By W. J. Loftie

The Temple is situated on the left bank of the Thames, partly within the City of London and partly within the ancient county of Middlesex. It consisted originally of the Inner, Middle, and Outer Temples, of which the first and second were in what was described in the thirteenth century as “the suburb of London,” and afterwards as the ward of Farringdon Without. This former suburb had many descriptions and designations, owing to its geographical situation between two tributary brooks or bournes and the tidal waters of the Thames. The brooks have now disappeared under ground, but the Fleet, along the City wall, and the Millbrook, where Mill Ford Lane is now, formed the east and west boundaries of a green slope between Fleet Street and the river. Strictly speaking, this whole region, as far as the wall, was in Westminster, but Henry III. and the citizens divided it between them when the London boundaries were pushed out to “The Bar of the New Temple,” and when Peter of Savoy built his palace on the open strand beyond it. After the Conquest the only access to the City was by a lane which followed a ridge of higher ground from the Roman landing-place at the Millbrook, and it entered the City walls at Newgate. When Ludgate, a postern, as its name denotes, was opened and a bridge crossed the Fleet, all was changed, and the easy way from Westminster by land no longer led up Show-well-lane (now Shoe Lane) to Newgate, but through Fleet Street to Ludgate. Then a church was built at St. Bride’s Well, the Whitefriars or Carmelites settled beside it in 1241, and the Templars, an order of military monks, bought the lands called after them the Inner and Middle Temples, with, outside the City bar, the fields known as the Coney Garth, Fickett’s Field, and the Outer Temple as tilting and exercising grounds. Fetter Lane recalls the existence of armourers who made fetters, that is, lance rests, for the knights, and the City still pays an annual rent to the Crown for the forge, where, no doubt, weapons were mended and war-horses shod. The Templars had lived at first at the Holborn end of Chancery Lane, where Southampton Buildings are now, and after they migrated here in 1184 their house was called the New Temple.

It was situated on the eastern part of the site, and the circular church was built in the year following, namely 1185, the choir being added in 1240. As long as the Templars remained here it seems probable that their buildings did not extend any farther west. The local names, such as Fountain Court, Garden Court, Elm Court, are all in the Middle Temple, and seem to contain reminiscences of the time when it was still part of the gardens. The names in the Inner Temple, Cloister Court, King’s Bench Walk, Crown Office Row, have an appearance of greater antiquity; but Fig Tree Court is in the same division, and Brick Court in the Middle Temple, so it will not do to press the argument very far.

In December 1307 the Temple was seized by the Sheriffs of London in obedience to a writ issued by King Edward II., and the order was soon after formally suppressed. The Templars had long been remarkable for their wealth and pride; their campaigns in the Holy Land were ineffective, chiefly on account of their quarrels with the Hospitallers, and in most European kingdoms they were suspected of sorcery, heresy, and other crimes. Their suppression was attended with greater cruelty abroad than in England, and though some thirty members of the order were sent to the Tower, most of them were subsequently released, and a pension was granted to some. The “New Temple” was given by the King as a residence to his cousin, Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke. He died in 1324, but had left the Temple long before, having in 1314 transferred it to Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, with the King’s consent. The grant includes Fickett’s Field, and as Lancaster’s wife was the heiress of Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, he came into possession, by a curious coincidence, of the future sites of Lincoln’s Inn, the two Temples, and the new Law Courts, as well as of the Savoy. Lancaster was beheaded at Pontefract in 1322, but was esteemed a saint and martyr by the people on account of his long opposition, first to Gaveston, and later to the Despencers, the unworthy favourites of Edward II. Meanwhile the Hospitallers or Knights of St. John at Clerkenwell obtained a papal decree that they were to succeed to the property of the Templars, and in 1324 they were allowed to take possession. The Pope made it a condition that the Temple was not to be put to profane uses, and the new owners in promptly letting it to the lawyers—who were in those days almost all in holy orders, clergy, that is, able to read and write—may have supposed they were fulfilling the papal injunction.

