St Paul's Churchyard facts for kids
St. Paul's Churchyard is an area immediately around St Paul's Cathedral in the City of London. It included St Paul's Cross and Paternoster Row. It became one of the principal marketplaces in London. It also contained St Paul's Cross, an open-air pulpit from which many of the most important statements on the political and religious changes brought by the Reformation were made public during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Only one execution is recorded as taking place in St. Paul's Churchyard: that of Henry Garnet, one of those found guilty of the Gunpowder plot.
Book trade
With the advent of printing St Paul's Churchyard quickly became the centre of the book trade in England. Originally it was dominated by foreign booksellers. Richard III's only parliament of 1484 passed the act which encouraged them to do business in London. Despite other protectionist measures, the king personally intervened that printers and booksellers were exempt from these.
