The city of London, not to be confused with the allegorical character (London).

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).

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.

Located in Farringdon Within Ward, Ludgate was a gate built by the Romans (Carlin and Belcher 80). Stow asserts that Ludgate was constructed by King Lud who named the gate after himself for his owne honor (Stow 1:1).

Tower Street ran east-west from Tower Hill in the east to St. Andrew Hubbard. It was the principal street of Tower Street Ward. That the ward is named after the street indicates the cultural significance of Tower Street, which was a key part of the processional route through London and home to many wealthy merchants who traded in the goods that were unloaded at the docks and quays immediately south of Tower Street (for example, Billingsgate, Wool Key, and Galley Key).

Eastcheap Street ran east-west, from Tower Street to St. Martin’s Lane. West of New Fish Street/Gracechurch Street, Eastcheap was known as Great Eastcheap. The portion of the street to the east of New Fish Street/Gracechurch Street was known as Little Eastcheap. Eastcheap (Eschepe or Excheapp) was the site of a medieval food market.

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.

London Stone was, literally, a stone that stood on the south side of what is now Cannon Street (formerly Candlewick Street). Probably Roman in origin, it is one of London’s oldest relics. On the Agas map, it is visible as a small rectangle between Saint Swithin’s Lane and Walbrook Street, just below the nd consonant cluster in the label Londonſton.

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).

Watling Street ran east-west between St. Sythes Lane in Cordwainer Street Ward and Old Change in Bread Street Ward. It is visible on the Agas map under the label Watlinge ſtreat.

Stow records that the street is also commonly known as Noble Street (Stow 1598, sig. O4v). This should not lead to confusion with Noble Street in Aldersgate Ward. There is an etymological explanation for this crossover of names. According to Ekwall, the name Watling ultimately derives from an Old English word meaning king’s son (Ekwall 81-82). Watling Street remains distinct from the Noble Street in Aldersgate Ward.

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.

Cripplegate was one of the original gates in the city wall (Weinreb, Hibbert, Keay, and Keay 221; Harben). It was the northern gate of a large fortress that occupied the northwestern corner of the Roman city.

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.

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.

Located in Farringdon Within Ward, Christ’s Hospital was a opened in 1552 as a home for London’s needy children. Inspired by the preaching of Dr. Nicholas Ridley, Edward VI decided to charter the hospital days before his death in 1553 (Manzione 33). Although it began as a hospital, Christ’s Hospital eventually became known for its respected school (Pearce 206).

According to Stow, St. Bartholomew’s Hospital was located on the west side of Smithfield in Farringdon Without Ward. Originally a religious hospital, it was founded by its first prior, Rahere, in 1102 (Stow 1598, sig. X1r). It was dissolved under Henry VIII and reendowed and granted to the City of London in 1544 as a part of the civic hospital system.

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).

Originally built as a Roman fortification for the provincial city of Londinium in the second century C.E., the London Wall remained a material and spatial boundary for the city throughout the early modern period. Described by Stow as high and great (Stow 1:8), the London Wall dominated the cityscape and spatial imaginations of Londoners for centuries. Increasingly, the eighteen-foot high wall created a pressurized constraint on the growing city; the various gates functioned as relief valves where development spilled out to occupy spaces outside the wall.

Holy Trinity Priory, located west of Aldgate and north of Leadenhall Street, was an Augustinian Priory. Stow notes that Queen Matilda established the Priory in 1108 in the parishes of Saint Marie Magdalen, S. Michael, S. Katherine, and the blessed Trinitie, which now was made but one Parish of the holy Trinitie (Stow). Before Matilda united these parishes under the name Holy Trinity Priory, they were collectively known as the Holy Cross or Holy Roode parish (Stow; Harben).

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St. Leonard’s church—also known as The Actors’ church—is the burial place of many prominent early modern actors. The Burbages (James Burbage and his sons Richard Burbage and Cuthbert Burbage), Richard Cowley, William Sly, and many others are buried there ().

As the only bridge in London crossing the Thames until 1729, London Bridge was a focal point of the city. After its conversion from wood to stone, completed in 1209, the bridge housed a variety of structures, including a chapel and a growing number of shops. The bridge was famous for the cityʼs grisly practice of displaying traitorsʼ heads on poles above its gatehouses. Despite burning down multiple times, London Bridge was one of the few structures not entirely destroyed by the Great Fire of London in 1666.

Bishopsgate Street ran north from Cornhill Street to the southern end of Shoreditch Street at the city boundary. South of Cornhill, the road became Gracechurch Street, and the two streets formed a major north-south artery in the eastern end of the walled city of London, from London Bridge to Shoreditch. Important sites included: Bethlehem Hospital, a mental hospital, and Bull Inn, a place where plays were performed before Shakespeare’s time (Weinreb and Hibbert 67).

St. Mary Spital was an Augustinian Priory and Hospital on the east side of Bishopsgate Street. The Priory dates from 1197. The old precinct of St. Mary Spital is visible on the Agas map. The church itself was demolished after the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539. By the time the Agas map was drawn, many of the priory buildings had been removed and the area appears sparse.

For information about St. Giles, Cripplegate, a modern map marking the site where the it once stood, and a walking tour that will take you to the site, visit the () article on St. Giles, Cripplegate.

Bowyer Row, according to Harben, ran east-west from Creed Lane to Ludgate (Harben). It was the unofficial yet descriptive name given to a section of Ludgate Street by early modern Londoners, so called of bowiers dwelling there in old time (Stow 1598, sig. T1v).

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.

Carter Lane ran east-west between Creed Lane in the west, past Paul’s Chain, to Old Change in the East. It ran parallel to St. Paul’s Churchyard in the north and Knightrider Street in the south. It lay within Castle Baynard Ward and Farringdon Ward Within. It is labelled as Carter lane on the Agas map.

