City, Cripplegate (EC2) Formerly Grub Street. The offensive term "Grub Street" is thought to have been first applied to the writings of John Foxe, the martyrologist, who lived here. Grub Street was formerly "much inhabited by writers of small histories, dictionaries, and temporary poems: whence any mean production is called Grub-street" (Johnson) . The Doctor himself was but a Grub-street man, paid by the sheet. The poet Milton lived here, hence its present name. (Reference: Timbs's Curiosities of London, p. 385)