A survey was made about this time, and from it and other indications we may form some idea of what the house was like when the Templars lost it. The chapel of St. Mary stood where it still is, and beside it the smaller chapel of St. Anne. There were already two gates. The Master’s house was eastward of the church, but nearer than the present house, and formed, with the treasury and the hall, a quadrangle round the chapel. This treasury was occasionally used by King John and King Henry before the regalia was lodged in the Tower. John was here himself in 1212; Henry III. in 1232, when he seized the money of Hubert de Burgh, deposited in the treasury; and Edward I. in 1283. The library probably occupies the site. The treasurer’s house adjoined, as it does still; and there was a cloister, as there is still. Notwithstanding the number of years between the expulsion of the Templars and the organisation of the lawyers, the old names were preserved. The chaplain was the Master, the treasurer was the chief of the lawyers. It would seem as if the old titles of the officials were kept alive by the buildings.

We obtain a glimpse of the daily life of these new Templars from Chaucer. If he lived in the Savoy, as he seems to have done, before he went to Westminster, he had the lawyers close at hand, and in one of his Canterbury Tales he tell us that the Manciple belonged to the Temple, where he had thirty masters, for whom he was caterer. From which we may conclude that the number of lawyers had reached thirty in 1380, unless, indeed, there were several houses full. The servants of the Templars, the servientes or serjeants, survived the expulsion of their masters, and after they died out their place was taken by the common law practitioners, who formed themselves into a society or inn, which adjoined the Temple on the northeast as early as 1333; while in 1337 we begin to hear of two halls, and in the reign of Henry VI. the Templars consisted of two separate bodies, which professed absolute equality. The Inner, however, is very much richer than the Middle Temple and has more members. Every year the benchers of one dine with the benchers of the other; and when James I. granted the site without any rents or restrictions, such as had survived till then, his charter is addressed to the members of both societies.

Meanwhile, the Outer Temple had been leased to the Bishops of Exeter, and the land between Fickett’s Field and Lincoln’s Inn to the Bishop of Chichester. Another bishop had lodgings actually within the Temple. On the east side of Inner Temple Lane, north of the porch of the Round Church, was Ely House, with its chapel of St. Thomas of Canterbury.

The Great Fire of 1666 made the Temple its western terminus. The Master’s house was burned, but the chapel was spared, the flames ceasing within a very few feet of the chancel. Wren built the new gate facing Chancery Lane and the Master’s house, removing it to where it still stands. His style, if not his hand, may also be seen in other buildings, such as the doorways in King’s Bench Walk. The archway of the Inner Temple Gate dates from 1607, but the front of the house above it in Fleet Street has been refaced lately in a suitable style.

It may be well to note here that the other round churches in England were not built by the Templars; there are three—St. Sepulchre at Cambridge, St. Sepulchre at Northampton, and St. John of Jerusalem at Little Maplestead, in Essex. The last named was probably built by the Hospitallers. There is also a round chapel in Ludlow Castle.

The visitor will probably go first to the chapel. It is usual to mark its importance and size by calling it “the Temple Church.” It was built by the Templars, the round part, Norman in style, being consecrated in 1185 by Heraclius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, who happened to be in England on a begging tour. With its porch, it has been rebuilt, repaired, improved, and “restored,” until very little of the original masonry, if any, remains. The choir was added in 1240 and was a very pure and beautiful example of the “Early English” or first pointed style. It has been ever since very obnoxious to ignorant builders, and a mere list of the alterations would perhaps produce an impression that nothing is left worth seeing. This is not the case; but it is true that after an ornamental reparation in 1685, another after a fire ten years later, and again after forty years, it must have seemed very venerable and still in parts very picturesque even after a general repair in 1811. The monuments, some very magnificent, others historically interesting, were still undisturbed, and, from the recumbent effigies in the Norman round nave to the judges in their robes and collars in the chancel, formed an unequalled series of curious and sometimes fine works of art. The exquisite carving of the Corinthian reredos behind the communion table sufficed to bring the various inconsistent styles together. But the first notions of those who began to study old English architecture led to an attack on this incongruity in 1824. The Norman carvings were all replaced by modern work and some additions. The arcade, with its grotesque heads, was set up in 1827, and though it is out of place and, moreover, deceptive, will certainly be admired. Various ancient buildings, one of them the chapel of St. Anne, were removed. But it was not until 1830 that the great restoration was begun. During the progress of these disastrous operations the circular church was vaulted in stucco and painted; the flooring was lowered, the tombs and effigies of the knights removed and their bones cast out; the chancel was gutted, the monuments taken down, much injured in the process, and finally “as far as possible” set up again in the triforium, a few being hidden away under the bellows of the organ; the beautiful reredos was taken away, the whole chancel repaved, revaulted, and painted; the church filled with tiers of pews, hiding any Gothic memorials which were allowed to remain; and finally, all the windows were reglazed, in a style supposed to be Early English and, at all events, no worse than what would be put in at the present day to judge by some neighbouring examples. All this work of destruction went on for ten years and cost more than £70,000.

