ALDERSGATE STREET, a business street with no attractions but its associations, is the north continuation of St. Martin's-le-Grand and, beyond Aldersgate Station, of the Metropolitan Railway, is itself continued by Goswell Road (tramway), intersecting Clerkenwell Road and Old Street, to the ' Angel'. Mr. Pickwick lodged with Mrs. Bardell in Goswell St., as the south portion of Goswell Road was formerly calledied Aldersgate St. derives its name from the old north city-gate (pulled down in 1761), which stood a little to the south of the church. It formerly contained many inns and also several noblemen's houses, of which the most important were Lauderdale House, Shaftesbury House, and Petre House, but the sole traces that survive are the names of some of the courts and passages on the east side. Milton, who sold 'Paradise Lost' to an Aldersgate printer, occupied several houses in this region; from 1643 to 1645 he lived in Lamb Alley (now Maidenhead Court, 29 Aldersgate St.); from 1645 to 1647 in the Barbican, which diverges to the east opposite Aldersgate Station: and after the Restoration in Jewin St., another side-street on the east, a little south of the Barbican. Ironmongers' Hall, 34 Aldersgate St., is the successor (1925) of the hall in Fenchurch St. destroyed by German aircraft in 1917. Just beyond the station Charterhouse St. diverges to the left for Charterhouse Square.
