ABSTRACT
The passenger from Stratford would approach London from the west, through the suburb which is Holborn and Oxford Street. Down to the River Thames stretched even then the legal suburb of the Inns of Court, and the Strand was a fashionable residential quarter of great houses fronting the river as far as Whitehall. London had many remarkable public buildings. Old St. Paul's, a cruciform church of vast dimensions built in the decorated style of Gothic, was not only the principal church and cathedral of London, but a meeting-place for friends, and a mart. In the centre was a drawbridge to allow ships to pass through; and on the southern gatehouse, which guarded the approach to London from Southwark High Street, were displayed on pikes the heads of traitors—a touch of barbarism which was characteristic of the age.