On entering the church now, the visitor is surprised that so much remains to be admired. A semicircular arch, in the Norman style of 1824, admits us to the Round Church, where the arches are pointed. The effigies of the knights have been replaced on the floor in neat groups, and labelled, but somewhat conjecturally, with the names of certain Earls of Pembroke and others who are recorded to have been buried here. The diameter of this part of the church, which is now the nave, is 58 feet, the choir beyond being 58 feet in width and 82 feet in length. The central part of the nave is the same in width as the middle aisle of the three in the choir, namely 23½ feet, while the circular aisle and each of the side aisles are 15½ feet. The three aisles are 37 feet high and the modern roof of the nave 60 feet. The seats are of dark oak and rise in tiers on each side. Two modern doors open on the north side, and a stair, winding and very narrow, conducts the visitor to the triforium of the Round Church. Here, in a very unsuitable situation, are most of the monuments removed from the chancel.

The monuments comprise an interesting series of all periods from the Reformation down, and some fragments of sculpture removed, with the complete tombs at the time of the “restoration,” in 1830. One of the oldest represents Edward Plowden who died in 1584. The brasses were formerly very numerous but have all disappeared, together with a great many tablets, such as Pepys describes in 1666 when he says he looked “with pleasure on the monuments and epitaphs.” Plowden adhered to Romanism, but his epitaph contains a quotation from the Book of Common Prayer. There is a monument to Oliver Goldsmith erected in 1837. In the church is a bust of the “Judicious” Hooker (d. 1600); a tablet to John Selden (d. 1654); and at the south-east end, partly hidden by the pews, an effigy supposed to represent Silvester Everden, Bishop of Carlisle, killed by a fall in 1254. At the entrance to the triforium is the only one left of many small chambers which formerly adjoined the church; it is labelled by the vergers the Penitential Cell, I do not know why.

North of the chapel is the little plot of ground in which Oliver Goldsmith was buried in 1774. It is so small that, when a gravestone was laid down in 1860, there was little choice as to the exact place, which, however, is really unknown.

The arms of both Temples may be seen in many places in the church. Those of the Middle Temple consist of a red cross on a white ground, with a figure of the Pascal Lamb in the centre, being the arms of the Templars. The arms of the other society are, strictly speaking, not heraldry, being, on a blue ground, a representation of the Greek mythical Pegasus, in white. It is said to be derived from an ancient device or badge representing two knights of the Temple on one horse, and was adopted in 1503.

Though the Inner Temple must be considered older than the Middle Temple, there is less to be seen in it. The Hall is not beautiful externally. It was built in 1869 by Sidney Smirke, and the exterior gives one no idea that the interior is worth a visit. However, the fine open timber roof and a very handsome screen will be admired, as well as the heraldry in the windows. The Library is spacious within and convenient, but suffers without, like the Hall, from a want of proportion.

The eminent inhabitants have been very numerous. A mere list would occupy many pages. In the Master’s house have lived Sherlock, Dean of St. Paul’s; his son, the Bishop of London; Vaughan, Dean of Llandaff; and Alfred Ainger. Charles Lamb was born in 1775 at No. 4 Inner Temple Lane—now rebuilt. Thackeray had chambers at 10 Crown Office Row. William Cowper lived in the Inner Temple in 1755. Dr. Johnson was living at 1 Inner Temple Lane in 1763. The house has been pulled down to make way for Johnson’s Buildings. Among the great lawyers were Lyttleton, as well as Coke, who wrote upon him; Sir Julius CÆsar; Finch, Earl of Nottingham; Thurlow; Tenterden; Daines Barrington, the correspondent of White of Selborne; Thesiger, Lord Chelmsford; but perhaps the greatest of them all was Murray, Earl of Mansfield, whose chambers were at 5 King’s Bench Walk.

