Editing Clerkenwell (section)

===Notoriety===
As it was a suburb beyond the confines of the [[London Wall]], Clerkenwell was outside the jurisdiction of the somewhat puritanical City fathers. Consequently, "base tenements and houses of unlawful and disorderly resort" sprang up, with a "great number of dissolute, loose, and insolent people harboured in such and the like noisome and disorderly houses, as namely poor cottages, and habitations of beggars and people without trade, stables, inns, alehouses, taverns, garden-houses converted to dwellings, ordinaries, dicing houses, bowling alleys, and brothel houses".<ref>Middlesex Justices in 1596; cited in Schoenbaum 1987, p. 126.</ref>

During the Elizabethan era Clerkenwell contained a notorious brothel quarter. In Shakespeare's ''[[Henry IV, Part 2]]'', Falstaff complains about Justice Shallow boasting of "the wildness of his youth, and the feats he has done about Turnbull Street".<ref>William Shakespeare, ''[[Henry IV, Part 2]]''. Act 3, Scene 2.</ref> Known now as Turnmill Street and adjoining [[Farringdon station]], it had an infamous reputation for brothel-keeping and was described in Sugden's ''Topographical Dictionary'' as "the most disreputable street in London, a haunt of thieves and loose women".<ref>Nicholl C. (2007) ''The Lodger'', p.204.</ref> The [[Clerkenwell Bridewell]], a prison and correctional institute for prostitutes and vagrants, was known for savage punishment and endemic sexual corruption.