The Surveyor-General's office was one which entailed endless work. There was not a street laid down, hardly a house built, in any part of the town, without the surveyor being first consulted;--now about 'a parcel of ground bought by Colonel Panton' (the present Panton Street, S.W.); now about the houses pulled down for the safety of Whitehall during the Fire.--Into every case Wren made careful inquiry, visiting the places himself, and insisting on the buildings being of stone or brick, with proper paving in the streets, and having a due regard to health. In spite of his care several wretched buildings were put up in places which, as a few surviving names testify, were then fields near the City. ['_MEAN HABITATIONS._'] When Wren found that the owners persisted in erecting such shabby buildings he presented a petition to the King, as follows:-- 'To the King's Most Excellent Majesty. The humble petition of Christopher Wren, sheweth. That there are divers buildings of late erected, and many foundations laid, and more contrived in Dog's Fields, Windmill Fields, and the fields adjoining to Soe Hoe,[124] and several other places without the suburbs of London and Westminster; the builders whereof have no grant nor allowance from Your Majesty, and have therefore been prohibited and hindered by your petitioner as much as in him lieth. Yet, notwithstanding, they proceed to erect small and mean habitations which will prove only receptacles for the poorer sort, and the offensive trades, to the annoyance of the better inhabitants, the damage of the parishes already too much burthened with poor, the rendering the government of these parts more unmanageable, the great hindrance of perfecting the city buildings, and others allowed by Your Majesty's broad seal; the choking up the air of Your Majesty's palace and park, and the houses of the nobility; the infecting or total loss of the waters which by many expenseful drains and conduits, have formerly been derived from these fields to Your Majesty's palace of Whitehall and to the mewes; the manifest decay of which waters (upon complaint of your serjeant plumber) the office of Your Majesty's works by frequent views and experiments have found. 'May it, therefore, please Your Majesty to issue a royal proclamation, to put stop to these growing inconveniences and to hinder the buildings which are not already or shall not be licensed by Your Majesty's grant; and effectually to empower your petitioner to restrain the same or otherways to consider of the premises as in Your Majesty's wisdom shall seem most expedient. 'And your Petitioner, &c.'