The principal feature of the Middle Temple is the ancient Hall, and the greatest glory of the Hall is that a play by William Shakespeare was acted in it in February 1602. This was Twelfth Night, which had not then been printed, and is supposed to have only just been written. John Manningham, a student then in the Temple, describes it in his Diary, now in the British Museum. The Christmas and Candlemas festivities in the Hall, of which the play formed part, are described at great length by Dugdale.

The Hall was built in 1572, the screen in 1574, so that the local legend which says the wood of some ships of the Spanish Armada was used cannot be true. The heraldry is copious and interesting, both in the windows and on the panelling and roof, some of it being as old as the Hall. The whole building is of great interest architecturally. The windows are strictly Gothic, while everything else is Elizabethan or later in form. The screen has Tuscan columns and round arches, and is exquisitely carved from a bold design. The internal length is 100 feet, the width 42, and the height 47. The roof is extremely fine but simple in construction.

The Library is an imposing but modern building south of the Hall and garden near the Embankment. It is in an early style of Gothic, the principal room being 86 feet long, 42 wide, and 63 high, designed by H. R. Abraham in 1861. A couple of stories of offices and an external staircase are rather picturesque, and the whole building is by far the best erected in either Temple during the last fifty years. A gateway near, leading to the Embankment, can only be described as an eyesore.

Returning through the gardens to Fountain Court we note several sundials near the Hall, in Pump Court and Brick Court, one in particular near the exit to the Outer Temple—Vestigia nulla retrorsum—which seems to convey a warning to those who seek the lawyers. The largest sundial is, however, in the Inner Temple, the famous “Blackamoor,” removed thither when Clement’s Inn was pulled down. It is of lead, and replaces one mentioned by Lamb which bore the uncivil motto, “Begone about your business.” In Brick Court, near the fountain, with the Middle Temple Hall on one side, memories of three if not four great authors seem to meet. Goldsmith bought the chambers at 2 Brick Court, looking on the fountain and the Hall, about 1765, and lived here till his death in 1774. Here he wrote The Deserted Village and The Traveller, and described in Animated Nature the doings of a rookery in the old trees on which his windows opened. The place is also connected with Thackeray, who describes the chambers in his English Humourists. We have already named Shakespeare and the performance of Twelfth Night in the Hall, but there is direct mention of the gardens and their roses in the First Part of Henry VI. But to most of us it is Dickens who is most clearly remembered when we stand by the fountain. In Martin Chuzzlewit he brings Ruth Pinch here to meet John Westlock. “The Temple fountain might have leaped up twenty feet to greet the spring of hopeful maidenhood that in her person stole on, sparkling through the dry and dusty channels of the Law.” With Shakespeare, Goldsmith, Dickens and Thackeray we might close the list of eminent inhabitants, but the Middle Temple has been very fortunate in this respect. Edmund Burke was here before 1750. Tom Moore was a student in 1799, and Sheridan some twenty years earlier. Among the eminent lawyers may be named the Norths, Rowden, Clarendon, Somers, Cowper, Blackstone, Eldon, Stowell, and Talfourd—a goodly list, though far from complete.

Chancery Lane will be found in the succeeding volume under Holborn, but the liberty of the Rolls is dealt with here.

