St John Street, London

The Great North Road was the main highway between London and Scotland. It became a coaching route used by mail coaches travelling between London, York and Edinburgh. The modern A1 mainly parallels the route of the Great North Road. Coaching inns, many of which survive, were staging posts providing accommodation, stabling for horses and replacement mounts. Nowadays virtually no surviving coaching inns can be seen while driving on the A1, because the modern route bypasses the towns in which the inns are found.

The traditional starting point of the Great North Road was Smithfield Market in Clerkenwell, London. On an island location in the middle of the street, at the southern end, where St John's Lane branches to the west, stood Hicks Hall which was the first purpose-built sessions-house for the Middlesex justices of the peace. It was used as the initial datum point for mileages on the Great North Road, and continued in this role, even after the building was demolished soon after 1778. The route followed St John Street to the junction of City Road and Pentonville Road (near Upper Street) in the north, close to the Angel tube station. The Red Bull Theatre was on the street between 1604 and 1666, when it was destroyed in the Great Fire of London.James Burnett, Lord Monboddo (1714–1799) lived at 13 St John Street. He held "learned suppers" at his house, with guests including James Boswell, Robert Burns and Samuel Johnson.

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