Great North Road

The Great North Road was the main highway between England and Scotland from medieval times until the 20th century. 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. Route The traditional start point for the Great North Road was Smithfield Market on the edge of the City of London. The initial stretch of the road was St John Street which begins on the boundary of the City (the site of the former West Smithfield Bars), and runs through north London. Less than a hundred metres up St John Street, into Clerkenwell, stood Hicks Hall, the first purpose-built sessions house for the Middlesex justices of the peace. The Hall was built in 1612, on an island site in the middle of St John Street (where St John's Lane branches to the west); this building was used as the initial datum point for mileages on the Great North Road (despite not being located at the very start of the road). Its site continued to be used for this purpose even after the building was demolished in 1782. In August 1599 during the performance of a puppet play in a house in St John Street the roof fell and killed five people. The Red Bull Theatre was on St John 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.