e, running into Wych Street, is now
completely altered. New Inn and Booksellers' Row, otherwise Holywell
Street, are wiped off the map, and the semicircular arm of the great new
street connecting Holborn and the Strand will come out near St.
Clement's Church. The name Holywell referred to a holy well which stood
on the spot. There were, apparently, several of these wells in the
vicinity; one was on the site of the Law Courts (_Times_, May 1, 1874).
The street was a survival of old London, with its houses picturesquely
old, with pointed gables, and it is a cause for regret that it had to go
down in the march of modern improvements (see _frontispiece_).

Butcher Row ran round the north side of the church. It was so named from
a flesh-market established here by Edward I. Numerous small courts
opened off in the north side. Among these were Hemlock, Swan, Chair,
Crown and Star Courts. The Row and its vicinity had for many years a
notoriously bad reputation. One of the courts off Little Shear Alley was
Boswell Court, not, as some have imagined, called after Johnson's
biographer. This court was at one time a very fashionable place of
residence; Lady Raleigh, the widow of Sir Walter, lived here for three
years.

In Butcher Row the houses were picturesque, of timber and plaster. In
one of them the great de Rosny, afterwards Duc de Sully, lodged for one
night when he came to England as the French Ambassador.

Turning westward, we see what is left of Newcastle Street, which was
named after John Holles, Duke of Newcastle, who owned the ground (1711).
The work of demolition is going on as far as Catherine Street, where the
Gaiety theatre still stands, though not for long, for the second great
scimitar sweep of the new street will join the Strand here.

The parish of St. Paul's lies like a leaf on the parish of St.
Martin's-in-the-Fields, by which it is wholly surrounded. Its southern
boundary runs most erratically, zigzagging in and out across the streets
which connect Maiden Lane and Henrietta Street with the Strand. The
eastern line keeps on the east side of Bow and Brydges Street. The north
passes along the north side of Hart Street, and the west cuts across the
east ends of Garrick and New Streets, keeping to the east of
Bedfordbury.

The name Covent is a corruption of Convent, and is taken from the
convent garden of the Abbey of Westminster, which was formerly on this
site. It was written Covent, as taken from the French _