A fine new building in Chancery Lane, extending to Fetter Lane, stands on the site occupied by an ancient institution called The Rolls. The early history of the Rolls has yet to be written. It is intimately connected from the first with that of the Jewish Colony which came to England from Rouen with William I. At that time the canon law forbade Christians to take usury. The Jews were the licensed usurers of the King. A masterly essay, prefixed to the Catalogue of the Jewish Exhibition in 1887, explains the situation in a few words: “the exchequer treated the money of the Jews as held at the pleasure of the King.” Special Justices were appointed to preside in the Jews’ Exchequer; all deeds, contracts, bonds, and other documents relating to monetary transactions had to be registered and placed in charge of the Rolls Court or Record Office at the King’s palace at Westminster. The Hebrew word ShetÁr, which means a legal document, gave its name to the Star Chamber, and long after the Jews had left England the court held there retained the old name. We may assume that the chief of the justices of this Rolls Court was the principal controller of the whole colony, and that, when Henry III. opened the House for Converts, it fell naturally under the same jurisdiction. Accordingly we find from the first that the Master of the Rolls was also connected with the House of Converts. A similar house was founded at Oxford, but this one in London owed its continued existence to the fact that the Master of the Rolls lived in it. When the law was relaxed and the Jews ceased to be the only usurers, the Master’s jurisdiction extended to the Lombards and Italian bankers, and when, sixty years after the foundation of the house, the Jews were expelled, the double office continued to exist and in the same place. Converts were still received there till the reign of Charles II. Meanwhile, under the Commonwealth, the laws of 1290 against the Jews had been in great part rescinded; but the Master of the Rolls continued to be called “Keeper of the House of Converts” down to 1873, when Sir George Jessel, himself a Jew, was appointed Master of the Rolls but not Keeper of the House.

The history of the house has been detailed by Mr. W. J. Hardy. It became ruinous early in the eighteenth century, and a new building of good proportions was erected by Colin Campbell in 1717. This, in its turn, was pulled down to make way for the Record Office. With it also perished the chapel, usually called “The Rolls Chapel,” of which Sir Henry Maxwell Lyte, who holds the office of Deputy Keeper, instituted in 1837, has written an account, appended to the Fifty-Seventh Annual Report in 1896.

The first Master of the Rolls who is known to have also been Keeper of the House of Converts was Adam de Osgodeby, appointed in 1307. The next Master was William Ayremyne, who also held both offices, but they were not formally united till 1378. The house stood in Chancery Lane, a little to the north of the present principal entrance of the Record Office. Henry III. endowed it with 700 marks a year, calling it “the house in New Street in the suburbs of London which he had founded for converts from Judaism.” It was rebuilt by William Burstall, Master in 1372, together with the chapel. Here, and in the subsequent house, the successive Masters held their court and also lived. At the opening of the new law courts all the space was surrendered to the Records, the house disappeared, and, though a strong effort was made to save it, the chapel too, except the monuments. The present great building, begun in 1856, from designs by Pennethorne, in a very stiff style of Gothic, was completed in 1897. The Rolls and other documents have gradually been housed in it, comprising all those which were previously in the Tower, the Chapter House, Westminster, Carlton Ride, St. James’s, and the State Paper Office, including the paybooks of the Navy, the registers of the Duchy of Lancaster, and many other sets of manuscripts. The final designs were made by Sir John Taylor of the office of Works, and though the Chancery Lane front harmonises very well with Pennethorne’s work it is a good deal less stiff. Two statues on the inner face of the entrance tower represent Henry III. and Edward III., and the removal was effected in October 1895. All the floors are now fireproof, and the cases to contain the Rolls are of steel with slate shelves. The Chancery Lane front is 225 feet long and 84 feet high. There are two great public reading-rooms where both legal and historical researches are daily carried on, with the learned assistance of a large staff of clerks, trained to decipher the most crabbed writing and to translate mediÆval Latin and law French, as well as to calendar thousands of documents bearing on the ancient official correspondence here preserved—such subjects as Chancery and Exchequer proceedings, court rolls, colonial letters and despatches, domestic state papers, accounts, and a hundred other kinds of affairs of public and private interest and importance.

The most interesting part of the Record Office used to be the Rolls Chapel. An arch of the fourteenth century, probably of Burstall’s building, has been set up in the garden against an east wall. The site of the destroyed chapel is on the left as we pass through the principal entrance from Chancery Lane. Here a handsome hall, with five fine windows in the Perpendicular style, has been built for a museum. On the north side very nearly as they stood in the chapel are two most interesting monuments, and a third which was formerly on the opposite side. The rest of the space is taken up with the desks and cases described below. The museum is open free every afternoon.

