Fleet street was very early a London main thoroughfare extra muros. It was gradually formed along a rough trackway from the City into open country that was only to be reached over the Fleet River, which ran north and south where today are New Bridge street and Farringdon street.
In course of time, and leading a migration of citizens westward, great ecclesiastics, who alone in those turbulent times had a certain immunity from depredation, built their "inns," as they were called, along this highway and the banks of the Thames.
Then, the Carmelite Friars occupied the space between Water lane (today's Whitefriars street) and the Temple, at that time innocent of lawyers, and the whole area had a quasi clerical air. In the thirteenth century the road was known as Fleet Bridge street, and it was only at the beginning of the following century that its name occurs as Fletestrete.
In course of time the great ecclesiastical palaces gave place to those of the great nobles, such as Salisbury House (where now is Salisbury square), which had once been the town house of the Bishop of Salisbury, but in Queen Elizabeth's reign became by exchange that of Lord Treasurer Buckhurst, afterwards Earl of Dorset.