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East Smithfield was open to Tower hill,
and Rosemary lane was unbuilt. The
Minories were built only on the east side,
which fronted the city wall: cattle grazed
in Goodman's Fields, and Whitechapel
extended but a little beyond the bars, and
had no houses to the north; for Spital-
fields, which of themselves would now
compose a very large town, were then really
fields, separated from each other by hedges
and rows of trees. Houndsditch consisted
only of a row of houses fronting the city
wall, and the little yards and gardens behind
them also opened into those fields. Bi-
shopsgate street, Norton Falgate, and the
street called Shoreditch, were then how-
ever built as far as the church, but there
were only a few houses and gardens on
each side, and no streets or lanes on either
hand. Moorfields lay entirely open to the
village of Hoxton; and Finsbury Fields,
in which were several windmills, extend-
ed to the east side of Whitecross street.
Chiswell street was not erected, and St.
John's street extended by the side of the
priory of St. John of Jerusalem, to the
monastery of Clerkenwell, and Cow
Cross, which opened into the fields.
But on leaving the city walls, the build-
ings were much less extensive; for though
the village of Holborn was now joined to
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| L O N | 65 |
London, the backs of the houses, parti-
cularly on the north side, opened into
gardens and fields; part of Gray's Inn
lane were the only houses that extended
beyond the main street; great part of
High Holborn had no existence, and St.
Giles's was a village contiguous to no part
of London.
If we turn to the Strand, we also find,
that spacious street had gardens on each
side, and to the north, fields behind those
gardens, except a few houses where is
now the west end of Drury lane. On the
south side of the street, the gardens gene-
rally extended to the Thames; though
some of the nobility had houses on the
back of their gardens, next the water side.
Covent Garden, so called from its belong-
ing to the convent at Westminster, ex-
tended to St. Martin's lane, and the field
behind it reached to St. Giles's. That
lane had few edifices besides the church;
for Covent Garden wall was on one side,
and a wall which inclosed the Mews, on
the other, and all the upper part was a
lane between two hedges, which extend-
ed a little to the west of the village of St.
Giles's. Hedge lane was also a lane be-
tween two hedges; the extensive street
now called the Hay Market, had a hedge
on one side, and a few bushes on the other.
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