High Holborn was part of the old road from Newgate and the Tower to the gallows at Tyburn.
Holborn was formerly split into sections. From Farringdon Street to Fetter Lane used to be known as Holborn Hill; from Fetter Lane to Brooke Street as Holborn, and from Brooke Street to Drury Lane as High Holborn. Holborn now extends from Holborn Viaduct to Holborn Bars, and High Holborn from the Bars to Drury Lane.
One of the first great improvements effected in Holborn was its being paved, in 1417, at the expense of Henry V.
In Holborn, at what is now Farringdon Street, there was of old a stone bridge over the Fleet, called "Oldbourne Bridge." Agas’s map of London, in the time of Elizabeth I, represents Holborn as a very different sort of a place from what it is now. All the ground from Shoe Lane to Chancery Lane was then gardens with trees and shrubs; and long before Agas’s day part of that area was rural belonging to the see of Bangor.
"Holborn Bars" used to stand a little west of Brooke Street. They marked the termination of the City Liberties in that direction. The spot is now shown by two granite obelisks bearing the City arms. The Corporation of London formerly received a penny and twopenny toll from the carts and carriages of non-freemen entering the City. These tolls were levied at the six bars, including Holborn Bars.