Do not think of mediaeval London as a dull place--it was full of life and of brightness: the streets were narrow perhaps, but they were full of colour from the bright dresses of all--the liveries of the Companies--the liveries of the great nobles--the splendid costume of the knights and richer class. The craftsman worked from daylight till curfew in the winter: from five or six in the summer: he had a long day: but he had three holidays: he had his evenings: and his Sundays. A dull time was going to fall upon the Londoners, but not yet for two hundred years. 36. WESTMINSTER ABBEY. Hitherto our attention has been confined to the City within the walls. It is time to step outside the walls. All this time, i.e. ever since peaceful occupation became possible, a town had been growing up on the west side of London. You have seen that formerly there spread a broad marsh over this part. Some rising ground kept what is now the Strand above the river, but Westminster, except for certain reed-grown islets, was nothing but a marsh covered over twice in the day by the tide. The river thus spreading out over marshes on either bank was quite shallow, and could in certain places be forded. The spot where any ford existed afterwards became a ferry. Lambeth Bridge spans the river at one such place, the memory of which is now maintained in the name of the Horseferry Road. The largest of these islets was once called Thorney, i.e. the Isle of Thorns. If you will take a map of Westminster, shift the bank of the river so as to make it flow along Abingdon Street, draw a stream running down College Street into the Thames; another running into the Thames across King Street, and draw a ditch or moat connecting the two streams along Delahaye Street and Princes Street you will have Thorney, about a quarter of a mile long, and not quite so much broad, standing just above high water level. This was the original Precinct of Westminster. [Illustration: TOMB OF EDWARD III. IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.] The Abbey of St. Peter's, Westminster, is said to have been founded on the first conversion of the East Saxons, and at the same time as the Foundation of St. Paul's. We know nothing about the foundation of the church. During the Danish troubles the Abbey was deserted. It was refounded by Dunstan. It was, however, rebuilt in much greater splendour by Edward the Confessor. Of his work something still remains, and can be pointed out to the visitor. But the present Abbey contains work by Henry III., Edward I., Richard II.--Whittington being commissioner for the work--Henry VII. and Wren, Hawksmoor and Gilbert Scott the architects.