God’s Terrible Voice in the City

Abstract

The neighbourhood of Defoe’s childhood home in the parish of St Stephen Coleman Street was described by John Strype some fifty years later, when it had begun to fall into decay:

Swan-alley also goes out of Coleman-street, and with a turning Passage, runs into Bell-alley, and with another turning Passage, falls into another Alley, also called Swan-alley, which is better built, with Gardens to the Houses. More Northward this Alley runs into a Place called Jones’s Rents, which is a ruinous Place, the Houses ready to fall down. Out of this Place, with a little narrow Turning, the Way leads into Cross-Keys-Court, which is indifferent good: and out of this Court is a Passage to London-wall.¹