The Carpenters of London have been shown to inhabit the general area of Fleetstreet in London for well over a century before the 1391 of the document below. Why did they abandon their traditional neighborhood for the Cornhill and St. Martins Outwich parish area, in the case of Richard Carpenter and his son John the Town Clerk? Partly the reason was shown to have been their choice of profession. The cloth merchants of London always lived in proximity to one-another, and these were the professions of Richard and his sons. There are additional reasons however that can be seen easily in the historical record. Well before 1391, the Fleetstreet neighborhood had deteriorated environmentally. Yes, there were still many people of wealth and quality in the neighborhood, but as you will see, they (some of there were just property owners in the area) were unhappy. “…….as John duke of Aquitaine and Lancastre, the Bishops of Lincoln and Ely, the earl of Northumberland, the prior of St.John of Jerusalem in England, the abbot of Leycestre, the priors of St. Bartholomew and Sempryngham, the nuns of Clerkenwelstrete, the lords of Cherlton, Straunge, Scrope, Grey and Burnell and all the inhabitants in divers messuages, inns and houses in Holbourne, Smythfelde, Seint Jonestrete, Clerkenwelstrete’, the baily by ‘Neugate’ and ‘Fletestrete’ in the suburb of London…………showing that contrary to that order (in the time of Edward III) so many dung heaps and stinking issues and entrails of great beasts, sheep and pigs slaughtered by butchers within the city are put and cast forth in certain places in Holbourne by “Holbourbrigge’ that the air has long been abominably defiled, whence have daily arisen sicknesses and intolerable grievances…” (Close, 15 Richard II, Dec.6). Bruce Carpenter