St. Paul's had its enclosed churchyard, so that the main thoroughfare for centuries passed round it from Newgate Street to Cheapside. The name of Cheap tells of the general market held there, and the names of several of the streets out of Cheapside tell of the particular merchandise appropriated to them, as Friday Street (Friday's market for fish), Milk Street and Bread Street. At the west end of Cheapside was the Church of St. Michael le Querne (or at the Corn), which marked the site of the Corn Market. It was destroyed in the Great Fire. At the east end of this church stood the Old Cross, which was taken down in the year 1390, and replaced by the Little Conduit, which is described as standing by Paul's gate. There is an engraving of this church and the conduit, with the water-pots of the water-carriers dotted about.
The wall passed north along the side of St. Martin's-le-Grand till it came to Aldersgate, close by the Church of St. Botolph. The exact spot is marked by No. 62 on the east side of the street. Stow's etymologies of London names are seldom very satisfactory, but he never blundered worse than when he explained Aldgate as old gate and Aldersgate as the older gate; but his explanation has been followed by many successive writers, who do not seem to have seen the impossibility of the suggestion. One of the earliest forms of the name is Aldredesgate, showing pretty conclusively that it was a proper name.
The wall proceeds east to Cripplegate, with an outpost--the Watch-Tower or Barbican. The Rev. W. Denton has explained the name of Cripplegate as due to the covered way between the postern and the Barbican or Burgh-kenning (A.S., _crepel_, _cryfle_ or _crypele_, a burrow or passage under ground). The name occurs also in the Domesday of Wiltshire, where we read: 'To Wansdyke, thence forth by the dyke to Crypelgeat.'[19] If this etymology be accepted, we have here the use of the word gate as a way. In the north this distinction is kept up, and the road is the gate, while what we in the south call the gate is the bar. For instance, at York, Micklegate is the road, and the entrance to the wall is Micklegate bar.
It may be noted that St. Giles was the patron saint of Cripples, but the first church was not built until about 1090 by Alfune, the first Hospitaller of St. Bartholomew's, so that the dedication may have been owing to a mistaken etymology at that early date. In the churchyard is an interesting piece of the old wall still in position. The course of the wall to the east is marked by the street named London Wall, from Cripplegate to Bishopsgate Street. Here it bore south to Camomile and Wormwood Streets, where stood till 1731 the gate.