A Survey of London: Written in the Year 1598

"It has helped enormously. When I was preparing myself for the book I wrote about London – London: The Biography – I read it carefully from page to page. The first edition of A Survey of London was published in 1598 when John Stow himself was then past 70. It is a monumental and magnificent work. “It is not a formal or elegant city. It has had a sort of natural organic growth which has taken a thousand different forms.” He had always lived in London and he was interested in every particular thing connected with his native city. Nothing escaped him. He remarks on the sports and pastimes of Londoners, the towers and castles, the gates in the wall and the fresh water supply. And he goes ward by ward through all the streets of London describing their characteristics and their history. He was a great antiquarian of London, too, so we get a picture of not only Tudor London but also medieval London because it still survived in his lifetime. Yes, that’s right. He was able to see beneath the crevices and was able to judge and describe the underlying structures of the city. I liked the Cheap ward, which I suppose now would be part of Cheapside. He writes things like, “Then near to the standard in Cheap is Honey Lane, so called not of sweetness there of being very narrow and somewhat dark, but rather of often washing and sweeping to keep it clean.” That is the sort of detail at which he excels, where the daily life of the people also comes to life."