The monuments comprise those of Masters of the Rolls and of members of their families whose graves were underneath the flooring of the chapel. The most ancient is that of John Yong, Master from January 22, 1508. Three converts, we are told, one man and two women, were received during his keepership of the house, which lasted till his death. Yong was Dean of York, and an eminent diplomatist under Henry VIII. He was a friend of Erasmus, who dedicated a book to him of Colet and the other early reformers. He died of the “sweating sickness” on April 25, 1516, the day on which he had made his will, enjoining upon his executors that he should be buried in the Rolls Chapel. The monument is by Pietro Torregiano, who was employed at Westminster at the time on the effigy of Henry VII. Yong is represented recumbent in a long red gown with tippet and hood and a square cap, such as we see in Holbein’s portraits. Behind the figure are the heads of Christ and two cherubs, all of which show traces of colour and gilding as well as the sarcophagus below, and Yong’s arms, Lozenge vert and argent, on a chevron, azure, 3 annulets, or, on a chief of the second, a goat’s head erased between two scallop shells, gules. This motto is on the sarcophagus: “Dominus firmamentum meum.” In his report (1896) Sir H. Maxwell Lyte proves that the whole monument was removed probably from the chancel of the chapel when it was pulled down in the seventeenth century. The cherubs’ heads he considers later than the rest of the sculpture. A brief inscription mentions the date of Yong’s death and adds that “his faithful executors” placed this monument in 1516, the year of his death. It is curious to observe that there were living in 1516 three men of the same name, John Yong, all scholars of Winchester, all fellows of New College, Oxford, and a fourth who was Norroy King of Arms. Of them one, who was suffragan to Fitzjames, the Bishop of London, who had become blind, and Bishop of Gallipoli, in partibus, is usually confused with his namesake the Dean of York, who was Master of the Rolls; indeed, Sir H. Maxwell Lyte remarks that neither the tomb nor the epitaph gives any indication that “he was titular bishop of Gallipoli.” Bishop Yong, who does not seem to have shared his namesake’s reforming views, survived him for ten years. Two other fine monuments with effigies are to Richard Alington, who died in 1561, and to Edward Bruce, Lord Bruce of Kinloss, who died in 1611. There are several tablets, a statue of George I., and a bust of Lord Romilly.

The cases contain typical manuscripts, many of them finely illuminated. Among them are examples of royal charters, (A); letters patent, (B); volumes like the “Black Book of the Exchequer,” (C); Rolls with pictures, (D); and on the centre table the two volumes which contain the celebrated “Domesday Survey,” completed in 1086. In case E is the great book which contains the agreement between Henry VII. and the Abbot of Westminster concerning the masses to be celebrated “for ever” in the King’s chapel. Some very fine illuminations are in the treaty of peace with Francis I. (Case F). Letters and despatches of interest will be found in the remaining cases, such as the account of Nelson’s death (Case I); Great Seal for Virginia and for New York, and a letter of George Washington to George III. (Case M); besides boxes and coffers made for the preservation of important books or documents.

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Of Fetter Lane Stow says: “There is Fewter Lane which stretches south into Fleet Street, by the east end of St. Dunstan’s Church and is so-called of fewters (or idle people) lying there as in a way leading to gardens; but the same is now of latter years on both sides built through with many fair houses.”

Others derived the name from the fetters of criminals or the fetters or rests on the breastplates of the knights riding through to forays in Fickett’s Field (Lincoln’s Inn Fields) adjoining (see p. 370). Tom Payne, who wrote The Rights of Man, lived at No. 77, and it is said that Dryden lived at No. 16, now demolished.

Crane Court is lined by rows of old buildings mingled with some warehouses of more modern date. The tiled roofs and projecting parapets, with rows of little windows peeping out under the roof, are in contrast with the new red brick of the building belonging to the Scottish Corporation erected in 1880. This is at the north end of the court, facing the entry, and is on the site of the building temporarily occupied by the Royal Society. The earlier building was built by Sir C. Wren, and contained a fine hall with richly stuccoed ceiling; the walls were hung with pictures by Sir Godfrey Kneller, Wilkie, etc., but unfortunately it was destroyed by fire, November 1877, together with all relics. The Scottish Corporation originated in a Society formed shortly after the accession of James I. for relieving the unfortunate poor among those of the Scottish nation who had followed their king to England.

