306 TALLIS'S ILLUSTRATED LONDON J

Before entering Shoreditch it will be necessary to
glance at a dismal squalid district, but the seat of manu-
facturing industry, lying in the rear of the eastern side of
Bishopsgate-street-without—we mean, Spitalfields. It is
believed to have been the burial-place of Roman London,
and it is curious that we are, after the lapse of centuries,
returning to the wisdom of our remote ancestors by re-
suming extramural interments. It owes its appellation to
the fact that the fields were part of the estate of the
priory and hospital of St. Mary Spital, founded in 1197
by Walter Brune, Sheriff of London, and Rosia his wife,
for canons regular of the order of St. Augustine. In the
church-yard of the priory, the situation of which Spital-
square now indicates, there was a pulpit cross, at which a
preacher was accustomed to utter a discourse, being a
compendium of four others which had been delivered at
St. Paul's Cross on Good Friday, and on Easter Monday,
Tuesday, and Wednesday; after which he preached a
sermon of his own composition. The cross was pulled
down during the civil wars in the reign of Charles I.
Stow says that the ancient name of Spitalfields was
Lolesworth. When Louis XIV. revoked the edict of
Nantes, the fiercely-pursued Huguenots or French Pro-
testants came over in thousands to England, where they
found a secure asylum from persecution, and were per-
mitted the unrestricted exercise of their religious faitli.
A large body of them settled in Spitalfields, where they
introduced the silk manufacture, which is now the
staple business of this district and tbc contiguous neigh-
bourhood. Christ Church, Spitalfields, one of tiueen
Anne's fifty churches, was built by Nicholas Hawksmoor.
A beautiful monument to the memory of Sir Robert Lad-
brook, by Elaxinan, adorns the interior. Spitalfields
Market is one of the largest vegetable markets in Lon-
don, and is held three times a week. The hamlet of
Bethnal Green is adjacent to Spitalfields, and once apper-
tained to Stepney, from which it was separated in 1743,
and constituted a distinct parish of itself, under the name