Defoe had kept a hosier’s shop nearby, in Freeman’s Court, and after early release from prison stood in the Cornhill Stocks as a punishment for The Shortest Way with the Dissenters in 1703.

CRIPPLEGATE (Ward 16) pp. 14, 53, 74, 75, 79, 86, 98, 110, 111, 114, 142, 160, 161, 182, 208. From the Roman gate; the etymology is disputed. The street was not widened until the gate was demolished in 1760. Defoe is thought to have been born and died in the parish of St Giles Cripplegate.

CROOKED LANE (Ward 7) p. 7. A winding lane in Eastcheap, near London Bridge.

CROSS KEY COURT (Ward 18) p. 77. Off Wood Street, going north from Cheapside.

CUSTOMS HOUSE (Ward 24) p. 189. First built in 1275 east of the current site on Lower Thames Street. Fumigated by coal fires in 1665, it burned down in 1666. Rebuilt by Wren in 1669–71 but damaged by a nearby explosion in 1714 and built again on Wren’s foundations 1717–25. Unusually, Defoe does not refer to its history here but the famous Long Room, said by contemporaries to give the truest idea of the richness and grandeur of the nation, became the site of Colonel Jack’s first pick-pocketing adventure later in 1722.

DEPTFORD pp. 95, 108, 130. On the Thames, south of Rotherhithe; for Defoe’s readers, site of the Royal Naval Dockyard and the last staging post from Dover.

DRAPERS GARDEN (Ward 8) p. 49. The garden attached to Drapers’ Hall. After the Great Fire it was opened to the public; by associating it with a Dutch family fortifying their home Defoe evokes a time when to walk in it for £3 a year was a privilege.

DRURY LANE pp. 3, 4, 97. This ancient street was on the cusp of social change between 1665 and 1722. Formerly the preferred home of aristocrats (not to mention Oliver Cromwell), by 1731 it had become a fitting backdrop for plate 3 of Hogarth’s The Harlot’s Progress.

DULLEGE (DULWICH) p. 99. Hunting and, in the eighteenth century, spa resort. Plague reached this rural idyll in 1665, claiming thirty-five lives including those of the miller and his family.

EAST SMITHFIELD p. 103. Running east from Little Tower Hill and attracting migrants after 1660.

EPPING FOREST p. 115. Formerly royal hunting territory but increasingly the haunt of highwaymen. William III escaped kidnap here in 1698.

EXCHANGE (ROYAL EXCHANGE) (Ward 14) pp.