When the Great Plague raged in 1665, the churchyard of St. Stephen's, Colman Street, was a place of interment for plague victims. It is said of John Hayward, sexton of the church at the time, that when everyone through fear refused him aid, he alone drove the death cart and unaided buried all the victims who lived within the parish limits. Almost opposite St. Stephen's, in the short and narrow passageway with the musical name of Great Bell Alley, midway of the block on the north side, Robert Bloomfield, the poet of country scenes, in early days worked as a shoemaker in a garret. While living here in extreme poverty, Bloomfield, during his working hours, thought out the "Farmer's Boy," which when he was able to purchase paper for, he made haste to write. In two years twenty thousand copies of the poem had been sold. Bloomfield was born in a little Suffolk village in 1766, and worked as helper to a farmer, but ran away to London hoping to gain fame and fortune as a poet. After the success of the "Farmer's Boy," he wrote "Rural Tales," "News from the Farm" and other stories in verse, but although they met with a welcome he finally drifted back to his own country where he died very poor. An aged sign, setting forth what looks to be a swan with two heads, is set in the doorway above a railway parcels office in Gresham Street, at the Aldermanbury corner, and is the original marking of the tavern called "The Swan with two Necks," a most famous resort, which stood on this site for almost three hundred years. It was a thriving place in 1556, and fell from public favour only when the age of stage coaches passed away. Aldermanbury came by its name because of there being held in the street a famous court or bury of the Aldermen. The church of St. Mary in Aldermanbury, close by the Guildhall, was the scene of the marriage in 1656 of John Milton and Catherine Woodcock his second wife. These two were very happy, and Milton mourned deeply when fifteen months after the wedding he was left a widower. Under the altar of this church was buried in 1689, Lord Jeffreys, the great favourite of James II. and the notorious leader of the Bloody Assizes. His tomb is still to be seen here. From the west side of Aldermanbury stretches Love Lane, at the end of which stands the small church of St. Alban's, built by Inigo Jones in 1634, severely damaged in the Great Fire, and restored by Wren in 1685. It guards the site of the first house of worship set up by good King Alfred after he had defeated the Danes. Close by the altar is an ancient hour glass of quaint design, a relic of 16th century days, when the preacher regulated the length of his sermons by the running sand.