RT Journal A1 ROSS J T1 NOtes on the barbers' hall in london JF Archives of Surgery JO Archives of Surgery YR 1929 FD April 1 VO 18 IS 4 SP 1637 OP 1645 DO 10.1001/archsurg.1929.01140130737048 UL http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/archsurg.1929.01140130737048 AB Long ago, when London Wall was new, a walled or tunnelled passage connected the postern at its northwest corner with an outlying watch-tower called Barbican, or Burhkenning, referred to by John Stow as "being placed on a high ground, and also built of some good height, was in old time as a watch-tower for the city, from whence a man might behold and view the whole city toward the south, and also into Kent, Sussex and Surrey and likewise every other way, east, north, or west." The postern was known as Cripplegate, some think as a corruption of the word "crepulgeat," Anglo-Saxon for a covered way; but believed by others to be so called because of cripples begging there. Some confirmation of the latter theory is obtained from the account of how in the year 1010, for fear of the Danes, the body of King Edmund the Martyr was brought