ich ran up the sloping
ground grew with the growth of the trade; new streets continually
sprang up until villas and gardens were gradually built over and the
whole area was covered; but all sprang in the first place from Thames
Street; everything grew out of the trade carried on along the river.
We are going to walk through all the five riverside wards belonging to
this street. There are one or two things to note in advance, if only
to show how this quarter remained the most populous and the most busy
part of London. The City of London has eighty companies. Forty of
these have--or had--Halls of their own. Out of the forty Halls no
fewer than twenty-two belong to these five wards, while one company,
the Fishmongers', had at one time six Halls, or places of meeting, in
and about Thames Street. Again, the City of London formerly had about
150 churches. Along the river, that is, in and about Thames Street
alone, there were at least twenty-four, or one-sixth of the whole
number. Lastly, to show the estimation in which this part was held,
out of the great houses formerly belonging to the King and nobles,
those of Castle Baynard, Cold Harbour, the Erber, Tower Royal, and the
King's Wardrobe belong to Thames Street, while the names of Beaumont,
Scrope, Derby, Worcester, Burleigh, Suffolk, and Arundell connect
houses in the five wards of Thames Street with noble families, in the
days when knights and nobles rode along the street, side by side with
the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs of the City.

In Thames Street are the ancient markets of Billingsgate and
Queenhithe. The former has been a market and a port for more than a
thousand years. Customs and tolls were paid here in the time of King
Ethelred the Second, that is, in the year 979. The exclusive sale of
fish here is comparatively modern, that is, it is not three hundred
years old. As for Queenhithe it is still more ancient than
Billingsgate. Its earliest name was Edred Hithe, that is, Edred's
wharf. It was given by King Stephen to the Convent of the Holy
Trinity. It returned, however, to the Crown, and was given by King
Henry III. to the Queen Eleanor, whence it was called the Queen's Bank
or Queenhithe. On the west side of Queenhithe lived Sir Richard
Gresham, father of Sir Thomas Gresham, in a great house that had
belonged to the Earls and Dukes of Norfolk.

The splendid building of the Custom House on the south side is the
fifth Custom House that has been put up on the same sp