and nature of the structures which were turned to theatrical uses.
The precinct covered a space of about five acres.[1] In shape it was a rough parallelogram, wider at the north than at the south. The great gate was towards the east end of the north boundary. It was reached by a short entry on the south of Bowier Row, now Ludgate Hill, just east of Ludgate. This seems to have been called Gate Street. It is now the north end of Pilgrim Street.[2] From here the boundary was the city wall, westwards for about 450 ft. to the Fleet ditch, and then southwards for about 800 ft. along the east side of the ditch. There were towers at intervals. One of these stood about 200 ft. down from the angle, and immediately south of this was the bridge over the Fleet towards Bridewell. The south and east boundaries were also walled. Between the south wall and the river ran Castle Lane, which was not within the precinct.[3] A gate in the south wall gave access across the lane to the Blackfriars 'bridge' or 'stairs', a common landing place, originally built by the Prior of St. John's, from whom, in some way not clear to me, the Friars held their estate.[4] The south-east angle of the precinct was near Puddle Wharf, and from here the boundary ran up the west side of St. Andrew's Hill to Carter Lane, bending out eastwards near the top, where the buildings of the Wardrobe joined it by an arch over the roadway, was then driven in sharply westwards by the end of Carter Lane, which was butt up against a turngate in the friars' wall, and finally ran in an irregularly diagonal line from the junction of Creed and Carter Lanes north-west to the great gate
- ↑ The general lie of Blackfriars can be gathered from Stowe (1598), i. 313; ii. 11, with the maps described in the Bibl. Note to ch. xvi, and the modern ordnance maps. The earlier maps are largely picturesque, and notably place far too much of the precinct on the east of Water Lane. But they seem to preserve certain details, such as the arches over the north to south highway. The old lines of the roads appear to have been preserved at the rebuilding after the great fire of 1666. I have added some details from other sources.
- ↑ M. S. C. ii. 115.
- ↑ The reconstructed map of London by Emery Walker in C. L. Kingsford's edition of Stowe gives this name in error to Water Lane.
- ↑ The 1586 documents in Stowe (1720), i. 3. 178, state that the prior held of the lord of St. John's, 'who did make the bridge at the Thames'. Feuillerat, Eliz. 454, however, quotes a Declared Account of 1550 for 'the ereccion and buyldynge . . . of two bridges thone at the Blackfreers and thother at the Temple'. Under Elizabeth the liberty maintained the bridge as well as that at Bridewell (Lansd. MS. 155, f. 80^v). The tenure from St. John's is also alleged (1587) in Dasent, xv. 137. It is rather curious that in an endorsement of the survey of St. John's in 1586-7 (Feuillerat, Eliz. 47) that house, although in Clerkenwell, is described, perhaps by a slip, as in the Blackfriars.
