Aldersgate was one of London’s four original gates (Stow 1598, sig. C7r), labelled Alders gate on the Agas map. The gate was likely built into the Wall of London during the Roman Conquest, marking the northern entrance into the city.

Aldgate was the easternmost gate into the walled city. The name Aldgate is thought to come from one of four sources: Æst geat meaning Eastern gate (Ekwall 36), Alegate from the Old English ealu meaning ale, Aelgate from the Saxon meaning public gate or open to all, or Aeldgate meaning old gate (Bebbington 20–21).

Billingsgate (Bylynges gate or Belins Gate), a water-gate and harbour located on the north side of the Thames between London Bridge and the Tower of London, was London’s principal dock in Shakespeare’s day. Its age and the origin of its name are uncertain. It was probably built ca. 1000 in response to the rebuilding of London Bridge in the tenth or eleventh century.

According to John Stow, the Boss of Billingsgate was a fountain of spring water continually running, which was set into the wall of Boss Alley (Stow 1598, sig. M2v). This boss was the subject of an early modern poem, which personified both the Boss of Billingsgate and the London Stone. In this poem, the Boss is described as a fallen woman, who the London Stone marries ( sig. A5v). While the Boss of Billingsgate was located on the north side of Billingsgate Ward, its exact coordinates remain unknown and it is not labelled on the Agas map.

Budge Row ran east-west through Cordwainer Street Ward. It passed through the ward from Soper Lane in the west to Walbrook Street in the east. Beyond Soper Lane, Budge Row became Watling Street. Before it came to be known as Budge Row, it once formed part of Watling Street, one of the Roman roads (Weinreb and Hibbert 107).

Candlewick, Candlewright, or, later, Cannon Street, ran east-west from Walbrook Street in the west to the beginning of Eastcheap at its eastern terminus. Candlewick Street became Eastcheap somewhere around St. Clements Lane, and led into a great meat market (Stow 1:217). Together with streets such as Budge Row, Watling Street, and Tower Street, which all joined into each other, Candlewick Street formed the main east-west road through London between Ludgate and Posterngate.

The Cardinal’s Hat was located south of the Thames and west of the London Bridge in the ward of Southwark. It was part of a row of twelve licensed brothels or stewhouses along Bankside that were permitted by King Henry VII to operate after temporary closure in 1506 (Stow 1598, sig. Y6v).

Chancery Lane was built sometime around 1160 by the Knights Templar on land they owned. It ran north-south between Fleet Street at the south end to Holborn in the North, and was originally called New Street. The current name dates from the time of Ralph Neville, who was Bishop of Chichester and Lord Chancellor of England (Bebbington 78). The area around the street came into his possession when in 1227 Henry III gave him land for a palace in this lane: hence Bishop’s Court and Chichester Rents, small turnings out of Chancery Lane (Bebbington 78).

The London Charterhouse refers to a series of buildings located at the north-east end of Charterhouse Lane to the west of Aldersgate Street near Smithfield. Throughout the early modern period, the Charterhouse served many functions: prior to the Reformation, it was a Carthusian monastery; however, after the execution of Prior Houghton and other Carthusian martyrs in the mid-sixteenth century, the monastery was dissolved and the Charterhouse became a well known private residence and, later, the site of a hospital, school, and pensioners’ home. Today, the Charterhouse is used as a home for elderly pensioners, hosting about forty men.

Charterhouse Lane was a narrow road that ran north-south between the London Charterhouse and St. John’s Street. The street earned its name due to its proximity to the London Charterhouse, which housed Carthusian monks. Following the dissolution of London monasteries between 1536 and 1541, Charterhouse Lane became a well known and documented site of poverty, crime, and drinking. After a series of demolitions in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Charterhouse Lane was restructured as part of the modern-day Charterhouse Street.

Cheapside Street, one of the most important streets in early modern London, ran east-west between the Great Conduit at the foot of Old Jewry to the Little Conduit by St. Paul’s churchyard. The terminus of all the northbound streets from the river, the broad expanse of Cheapside Street separated the northern wards from the southern wards. It was lined with buildings three, four, and even five stories tall, whose shopfronts were open to the light and set out with attractive displays of luxury commodities (Weinreb and Hibbert 148). Cheapside Street was the centre of London’s wealth, with many mercers’ and goldsmiths’ shops located there. It was also the most sacred stretch of the processional route, being traced both by the linear east-west route of a royal entry and by the circular route of the annual mayoral procession.

