At the time of the Reformation the palace of Walter Stapleton Bishop of Exeter was on the south, or river, side of the Strand and was called Exeter House. Afterward when the Earl of Essex, Elizabeth's favourite lived there it was called Essex House for him and the present Essex Street so gets its name. The only tangible survival of Essex House is at the end of the street--the aged and picturesque Water Gate, with the worn stone stairs that once led directly to the water where the barges received visitors from the palace. It was down these stairs that the Earl of Essex was taken on his way to the Tower to be beheaded at the command of the fickle queen. In Essex Street just where is now an entrance into New Court stood the tavern of the Essex Head. Here, in 1783, Samuel Johnson then suffering from the diseases which caused his death in the next year established a conversation club that was to meet three times a week. Johnson attended regularly as long as he was able to walk from his home not far away in Bolt Court. Opposite Essex Street in the middle of the Strand is the church of St. Clement Danes, designed by Sir Christopher Wren in 1681. At this church Dr. Johnson was a regular attendant for years and the pew he sat in, No. 18 in the north gallery, is marked with a tablet telling of "the philosopher, the poet, the great lexicographer, the profound moralist and chief writer of his times." Joe Miller, the man of jokes, was buried here, and his epitaph records among other things that he was a facetious companion, a sincere friend and a tender husband, which is about all a man need be. In the 16th century the Bishop of Bath's palace was on the river side of the Strand. It was called Arundel House and gave its name to Arundel Street. Norfolk Street, now a quiet thoroughfare of private hotels, is where at No. 21 Dickens located "Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings." In the first house from the river on the west side Peter the Great of Russia lived when he came to London in 1698 on the invitation of William III., to make a personal study of British industrial pursuits, military art, science and trade, a study which he did make, carrying back to Russia with him more than five hundred artisans, surgeons, artificers and engineers. In Surrey Street the dramatist William Congreve who has been called the greatest English master of pure comedy lived at the height of his success, long after "The Old Bachelor," "Love for Love" and "The Mourning Bride" had made him famous, and here he died. Placed squarely in the centre of the Strand opposite Somerset House, forming a cross current in the rush of traffic, stands the church of St. Mary-le-Strand, since 1717. It is on the spot of an old Maypole and bears the name of an older church demolished to make room for Somerset House. The Maypole was set up originally in 1601 to honour the wife of General Monk.