This Street Over The Bridge Is As Much Thronged, And
Has As Brisk A Trade As Any Street In The City; And The Perpetual
Passage Of Coaches And Carriages Makes It Troublesome Walking On It,
There Being No Posts To Keep Off Carriages As In Other Streets.
The
middle vacancy was left for a drawbridge, which used formerly to be
drawn up when shipping passed that way; but no vessels come above
the bridge at this day but such as can strike their masts, and pass
under the arches.
Four of the arches on the north side of the
bridge are now taken up with mills and engines, that raise the water
to a great height, for the supply of the city; this brings in a
large revenue which, with the rents of the houses on the bridge, and
other houses and lands that belong to it, are applied as far as is
necessary to the repair of it by the officers appointed for that
service, who are, a comptroller and two bridge-masters, with their
subordinate officers; and in some years, it is said, not less than
three thousand pounds are laid out in repairing and supporting this
mighty fabric, though it be never suffered to run much to decay.
I come next to describe that circuit of ground which lies without
the walls, but within the freedom and jurisdiction of the City of
London. And this is bounded by a line which begins at Temple Bar,
and extends itself by many turnings and windings through part of
Shear Lane, Bell Yard, Chancery Lane, by the Rolls Liberty, &c.,
into Holborn, almost against Gray's-Inn Lane, where there is a bar
(consisting of posts, rails, and a chain) usually called Holborn
Bars; from whence it passes with many turnings and windings by the
south end of Brook Street, Furnival's Inn, Leather Lane, the south
end of Hatton Garden, Ely House, Field Lane, and Chick Lane, to the
common sewer; then to Cow Cross, and so to Smithfield Bars; from
whence it runs with several windings between Long Lane and
Charterhouse Lane to Goswell Street, and so up that street northward
to the Bars.
From these Bars in Goswell Street, where the manor of Finsbury
begins, the line extends by Golden Lane to the posts and chain in
Whitecross Street, and from thence to the posts and chain in Grub
Street; and then runs through Ropemakers Alley to the posts and
chain in the highway from Moorgate, and from thence by the north
side of Moorfields; after which it runs northwards to Nortonfalgate,
meeting with the bars in Bishopsgate Street, and from thence runs
eastward into Spittlefields, abutting all along upon Nortonfalgate.
From Nortonfalgate it returns southwards by Spittlefields, and then
south-east by Wentworth Street, to the bars in Whitechapel. From
hence it inclines more southerly to the Little Minories and
Goodman's Fields: from whence it returns westward to the posts and
chain in the Minories, and so on more westerly till it comes to
London Wall, abutting on the Tower Liberty, and there it ends. The
ground comprehended betwixt this line and the city wall contains
about three hundred acres.
There is no wall or fence, as has been hinted already, to separate
the freedom of the City from that part of the town which lies in the
county of Middlesex, only posts and chains at certain places, and
one gate at the west end of Fleet Street which goes by the name of
Temple Bar.
This gate resembles a triumphal arch; it is built of hewn stone,
each side being adorned with four pilasters, their entablature, and
an arched pediment of the Corinthian order. The intercolumns are
niches replenished; those within the Bar towards the east, with the
figures of King James I. and his queen; and those without the Bar,
with the figures of King Charles I. and King Charles II. It is
encircled also with cornucopias, and has two large cartouches by way
of supporters to the whole; and on the inside of the gate is the
following inscription, viz., "Erected in the year 1671, Sir Samuel
Starling, Mayor: continued in the year 1670, Sir Richard Ford, Lord
Mayor: and finished in the year 1672, Sir George Waterman, Lord
Mayor."
The city is divided into twenty-six wards or governments, each
having its peculiar officers, as alderman, common council, &c. But
all are subject to the lord mayor, the supreme magistrate of this
great metropolis. Of each of these wards take the following
account.
1. Portsoken ward is situate without Aldgate, the most easterly
ward belonging to the City; and extends from Aldgate eastward to the
bars. The chief streets and places comprehended in it, are part of
Whitechapel Street, the Minories, Houndsditch, and the west side of
Petticoat Lane.
Whitechapel is a handsome broad street, by which we enter the town
from the east. The south side, or great part of it, is taken up by
butchers who deal in the wholesale way, selling whole carcases of
veal, mutton, and lamb (which come chiefly out of Essex) to the town
butchers. On the north side are a great many good inns, and several
considerable tradesmen's houses, who serve the east part of England
with such goods and merchandise as London affords. On the south
side is a great market for hay three times a week.
Tower ward extends along the Thames from the Tower on the east
almost to Billingsgate on the west, and that part of the Tower
itself which lies to the westward of the White Tower is held by some
to be within this ward. The principal streets and places contained
in it are Great Tower Street, part of Little Tower Street and Tower
Hill, part of Thames Street, Mark Lane, Mincing Lane, Seething Lane,
St. Olave Hart Street, Idle Lane, St. Dunstan's Hill, Harp Lane,
Water Lane, and Bear Lane, with the courts and alleys that fall into
them.
Great Tower Hill lies on the outside of the Tower Ditch towards the
north-west.
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