Fleet, the

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Fleet, the a stream (now covered) flowing into the Thames between Ludgate Hill and Fleet Street, and the nearby Fleet prison, a former London prison in the neighbourhood of the present Farringdon Street, alongside the Fleet river. It was built in the time of Richard I, and long afterwards served as a place of imprisonment for persons condemned by the Star Chamber. After the abolition of the latter in 1640, it served mainly as a debtors' prison, until demolished in 1848.
Fleet marriage a wedding performed clandestinely by a Fleet parson, any of a number of disreputable clergymen to be found in or around the Fleet prison ready to perform such marriages.
Fleet Street the British Press, from a street in central London in which the offices of national newspapers were located until the mid 1980s.