I thought I should start my day in Gough Square where I am due to give a talk tonight to a group of Johnson enthusiasts, if only to remind myself of the topography local to Samuel Johnson’s House and the fragmentary survival of eighteenth-century London as one takes a little alleyway off Fleet Street (Wine Office Court), up past the Cheshire Cheese tavern (rebuilt 1667) into Gough Square, where not only Johnson, but also Oliver Goldsmith lived. There is a quotation from Johnson on the wall of Wine Office Court: ‘Sir, If you wish to have a just notion of the magnitude of this great City you must not be satisfied with seeing its great streets and squares but must survey the innumerable little lanes and courts’. It’s a reminder of the tightly knit network of medieval alleyways and courtyards which still half survives in amongst the megalith office blocks north of Fleet Street; and also of the difference in surroundings between Johnson’s London, all alleyways and bookshops and taverns and the Inns of Court, and Reynolds’s London, a mile to the west, which was much more spacious, with workshops and shops and coffee houses in Covent Garden, close to the parks and the Court.
This is Johnson’s House:-
| Charles | Saumarez | Smith | 
You may know of Andrew Duncan and his book Favourite London Walks . One , which I have particularly enjoyed ,covers part of the east of the City and to quote . the introduction `is specifically designed to explore the area`s maze of lanes alley ways and passages. Best done during the week when several splendid churches on the route are open including St Mary Abchurch perhaps `the least altered of Wrens city churches` with some stunning Grinling Gibbons carvings.
Wish I could be there…I’m a Governor of Dr. Johnson’s House…be sure to pick up a copy of my booklet “Samuel Johnson, David Garrick and the Restoration of Shakespeare” from the Curator, Celine McDaid, when you’re there.
Dear Paul, Yes, we missed you. Will get a copy of the book next week. Charles
Sorry….new keyboard…misspelled my own name
A hero of mine…Mr. Johnson.
On his trip to Scotland with his friend, his carriage broke and he found himself having to spend a hour or two in a bohty, a roadside hovel…..remarking, “Only a poet would find something Romantic to recommend this place….”