FLEET STREET Colour group: red Purchase price: £220 Rent: £18 Length: 500m Borough:City of London Postcode: EC4
And so to one of the oldest streets on the Monopoly board, named after the river which used to flow across the foot of it. Fleet Street precisely links the edge of the ancient walled city (at Ludgate) to the edge of the expanded medieval city (at Temple Bar). It has a global reputation as the home of the British newspaper industry, even though barely any of that remains today. And yet again it has a densely-packed heritage I can barely scratch the surface of in a single post, so prepare for a thematic skating-over of its finer points, or should I say a fleeting glimpse?
Brief summary: Strand becomes Fleet Street at the plinthed dragon which marks the site of Temple Bar (an ornate arch since relocated for traffic-blocking reasons). It kicks off between the Courts of Justice and the Inns of Temple, briefly supporting the A4 before that turns off up Fetter Lane. It then curves right and starts a gentle descent past several historic alleyways, a lone survivor of the Great Fire, the odd pub, multiple lunch opportunities and some extensive building sites. Eventually St Paul's Cathedral appears across the valley, this being one of London's protected views, but that's the other side of Ludgate Circus and no Monopoly piece goes there.
The press: The area's been big on printing since the days of William Caxton, lured here by the opportunity of supporting the adjacent legal trade. Britain's first daily newspaper, the Daily Courant, was published at the Fleet Ditch end in 1702, although technically on the wrong side of the water to be the street's first paper. Big titles coalesced here during the 20th century turning Fleet Street into a gossipy boozy nexus for famous journalists, then skedaddled elsewhere once union-bashing and technology allowed. The last sort-of survivors are DC Thomson at number 185, whose glorious tiled frontage may still reference the Evening Post and the Dundee Courier but all that's left inside are the Beano's art studios and a stack of free copies of Stylist magazine in a rack in the foyer.
Amongst the other ridiculously famous newsprint residents were The Sun at Bouverie House (a massive presence, now serviced offices), the Daily Telegraph at Peterborough Court (lofty Art Deco in an Egyptian style) and the Daily Express at number 120 (a sleek black and silver edifice exemplifying Streamline Moderne). The Telegraph building is currently half-scaffolded because it's being upcycled by a Qatari consortium, because of course it is. Elsewhere The Scotsman was based above G&S opticians, Reuters is now occupied by a Cordon Bleu restaurant and you'll look in vain for the News Chronicle building because, like the newspaper, it's entirely vanished. A rather nice recent touch on the wall alongside Bouverie Street is a Heritage Sundial depicting five former titles, although because it's vertically aligned it only tells the time until 11am when it falls entirely into shadow.
The pubs: Many's the newspaper story that's been mulled over over a pint down Fleet Street, although the number of pubs has dropped somewhat since the NUJ alcoholics departed. They're bookended by The Old Bank of England (where the Law Courts did their financial transactions) and the Punch Tavern (named after the humorous magazine once written close by). What used to be The Boar's Head is now The Tipperary, a longstanding Irish pub under very new management, while Ye Olde Cock Tavern is a fire victim so what you're seeing inside aren't the same carvings Dickens and Darwin would have enjoyed.
But the most famous pub here is Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, a labyrinthine 17th century chophouse where sawdust is still sprinkled on the floor twice daily. You can judge the importance of alcohol hereabouts by the fact the pub was rebuilt in 1667, the year immediately after the Great Fire of London. An attempt to add Charles III to a list of reigning monarchs out front looks somewhat unconvincing and will eventually need to be shunted up slightly to squeeze in William V. And to answer the important question, yes they do a cheeseboard, yes they only do English cheeses and yes if you want all four it'll set you back £23.50.
The churches: One of these is full-on streetside and other merely very close. St Dunstan-in-the-West survived the Great Fire and used to be sited in what's now the street, but was demolished in the 1830s and rebuilt in its former churchyard to make way for more traffic. The communion rail is a Grinling original. Out front is a splendid clock where Gog and Magog bash the bells every quarter, and below that a statue to Lord Northcliffe, the Mail/Mirror tabloid magnate. Rather more famous, but technically up its own passage, is St Bride's with its wedding cake spire. The current incarnation is by Sir Christopher Wren but there have been at least five others, possibly stretching back to the 6th century. In good news it's one of the few City churches you can regularly get inside, including a small museum in its crypt, and in bad news if you do your blog research on a Sunday morning when there's a service on it has to remain unexplored.
The alleys: Officially they're Courts and eight of them bear off along the north side of the street. The strangest-named is Hen & Chicken Court which leads to the supposed site of Sweeney Todd's barber shop (ignore all existing barbers with similarly-named frontages). Then there's Johnson's Court that leads to Doctor Johnson's House, Hind Court and Bolt Court that both lead to the other end of Gough Square and Wine Office Court that dribbles past Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese. All eight have a stone plaque laid in their entrance depicting an aspect of the history of the newspaper industry, from vintage headlines to sans-serif printing type, plus a depiction of Space Invaders for the last one which supposedly represents the invasion of technology. This isn't a genuine network of medieval alleyways but it feels a lot more like one than most of the multiply-redeveloped City.
The gaps: In common with a lot of the Square Mile what isn't listed is always up for commercial redevelopment. That's particularly true on the south side where a 16 acre block between Whitefriars Street and Salisbury Court has recently been entirely demolished leaving a gaping hole in the street frontage. Architecturally it's no great loss bar the aforementioned News Chronicle building, the rear of the site being mostly slabby 1970s blocks, but at least three longstanding alleyways will suddenly cease to exist. What's coming instead are the new City of London Law Courts on Fleet Street itself, a police station behind, the obligatory office block and some 'public realm' to keep the tickboxers happy. Almost as large is the demolished city block beside the Daily Express building, a development which I was disturbed to see will eventually be 21 storeys high... although it'll step back along Shoe Lane so won't intrude on St Paul's line of sight.
The rest: Then there's Prince Henry's Room, the birthplace of the AA, the 20 foot high St George's cross, the Park City HQ, the clockmakers' plaque, the open-topped tourist buses and a wealth of other stuff that's all apparent if you take a ten minute end-to-end stroll. Or you could simply dip into The Heritage of Fleet Street, a comprehensive history project begun in 2021 with the aim of generating 70 A3 information panels for display in situ and online. You can see some of them in Fleet Street windows and the entire set here, although because they're all individual pdfs you may lose the will to download more than a few of them. And that's the last street on the Monopoly board that isn't in the London borough of Westminster (although we'll be back in the City for two more stations yet).
