Hardly any part of the City, unless it be the south of Cornhill, is so honeycombed with courts and passages as the quarter upon which we are now engaged. For the most part they are not distinguished by any historical associations. Some of them formerly contained taverns and inns. The courts are greatly diminished in size; some of them were narrow lanes with houses standing face to face, a few feet apart; some of them formerly contained gentlemen’s houses. Why were these houses built in a court? The explanation is easy. The town-house of noble or merchant was built like a college: a gateway with a chamber over it in front, rooms beside the gate in case of a nobleman with a retinue; in other cases a wall enclosing a garden in a square, on either side rooms, at the back the Hall and what we call reception rooms, with the private rooms of the family. When land became more valuable the rooms beside the gateway became shops, then there was building at the back of the shops, the sides became contracted, and there were left at last only the court, the gateway, and the house beyond. There are several places in the City where this history of a house may be traced, the modern offices being built on the site of the old foundation, the gateway having disappeared, and the court still remaining. “Anno 1136. A very great fire happened in the City, which began in the house of one Ailward, near London Stone, and consumed all the way east to Aldgate, and west to St. Erkenwald’s shrine in St. Paul’s Cathedral, both which it destroyed, together with London Bridge, which was then constructed of wood.