Page:The history of yachting.djvu/225

 Rh and a half later. The Commercial Dock, however, was built during this reign, and was the first wet-dock opened in England. Tower Hill lay in open country, and the Minories were only built on one side fronting the wall. Goodman's Fields were a pasture, divided by hedge rows from Spital Fields, while Houndsditch was but one row of houses; and Bishopsgate, St. Nortonfalgate, and Shoreditch were unconnected; Finsbury Field was dotted with wind mills, and away across beautiful meadows were a few houses, known as Holborn, by the banks of a small stream, called Old Borne, which connected the ponds of Clerkenwell with the Thames. The space between Holborn and the Strand was open fields and gardens extending to the river-side. Convent Garden was a garden belonging to the Convent of Westminster, and extended to St. Martin's Lane; while what we now know as the Haymarket, Pall Mall, St. James Street, Piccadilly, and the almost numberless streets and squares of London, had no existence. Westminster was a tiny town by itself, far away across open country, and Temple Bar, which in later years marked the western limit of the city, was not at this time erected. Fleet Street was the course of the River Fleet. Walbrook was a winding stream, passing through the city into the Thames. And London Bridge was a structure covered with wooden houses on each side.

The houses of London, at that period, were built of wood thatched with straw, each story projecting forward, one above the other, until the houses nearly met over the middle of the streets.