In 1782 the premises in Crane Court were bought from the Royal Society for £1000. The fire which destroyed the hall destroyed almost all records. On July 21, 1880, the present hall was opened by the Duke of Argyll. On the ground-floor is a spacious chapel in which are held the monthly religious services, and where the pensioners are accommodated on pay days; above are the offices and the hall for the meeting of the governors. Professor T. L. Donaldson was the architect, and he has tried to infuse as much of the national sentiment as possible into the design.

In Johnson’s Court Dr. Johnson lived (1766-76) at No. 7. The Court, however, is not named after him. The Society of Arts was founded in this court.

In Bolt Court are several old stucco buildings. One at the north end contains the London County Council Technical Education Board. Another on the east has a curious old doorway with “The Medical Society of London” in well-worn letters running round the upper part of a bas-relief. The house belonged to Dr. Lettsom, who was the founder of the Medical Society. Johnson lived in Bolt Court at No. 8, but the house was burned down in 1849. The present technical schools are on the site.

As already stated, Johnson’s Court was not named after the learned doctor, though he lived here, in No. 7, from 1766 to 1776. James Ferguson the astronomer died at No. 4 in 1776. William Cobbett also lived in Bolt Court.

Gough Square is also associated with the name of the great lexicographer. The Society of Arts have placed a circular tablet on the wall of the house, No. 17, which faces eastward. Johnson lived here from 1741 to 1758. The house is an old eighteenth-century brick one, not very large, and not remarkable in any way. A printer and a publisher share the ground-floor, and above is a reading club. The doorway is slightly decorative, and the heavy woodwork of the door itself and the massive chain remain as they were in Johnson’s time. The Club was founded by a Mr. Campbell in 1887 for the recreation and assistance of working lads and girls in the district. There are now one hundred members. The remainder of the Square varies in character. On the south side, and at the east end, there are old eighteenth-century brick houses of the usual pattern. One or two of the doorways have carved brackets, and one fluted pilasters. Over the entry from Goldsmith Street is another house similar in character, but the rest of the north side is of obtrusively new brick buildings. The Square continuing southward contains some warehouses and a few old houses.

The name of Water Lane was changed to Whitefriars Street. Thomas Tompion (d. 1713), the “father of English watch-making,” lived at the corner.

Salisbury Square occupies the site of the courtyard of Salisbury House, the residence of the Bishops of Salisbury, afterwards called Dorset House. In Dorset Gardens beside the river was the Duke’s Theatre. Betterton, Harris, Underhill, and Sandford, actors, lived in this court. Here also lived for a time John Dryden, Shadwell, and Lady Davenant, widow of Sir William Davenant. But the chief glory of Salisbury Court or Square is its memory of Richardson, novelist and printer. His house was in the north-west angle, his printing offices on the east side; here he wrote Pamela; here, for a time, Goldsmith was his press corrector. The theatre called the Salisbury Court Theatre was constructed in 1629 out of the barn or granary at the lower end of the court. It was the seventeenth theatre opened in London within a period of sixty years. The house was pulled down in 1649: rebuilt in 1660, and occupied by the Duke’s Company until their new theatre in Lincoln’s Inn Fields was ready for them. It was destroyed in the Great Fire. The Duke’s Theatre in Dorset Gardens, opened on November 9, 1671, stood facing the river on a different site. In Salisbury Square is the headquarters of the Church Missionary Society.

St. Bride’s or St. Bridget’s is another Fleet Street church. It derives its name from St. Bridget, a saint of the seventh century. No mention of the church has been discovered earlier than 1222. It was destroyed by the Great Fire and rebuilt in 1680 by Wren; the steeple, one of his greatest achievements, was added in 1701. This has been struck several times by lightning, and in 1764 part of it was taken down and lowered by 8 feet. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1306.

The patronage of the church was in the hands of: The Abbot and Convent of Westminster as a rectory from 1306 up to 1507, when a vicarage was ordained in the same patronage; Dean and Chapter of Westminster, in whose successors it continues, since 1573.

Houseling people in 1548 were 1400.

