Stow furnishes a very clear account of the condition of the suburbs in his own time. Thus, he says that outside the Wall in the East there were no houses at all east of St. Katherine’s along the river until the middle of the sixteenth century, but that during the latter half of the century there had sprung up a “continual street, or filthy strait passage, with alleys of small tenements built, inhabited by sailors; victuallers, along by the river of Thames, almost to Ratcliff, a good mile from the Tower.” He says, further, that in his time had arisen quite a new suburb between East Smithfield and Limehouse; and that good houses had been recently built between Ratcliff and Blackwall. Outside Aldgate he mentions a “large street replenished with buildings to Hog Lane and the bars. Without the bars both sides of the street were ‘pestered’ with cottages and alleys, even up to Whitechapel Church and almost half a mile beyond it into the common field.” Note, therefore, that close to Aldgate, just beyond Whitechapel Church, was a common which was thus encroached upon and settled on by squatters and by those who made enclosures and placed laystalls, etc., upon them. The whole of the common was thus taken up; “in some places it scarce remaineth a sufficient highway for the meeting of carriages and droves of people,” a fact to be remembered and accounted for. [Illustration: BISHOPSGATE] Going on to Bishopsgate and its highway. Outside the gate stood St. Botolph’s Church; next to it the Hospital of St. Mary of Bethlehem; opposite certain houses; then, the liberty of Norton Folgate, belonging to the canons of St. Paul’s; then the site of the Holywell Nunnery; all along the road to St. Leonard’s, Shoreditch, except for the site of St. Mary Spital, a “continual building of small and base tenements, for the most part lately erected.” Among the cottages Stow points to a certain row whose history was perhaps that of many others. The row of cottages were almshouses belonging to St. Mary Spital; the occupants were appointed by that House; they paid a yearly rent of one penny, in acknowledgment of ownership; and on Christmas Day they were feasted by the Prior. When the Hospital was suppressed the cottages, for want of repairs, fell into decay; the new owners of the land would not take over the responsibility of the charitable endowment; they neither repaired the houses nor did they invite the tenants to a Christmas feast. On the other hand, they did not collect the rent of a penny. They were then sold, although they ought to have been continued as almhouses to one Russell, who rebuilt them and gave them his own name, and let them to tenants in the usual way.