We then come to Aldgate and Whitechapel. The eastern limits of the map run through Goodman’s Fields, in 1677 really open fields. We observe that from Aldgate to the Tower, the site of the town ditch is still left open. A broad space not built over lies across the site of the Minories.
NEWGATE, 1650
From the Crace Collection in the British Museum.
The last line of streets begins with Somerset House. Taking the north side we find Lyon’s Inn between Holywell Street and Wych Street; Clement’s Inn and New Inn, side by side, each with its two courts and its garden; Butcher Row, built in the middle of the Strand, and a labyrinth of courts, lanes, and yards lying between Clement’s Inn and Bell Yard, the whole now occupied by the High Courts of Justice; Clifford’s Inn lies north of St. Dunstan’s Church in Fleet Street.
On the south side we get Somerset House and Gardens, soon to be all built over; the two Temples with their gardens—a vast number of wherries are waiting at the Temple Stairs—and the Whitefriars Precinct, between Whitefriars Lane and Water Lane, where there is a dock for barges. St. Bride’s is called St. Bridget’s; the Palace of Bridewell, with its two courts and two gateways, is represented as still standing. The Duke’s Theatre on the south-east side of Salisbury Court perhaps accounts for the number of wherries gathered at the stairs.
Passing over the City we come to the Tower, and beyond the Tower to the eastern boundary of our map. As to the crowded lanes and courts on the other side of the Tower, there is nothing to say about them; they belong to the Precinct of St. Katherine, now almost entirely converted into a dock.
We have thus gone all round the City from Somerset House west to St. Katherine’s east, and from the City wall on the south to Clerkenwell on the north. These were no longer rural retreats or villages; they were, for the most part, completely built over and laid out in streets; there were among them half a dozen noblemen’s houses. As there were none left in the City, it is certain that the former connection between the City and the nobility had been well-nigh destroyed; but not quite. Prince Rupert is said to have lived in the Barbican, and there are still the houses we have found in Ogilby and those along the riverside between the Temple and Westminster. In all these suburbs there are as yet no new churches, and for all these crowded suburbs, only ten old churches. There are few schools. In the seventeenth century was begun the fatal neglect of the populace, formerly living in the City under surveillance and discipline, taught, trained, and kept in their place. This was the creating cause of the terrible London mob of the next century. What could be expected, when a vast population was allowed to grow up without guidance, without instruction, without religion, and without even a police? We observe also that outside the City there was a great number of market gardens, with gardens at the back of every house until the space is wanted, when courts and alleys are run into them. The Londoner always loved a garden, and had one as long as he could (see [Appendix VII].).
Let us next, very briefly, consider the City of 1677 as represented by this map. It is eleven years after the Fire. It is sometimes stated, loosely, that it took a great many years to rebuild London. The statement is only true as regards the churches and the companies’ halls. The City itself was rebuilt with every possible despatch. As for the plans prepared by Wren and Evelyn, they came under the consideration of the Council after the people had begun with feverish haste to clear away the rubbish and to rebuild. The actual alterations made by order of the Mayor were carefully enumerated by Maitland, and will be found in their place ([Appendices V]. and [VI].).
We must remember that the people, deprived of their shops and their warehouses, huddled together in temporary huts erected on Moorfields, with the winter before them, or lodged in the mean tenements of the suburbs, living on bounty and charity, were eager to get back to their own places. Every man claimed his own ground; every heap of rubbish was the site of a house; every house had its owner or its tenant; without a workshop or his counter there was no means of making a livelihood. Therefore, even before the ashes were cooled, the people were picking their way through the encumbered lanes, crying “Mine! Mine!” and shovelling away the rubbish in order to put up the walls anew. The improvements ordered by the Mayor were not, one fears, carried out exactly; we know by sad experience the difficulty of getting such an order or a regulation obeyed. If we look into Ogilby’s map we see plainly that as regards the streets and courts, London after the Fire was very much the same as London before the Fire; there were the same narrow streets, the same crowded alleys, the same courts and yards. Take, for instance, the small area lying between Bread Street Hill on the west and Garlick Hill on the east, between Trinity Lane on the north and Thames Street on the south: is it possible to crowd more courts and alleys into this area? Can we believe that after the Fire London was relieved of its narrow courts with this map before us? Look at the closely-shut-in places marked on the maps, “1 g., m. 46, m. 47, m. 48, m. 40.” These are respectively, Jack Alley, Newman’s Rents, Sugar Loaf Court, Three Cranes Court, and Cowden’s Rents. Some of these courts survive to this day. They were formed, as the demand for land grew, by running narrow lanes between the backs of houses and swallowing up the gardens. There were 479 such courts in Ogilby’s London of 1677, 472 alleys, and 172 yards, besides 128 inns, each of which, with its open courts for the standing of vehicles, and its galleries, stood retired from the street on a spot which had once been the fair garden of a citizen’s house.