In the middle ages, Westcheap was the main market west of Walbrook, so called to distinguish it from Eastcheap, the market in the east. By Stow’s time, the term Westcheap had fallen out of use in place of Cheapside Market. Stow himself, however, continued to use the term to distinguish the western end of Cheapside Street.

Holborn Bridge or Oldboorne bridge (Stow) spanned the Fleet Ditch at Holborn Street. Located in the ward of Farringdon Without, the bridge was part of a major westward thoroughfare.

A priory of Augustinian canons once encompassing St. Bartholomew the Great, St. Bartholomew the Less, and St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. Dissolved by Henry VIII.

Bridewell was a prison and hospital. The site was originally a royal palace (Bridewell Palace) but was transferred to the City of London in 1553, when it was converted to function as an orphanage and house of correction. Bridewell is located on the Agas map at the corner of the Thames and Fleet Ditch, labelled as Bride Well.

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).

Queenhithe is one of the oldest havens or harbours for ships along the Thames. Hyd is an Anglo-Saxon word meaning landing place. Queenhithe was known in the ninth century as Aetheredes hyd or the landing place of Aethelred. Aethelred was the son-in-law of Alfred the Great (the first king to unify England and have any real authority over London), an ealdorman (I.e., alderman) of the former kingdom of Mercia, and ruler of London (Sheppard 70).

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.

Dowgate was a watergate opening to the Thames in Dowgate Ward, near Walbrook (Harben). According to Carlin and Belcher, Dowgate was a place where ships unloaded (Carlin and Belcher 72). According to Harben, Dowgate was called Duuegate, Douuegate, or Douegate, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries but because Stow mistook the second u for an n, the gate also became known as Downgate (Harben). According to Harben, the site is now occupied by Dowgate Dock (Harben).

The Steelyard was the chief outpost of the Hanseatic League in the city of London. Located on the north side of the River Thames, slightly west of London Bridge, the Steelyard was home to many wealthy German merchants from the thirteenth century to the end of the sixteenth century. Although it was a powerful economic force in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, by the time of Elizabeth’s reign, piracy and economic sanctions had rendered the once great Steelyard obsolete (Lloyd 344-345).

Located on the banks of the Thames, Baynard’s Castle was built sometime in the late eleventh century by Baynard, a Norman who came over with William the Conqueror (Weinreb and Hibbert 129). The castle passed to Baynard’s heirs until one William Baynard, who by forfeyture for fellonie, lost his Baronie of little Dunmow (Stow 1:61). From the time it was built, Baynard’s Castle was the headquarters of London’s army until the reign of Edward I when it was handed over to the Dominican Friars, the Blackfriars whose name is still commemorated along that part of the waterfront (Hibbert 10).

The largest and wealthiest friary in England, Blackfriars was not only a religious institution but also a cultural, intellectual, and political centre of London. The friary housed London’s Dominican friars (known in England as the Black friars) after their move from the smaller Blackfriars precincts in Holborn. The Dominicans’ aquisition of the site, overseen by Robert Kilwardby, began in 1275. Once completed, the precinct was second in size only to St. Paul’s Churchyard, spanning eight acres from the Fleet to St. Andrew’s Hill and from Ludgate to the Thames. Blackfriars remained a political and social hub, hosting councils and even parlimentary proceedings, until its surrender in 1538 pursuant to Henry VIII’s Dissolution of the Monasteries (Holder 27–56).

The church of St. Martin Orgar, named for Dean Orgar who gave the church to the canons, has been wrongly located by the maker of the Agas map. The church is drawn in Bridge Ward Within, south of Crooked Lane and west of New Fish Street on St. Michael’s Lane. However, the church was actually located one block northwest in Candlewick Street Ward, on the east side of St. Martin’s Lane just south of Candlewick Street.

Founded by the Royal Foundation of St. Katherine, St. Katherine’s by the Tower was both a hospital and a church. Its surrounding land became the St. Katherine’s by the Tower precinct which, according to Weinreb, was a precinct independent of Aldgate Ward (Weinreb 720, 778).

St. Botolph’s Wharf was located in Billingsgate Ward on the north bank of the Thames. Named after Botolph, the abbot of Iken, St. Botolph’s Wharf was a bustling site of commerce and trade.

St. Botolph’s Billingsgate Church was located on the southwest corner of the intersection of Botolph Lane and Thames Street in Billingsgate Ward. It is not labelled on the Agas map. It was one of the four London churches named after the seventh-century Anglo-Saxon monk, St. Botolph, who was the abbot of Iken, Suffolk. Over fifty churches in England were named after Botolph. According to Stow, the church of St. Botolph’s once contained many beautiful monuments, but, even by his time, the monuments were gone, destroyed, or defaced (Stow 1598, sig. M1v).

Westminster Abbey was and continues to be a historically significant church. One of its many notable features is Poets’ Corner. Located in the south transept of the church, it is the final resting place of Geoffrey Chaucer, Ben Jonson, Francis Beaumont, and many other notable authors; in 1740, a monument for William Shakespeare was erected in Westminster Abbey (ShaLT). The church is located on the bottom-left corner of the Agas map.

One of the Legal Quays, Smart’s Key was primarily involved in the trade of fish. Named after its original owner, a Master Smart, the key eventually came into the possession of London’s fraternity of cordwainers. It is perhaps most notorious for being the location of an alehouse that in 1585 was converted by a man named Wotton into a training ground for aspiring cut-purses and pickpockets. The key was an important landing place for merchant vessels throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Billingsgate Ward is west of Tower Street Ward. The ward is named after Billingsgate, a water-gate and harbour on the Thames.

Tower Street Ward is east of Billingsgate Ward and west of the Tower of London.