At the north end of Tufton Street is Great College Street. Here dignified houses face the old wall built by Abbot Litlington. They are not large; some are overgrown by creepers; the street seems bathed in the peace of a perpetual Sunday. The stream bounding Thorney Island flowed over this site, and its waters still run beneath the roadway. The street has been associated with some names of interest. Gibbon's aunt had here a boarding-house for Westminster boys, in which her famous nephew lived for some time. Mr. Thorne, antiquary, and originator of _Notes and Queries_, lived here. Some of Keats' letters to Fanny Brawne are dated from 25 Great College Street, where he came on October 16, 1820, to lodgings, in order to conquer his great passion by absence; but apparently absence had only the proverbial effect. Walcott lived here, and his History of St. Margaret's Church and Memorials of Westminster are dated from here in 1847 and 1849 respectively. Little College Street contains a few small, irregular houses brightened by window-boxes. A slab informs us that the date of Barton Street was 1722, but the row of quiet, flat-casemented houses looks older than that. At the west end of Great College Street stood the King's slaughter-house for supplying meat to the palace; the foundations of this were extant in 1807. The end of Great College Street opens out opposite the smooth lawns of the Victoria Public Garden, near the House of Lords. In Great Smith Street there was a turnpike at the beginning of the last century. Sir Richard Steele and Keats both dated letters from this address, and Thomas Southerne, the dramatist, died here. The northern part of the street was known as Dean Street until 1865; the old workhouse of the united parish used to stand in it. The Free Library is in this street. Westminster was the first Metropolitan parish to adopt the Library Acts. The Commissioners purchased the lease of a house, together with furniture, books, etc., from a Literary, Scientific, and Mechanics' Institute which stood on the east side of the road, a little to the north of the present library building, and the library was opened there in 1857. In 1888 the present site was purchased, and the building was designed by J. F. Smith, F.R.I.B.A.