The City Dog House, located in northern London, was adjacent to Moorfields and was located outside of The Wall and the city wards. On the Agas map, it is labelled as Dogge hous. Built in 1512, the Lord Mayor’s dog house, as it was most frequently called, housed the Lord Mayor’s hunting dogs.

Cow Lane, located in the Ward of Farringdon Without, began at Holborn Street, and then curved north and east to West Smithfield. Smithfield was a meat market, so the street likely got its name because cows were led through it to market (Bebbington 100). Just as Ironmonger Lane and Milk Street in Cheapside Market were named for the goods located there, these streets leading into Smithfield meat market were named for the animals that could be bought there.

Cuckold’s Haven or Cuckold’s Point and the horn-topped pole that stood on the banks of the Thames were notorious in early modern London. The location was known for adultery both committed and threatened, and was referred to widely in the period’s literature. The Horne Faire of Charlton celebrated the association of the site with an act of cuckoldry involving King John. Cuckoldry had its own vocabulary at the time, reflecting both the anxieties of the social structure and the difference in moral perceptions from our present time. The landmark is no longer present but renewed interest in the site and a revival of the Horne Faire in Horn Fair Park has begun in recent years.

Durham House was located in the Strand, west of Ivy Bridge Lane. It stood at the border between the Duchy of Lancaster and Westminster.

Finsbury Field is located in northen London outside the London Wall. Note that MoEML correctly locates Finsbury Field, which the label on the Agas map confuses with Mallow Field (Prockter 40). Located nearby is Finsbury Court. Finsbury Field is outside of the city wards within the borough of Islington (Mills 81).

The Fleet, known as "Fleet River", "Fleet Ditch", "Fleet Dike", and the "River of Wells" due to the numerous wells along its banks, was London’s largest subterranean river (Stow 1598, sig. C4r). It flowed down from Hampstead and Kenwood ponds in the north, bisecting the Ward of Farringdon Without, as it wended southward into the Thames (Weinreb, Hibbert, Keay, and Keay 298).

Friday Street passed south through Bread Street Ward, beginning at the cross in Cheapside Street and ending at Old Fish Street. It was one of many streets that ran into Cheapside Street market whose name is believed to originate from the goods that were sold there.

Grub Street could be found outside the walled City of London. It ran north-south, between Everades Well Street in the north and Fore Lane in the south. Grub Street was partially in Cripplegate ward, and partially outside the limits of the City of London.

Ironmonger Lane, located directly north of Eastcheap in Cheap Ward, ran north-south between Cateaton Street and Cheapside Street. The lane’s name has undergone a number of spelling changes over the years—on the Agas map, it is labelled as "Iremonger lane", but it has also been written as "Ismonger Lane", "Ismongeres Lane", or "Ysmongeres Lane", with records of the last spelling dating back to 1213 (Harben).

Leadenhall Street ran east-west from Cornhill Street to Aldgate Street. All three form part of the same road from Aldgate to Cheapside Street (Weinreb and Hibbert 462). The street acquired its name from Leadenhall, a onetime house and later a market. The building was reportedly famous for having a leaden roof (Bebbington 197).

Maiden Lane (Wood Street) was shared between Cripplegate Ward, Aldersgate Ward, and Farringdon Within. It ran west from Wood Street, and originated as a trackway across the Covent Garden (Bebbington 210) to St. Martin’s Lane.

Milk Street, located in Cripplegate Ward, began on the north side of Cheapside Street, and ran north to a square formed at the intersection of Milk Street, Cat Street (Lothbury), Lad Lane, and Aldermanbury.

Moorgate was one of the major gates in the Wall of London (Sugden). It was situated in the northern part of the Wall, flanked by Cripplegate and Bishopsgate. Clearly labelled as More Gate on the Agas map, it stood near the intersection of London Wall street and Coleman Street (Sugden; Stow 1598, sig. C6v). It adjoined Bethlehem Hospital, and the road through it led into Finsbury Field (Rocque) and Mallow Field.

The gaol at Newgate, a western gate in the Roman Wall of London, was constructed in the twelfth century specifically to detain fellons and trespassors awaiting trial by royal judges (Durston 470; O’Donnell 25; Stow 1598, sig. C8r). The gradual centralisation of the English criminal justice system meant that by the reign of Elizabeth I, Newgate had become London’s most populated gaol. In the early modern period, incarceration was rarely conceived of as a punishment in itself; rather, gaols like Newgate were more like holding cells, where inmates spent time until their trials or punishments were effected, or their debts were paid off.

