St. James Palace is located in the Liberty of Westminster on St. James Park. It was built in the 1530s during the reign of Henry VIII, in the Tudor Style, on the site of what once was a Leper hospital. (Burchard, 2011). Henry VIII commissioned this property to be built as somewhat as a secondary/vacation home as a means to escape court life for himself and his then wife Anne Boleyn. The initials “HA” for “Henry and Anne” are carved in several locations around the palace and its surrounding structures.

At the end of the street is the gate, named after King Lud, who Saussure claimed to “have been the founder of London”. Saussure described the gate as “Ornamented on one side with statues of this legendary king and his two sons, and on the other side, facing St. Paul’s, with a statue of Queen Elizabeth.” On this gate you see the heads of persons who have been executed for high treason stuck on stakes. There is said to be the head of Oliver Cromwell on the Gate.

Londoners used the Fleet River, located just west of the city wall, for exporting goods. Saussure describes the Fleet Ditch as “sort of a canal, where barges come up with the help of the tide.” He explains that the houses on either side of this “canal” possesses two singular privileges, “one of them being that no one can be taken up for debt when in that part of London”.

“The Somerset House, which was built in the time of Edward VI., in the low Italian fashion then in vogue.” It’s courtyard is surrounded by arcades. And at the back there is a big garden stretching down to the river.” This courtyard was 300 ft (91 m) by 200 ft (61 m), flanked by a pair of terraces, the whole presenting a unified frontage to the river, 500 feet (150 m) wide.