r "Lesser Sisters," just as the Franciscans, or
grey friars, were _Fratres Minores_, or "Lesser Brethren." And so from
the Latin _minores_ we get the name Minories as the name of a London
street, standing where this convent once stood.

The name of the street _London Wall_ reminds us of the time when
London was a walled city with its gates, which were closed at night
and opened every morning. Many streets keep the names of the old
gates, like _Ludgate Hill_, _Aldersgate_, _Bishopsgate_.

The great _Tower of London_ still stands to show us how London was
defended in the old feudal days; but _Tower Bridge_, the bridge which
crosses the river at that point, is a modern bridge, built in 1894.
The name _Cripplegate_ still remains, and the story it has to tell us
is that in the Middle Ages there stood outside the city walls beyond
this gate the hospital of St. Giles-in-the-Fields. It was a hospital
for lepers; but St. Giles is the patron saint of cripples, and so this
gate of the city got the name of Cripplegate, because it was the
nearest to the church of the patron saint of cripples.

This church of St. Giles-in-the-Fields no longer remains; but we have
_St. Martin's-in-the-Fields_, to remind us of the difference between
Trafalgar Square to-day and its condition not quite two hundred years
ago, when this church was built.

It must be remembered that even at the very end of the eighteenth
century London was just a tiny town lying along the river. At that
time many of the nobles and rich merchants were building their
mansions in what is now the West Central district of London. The north
side of Queen Square, Bloomsbury, was left open, so that the people
who lived there could enjoy the view of the Highgate and Hampstead
hills, to which the open country stretched. Even now this end of Queen
Square is closed only by a railing, but a great mass of streets and
houses stretches far beyond Hampstead and Highgate now.

_Trafalgar Square_ itself got its name in honour of Nelson, the hero
of the great victory of Trafalgar. The great column with the statue of
Nelson stands in the square.

This brings us to one of the most interesting of old London names. On
one side of the square stands _Charing Cross_, the busiest spot in
London. At this point there once stood the last of the nine beautiful
crosses which King Edward III. set up at the places where the coffin
of his wife, Eleanor, was set to rest in the long journey from
Lincolns