On the Agas map there are nine rectangular and square pike gardens, or artificial fishponds, located in the liberty of Southwark among the bear and bullbaiting arenas. These nine pike gardens, however, give only an approximate indication of the size, shape, and location of early modern London’s three major aquaculture operations—the Winchester House Pike Garden, the King’s (or Queen’s) Pike Garden, and the Great Pike Garden—each of which dates to the Middle Ages. These fishponds relied on two separate types of holding areas: the vivarium, or breeding pond, and the servatorium, or holding pond. To catch and sort fish, workers drained the shallow ponds through diversion conduits equipped with gates and sluices. Freshwater fish cultivated in estate gardens were considered a luxury dish well into the eighteenth century, especially the pike, an aggressive predator that was admired and feared in Izaak Walton’s 1653 angler guidebook.

Puddle Wharf was a water gate along the north bank of the Thames (Stow). Also known as Puddle Dock, it was located in Castle Baynard Ward, down from St. Andrew’s Hill. Puddle Wharf was built in 1294 to serve as the main quay for Blackfriars Monastery. (Weinreb and Hibbert 68, 229). In the early modern period, Puddle Wharf would have been the main landing place for playgoers on their way to the Blackfriars theatre via the river.

A suburban neighbourhood located just north of Moorfields and outside Londonʼs City Wall, Shoreditch was a focal point of early modern theatrical culture. Following a boom in Londonʼs population from 1550 to 1600, the neighbourhood became a prime target for development. The building of the Theatre in 1576 and the Curtain in the following year established Shoreditchʼs reputation as Londonʼs premier entertainment district, and the neigbourhood also featured a growing number of taverns, alehouses, and brothels. These latter establishments were often frequented by local players, of whom many prominent members were buried on the grounds of nearby St. Leonardʼs Church. Today, Shoreditch faces the potential revival of its early modern theatrical culture through the efforts of the Museum of London Archaeology and the Tower Hamlets Theatre Company.

Shoreditch Street, also called Sewersditch, was a continuation of Bishopsgate Street, passing northward from Norton Folgate to the small town of Shoreditch, a suburb of London in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, for which the road was likely named. Shoreditch first appears in manuscripts in 1148 as Scoreditch, meaning ditch of Sceorf [or Scorre] (Weinreb and Hibbert 807).

Smithfield was an open, grassy area located outside the Wall. Because of its location close to the city centre, Smithfield was used as a site for markets, tournaments, and public executions. From 1123 to 1855, the Bartholomew’s Fair took place at Smithfield (Weinreb, Hibbert, Keay, and Keay 842).

Soper Lane was located in the Cordwainers Street Ward just west of Walbrook Street and south of Cheapside Street. Soper Lane was home to many of the soap makers and shoemakers of the city (Stow 1:251). Soper Lane was on the processional route for the lord mayor’s shows.

St. Bartholomew the Great was a church in Farringdon Without Ward on the south side of Long Lane, Smithfield. It was made a parish church at the Dissolution of the Monasteries and was declared a gift to the citizens of London for relieving of the Poore in 1546 (Stow 1633, sig. 2N5r). Under Mary I, the site and building were given to the Dominican order to be used as Blackfriars, St. Bartholomew’s before being restored under Elizabeth I.

St. Paul’s Cathedral was—and remains—an important church in London. In 962, while London was occupied by the Danes, St. Paul’s monastery was burnt and raised anew. The church survived the Norman conquest of 1066, but in 1087 it was burnt again. An ambitious Bishop named Maurice took the opportunity to build a new St. Paul’s, even petitioning the king to offer a piece of land belonging to one of his castles (Times 115). The building Maurice initiated would become the cathedral of St. Paul’s which survived until the Great Fire of London.

Named for its location on the bank of the Thames, the Strand leads outside the City of London from Temple Bar through what was formerly the Duchy of Lancaster to Charing Cross in what was once the city of Westminster. There were three main phases in the evolution of the Strand in early modern times: occupation by the bishops, occupation by the nobility, and commercial development.

The Swan was the second of the Bankside theatres. It was located at Paris Garden. It was in use from 1595 and possibly staged some of the plays of William Shakespeare (SHaLT).

One of the lesser known halls or private playhouses of Renaissance London, the Whitefriars, was home to two different boy playing companies, each of which operated under several different names. Whitefriars produced many famous boy actors, some of whom later went on to greater fame in adult companies. At the Whitefriars playhouse in 1607–1608, the Children of the King’s Revels catered to a homogenous audience with a particular taste for homoerotic puns and situations, which resulted in a small but significant body of plays that are markedly different from those written for the amphitheatres and even for other hall playhouses.