyndale (d. 1536); Dr. Thomas White (d. 1624), founder of Sion College; Dr. John Donne (1573-1631), Dean of St. Paul’s; the silver-tongued Dr. William Bates, ejected in 1660; Richard Baxter (1615-91); and William Romaine (1714-95).