300-year tradition ends today

Reuters moves out of its Fleet Street offices today; it was the last remaining major news organization on the street.

The tradition began with the first edition of the Daily Courant, which hit the streets in 1702. It was a meagre offering. There were five paragraphs translated from the Haarlem Courant, three from the Paris Gazette and one from the Amsterdam Courant. It bore none of the hallmarks of the brash and brilliant press that was to follow. But it did stake out the newspaper industry's natural home.

The main thoroughfare linking the City of London, the seat of financial power, to Westminster, the seat of political power, Fleet Street was the ideal location in which to gather news. A few minutes walk east and reporters could be taking notes on the latest blood curdling case at the Old Bailey. A short walk west and you were in the public gallery at the High Court, detailing the salacious revelations of a society divorce or libel case.

And of course there were the pubs. In the days when journalists would think nothing of downing a dozen or so gin and tonics before driving home, and when the defining characteristic of the job was waiting around for something to happen, the pub was the epicentre of a journalist's life.

Each newspaper had its own hostelry. Telegraph journalists nipped downstairs to the King and Keys. The News of the World drank at The Tipperary, known as the Tip. The Harrow was divided territory: upstairs was the province of Daily Mail writers, downstairs were the printers. Upstairs at the Cheshire Cheese could be found The Sun, quaffing alongside the industrial correspondents.