It very soon, however, became evident that the selected site was much too small for the projected college. Little time was lost by the earliest provost and scholars in petitioning the King to provide an ampler habitation for their needs. "The task was beset with difficulties that would have daunted a mind less firmly resolved on carrying out the end in view than the king's; difficulties indeed that would have been insuperable except by royal influence, backed by a royal purse. The ground on which King's College now stands was then densely populated. It occupied nearly the whole of the parish of S. John Baptist, whose church is believed to have stood near the west end of the chapel. Milne Street crossed the site from north to south, in a direction that may be easily identified from the two ends of the street that still remain, under the name of Trinity Hall Lane and Queen's Lane. The space between Milne Street and Trumpington Street, then called High Street, was occupied by the houses and gardens of different proprietors, and was traversed by a narrow thoroughfare called Piron Lane, leading from High Street to S. John's Church. At the corner of Milne Street and this lane, occupying the ground on which about half the ante-chapel now stands, was the small college called _God's House_, founded in 1439 by William Byngham for the study of grammar, which, as he observes in his petition to Henry VI. for leave to found it, is "the rote and ground of all other sciences." On the west side of Milne Street, between it and the river, were the hostels of S. Austin, S. Nicholas, and S. Edmund, besides many dwelling-houses. This district was traversed by several lanes, affording to the townspeople ready access to the river, and to a wharf on its bank called Salthithe. No detailed account has been preserved of the negotiations necessary for the acquisition of this ground, between six and seven acres in extent, and in the very heart of Cambridge.... The greatest offence appears to have been given by the closing of the lanes leading down to the river, which was of primary importance to mediæval Cambridge as a highway. In five years' time, however, the difficulties were all got over; the town yielded up, though not with the best grace, the portion of Milne Street required and all the other thoroughfares; the hostels were suppressed, or transferred to other sites; the Church of S. John was pulled down, and the parish united to that of S. Edward, whose church bears evidence, by the spacious aisles attached to its choir, of the extension rendered necessary at that time by the addition of the members of Clare Hall and Trinity Hall to the number of its parishioners."[53]