Old White Hart Tavern stood a few yards north of St. Botolph, Without Bishopsgate. It was much the same in arrangement as the other old inns that existed when people travelled entirely by coach. Three sides of the cobbled stone interior yard were lined with guests' rooms, and in front of these extended a heavy wooden balcony. The inn yard was customarily the resort of showmen and musicians. Sometimes a temporary stage was set up, backing the entrance to the inn and fronting the gallery, so the occupants of the rooms could witness the performances. The White Hart Tavern has survived in name chiefly because Hobson, a famous Cambridge carrier, always stopped here when he came to London. When at home Hobson rented horses and had an unbreakable rule of letting them only in their regular turn. This created the saying: "Hobson's choice: that or none." When Hobson died his elegy was written by Milton. The street called Houndsditch was a moat beyond the wall of the city in very long ago times and was used often as a burying ground for dead dogs. Into this ditch the headless body of Edric, the murderer of Edmund Ironsides, was flung, after his crime had placed Canute on the throne. He claimed as his promised reward the highest place in the city, and the Danish king cried out: "The treason I like, but the traitor hate; behead the fellow, and as he claims my promise, place his head on the highest pinnacle of the Tower." And this was done. Readers of Dickens' "Old Curiosity Shop," and who is there has not read it, will recall Bevis Marks where Miss Sally Brass lived with her brother Sampson; where the Marchioness, the tiny domestic, and Dick Swiveller, the law clerk, did their visiting. Bevis Marks is close by Houndsditch, and started existence as a garden plot of the Abbots of St. Edmunds, but it is a very commonplace spot indeed in these times. At the point where Bishopsgate Street Within ends and Bishopsgate Street Without begins, the City wall crossed. On a house just where Camomile Street touches Bishopsgate is a tablet affixed telling of the gate that was once in the old wall just here. Very timid in appearance is the church of St. Ethelburga, and said to be the smallest church in London. It huddles away, in Bishopsgate Street Within, just to the north of St. Helen's Place, between houses which cover its old burying ground, and its tiny entrance way flanked by shop windows. It has stood here since 1366, having been spared by the Great Fire.