The interior of this church is considered to be one of the best specimens of Wren’s work. It is entered by a porch within the tower, and is divided into a nave and aisles by an arcade of doubled columns on both sides. The length of the church is 111 feet, its breadth 57 feet, and its height, to the roof of the nave, 41 feet. The height of the tower to the top of the parapet is 120 feet, above which the spire rises in four octagonal stories, surmounted by an obelisk and vane. There are vases at the corners of the parapet, introduced to soften the transitions. St. Bride’s Avenue, designed by J. B. Papworth in 1825, affords an open view of this steeple, before obstructed by intervening houses.

The only relics of the old church which now survive are a font in the west part of the middle aisle, and outside, on the north, the entry stone to the vault of the Holdens, dated 1657.

Chantries were founded here: For William de Evesham, John de Uggeley and Lettice his wife, at the Altar of St. Katharine, of which Thomas de Weston was chaplain in 1564—the endowment fetched £6: 10s. in 1548; by Nicholas Sporinge, citizen of London, for himself and for Thomas Bryx and Elene his wife at the Altar of St. John Baptist, of which Ralph Archer was chaplain (d. 1383); for John de Merlawe in 1315; by John Ulstrape, whose endowment fetched £10: 13: 4 in 1549, when Robert Walker was chaplain; by John Wigan and John Hill whose endowments yielded £15: 14: 8 in 1548; by Simon atte Nax, whose endowment fetched £15: 14: 4 in 1548 when John Matthew and Philip Dey were chaplains. Richard Beauchamp, Bishop of Sarum, Walter Devereux, Miles, Lord of Ferrers, and Master Alexander Leigh had licence to found a guild here, May 26, 1475.

This church contains many interesting monuments, and is especially rich in memories of the poets. The Rev. John Pridden, a zealous antiquary, who died in 1825, is commemorated by a tablet on the north wall; here, too, a brass plate has been placed to the memory of John Nichols, author of The History and Antiquities of the County of Leicester and other works. Wynkyn de Worde, the sixteenth-century printer, was buried in this church; also Sir Richard Baker, author of the Chronicle of the Kings of England; and also, perhaps, Richard Lovelace, the cavalier poet. Samuel Richardson, the novelist, who died in 1761, was interred in the middle aisle. In the vestry-room there is a portrait of the Rev. Thomas Dale, a former vicar (see below). Milton is recorded to have taken up his abode for a short time in lodgings in St. Bride’s Churchyard on his return from his travels.

Only two benefactors’ names are recorded by Stow—Robert Lewis, who gave £30 per annum for coals for the poor, and Robert Dove, £50 for a bell to warn prisoners of their approaching death.

There was one charity school for fifty boys and fifty girls, who were clothed, taught, and apprenticed by voluntary subscriptions, added to a yearly collection at the church door.

John Taylor or Cardmaker was vicar here; he was burnt at Smithfield for heresy, May 30, 1555. Also Richard Bundy, D.D. (d. 1739), Prebendary of Westminster; John Thomas (1712-93), Bishop of Rochester; Thomas Dale (1797-1870), Dean of Rochester.

The Fleet River, which gave its name to all this district, was anciently known as Turnmill Brooke or the River of Wells, under which name Stow speaks of it. He says that in 1307, at a parliament held at Carlisle, Henry Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, complained of the “decay” of this river, for “whereas in times past the course of water running at London, under Oldbourne Bridge, and Fleet Bridge into the Thames had been of such breadth and depth that 10 or 12 ships, navies, at once with merchandizes, were wont to come to the foresaid Bridge of Fleet, and some of them to Oldbourne Bridge, now the same course by filth of the tanners and such others, was sore decayed.” He also complained of the diversion of the water by mills of the Templars at Baynard’s Castle. After this the river was cleansed and the mills removed, but the old depth was never restored so that the river became a mere brook and was called Turnmill Brook. The Fleet Bridge, connecting Fleet Street with Ludgate Hill, was destroyed in the Great Fire and another built which was removed in 1765.

Fleet Ditch became very dirty and proved a nuisance; it is several times referred to in no complimentary terms in the Trivia and the Dunciad. Part of it was arched over and the Fleet Market held here. In 1765, the Thames end was arched over at the building of Blackfriars Bridge. Since 1841, the whole has been covered in and now runs underground as a sewer; its course is marked by Farringdon Street and New Bridge Street.