The churchyard (now a public garden) surrounding the cathedral is enclosed by massive railings, usually regarded as among the latest examples of Sussex charcoal-smelted iron work. Dr. Philip Norman has shown that, though perhaps cast at Lamberhurst, they were at least finished at the Falcon Foundry in Southwark. In the north-east angle of the garden are the foundations of the ancient ' Powle's Cross ' or St. Paul's Cross, an open-air pulpit surmounted by a cross, where sermons were regularly preached for centuries before it was removed by the Commonwealth Parliament in 1643. Close by is a Memorial Cross, erected in 1910 from a design by Sir R. Blomfield, with a figure of St. Paul by Sir B. Mackennal. On the south side of the church are a few fragments of the old cloisters and chapter-house, destroyed in 1666.
The street around the cathedral is likewise called St. Paul's Churchyard. The neighbourhood, now a centre of the drapery trade, was in the 17th and 18th century a favourite quarter for booksellers and stationers, though after the Great Fire many migrated, especially to Paternoster Row. Opposite the north porch of the cathedral is the Chapter House (now a bank), a square building by Wren, occupied in 1884-1920 by the Archdeacon of London. In Dean's Court, leading south from the west end of St. Paul's Churchyard, is the Deanery, said to have been built by Wren, and adjoining it, in Carter Lane, is the Choir House, with the Choristers' School. A tablet beneath the entrance to Bell Yard, a few paces east, recalls the Bell Tavern, whence Thomas Quinney addressed a request for a loan from Shakespeare-the only letter to Shakespeare now extant (at Stratford-on-Avon). Bell Yard leads to Knightrider St., on which abutted Doctors' Commons (pulled down in 1867), the old-fashioned ecclesiastical and admiralty tribunals described in ' David Copperfield.'
