Old Shop, corner of Fleet Street and Chancery Lane in 1799details

The general character of shops in olden London was to have the wares exposed openly to the street, without any barrier of glass between the buyer and seller. Wherever our old topographers and chroniclers give a representation of a London shop—at least [before] the time of Queen Anne [1702 – 1714]—this was the observable feature. The shop, too, unlike those of modern days, was generally smaler than the rooms above, on account of the overhanging of each floor or story beyond the one beneath it. There are yet remaining at the south end of Gray’s Inn Land, and in a few other parts of London, specimens of this curious variety of domestic architecture; although most of such houses now display the luxury of a window to the shop. (p. 386)

There is a print in Smith’s ‘Antiquities of London,’ of which we give a copy at the head of our paper, of a house which stood at the corner of Chancery Lane so late as the year 1799, where now stands the large and modern residence and shop of a robe-maker. If this house had not undergone alteration, then it would seem to show that shop-winders were tolerably common in the time of Edward VI. [1547 – 1557], the date to which the house was referred. The print presents to view a small double-parted shop, having hanging on the

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