The next group is a triangle, of which Bishopsgate Street and Fenchurch Street are two sides. It is a part of very considerable interest, though not so full of history as Cheapside or Thames Street. It contains the great market of Leadenhall Street, which is itself a continuation of that market which extended eastward from West Chepe to the Poultry, to Cornhill, to Gracechurch Street or Grass Street, and so to Leadenhall, the distributing market of London, and from London to the country. Its financial centre was Lombard Street before the Exchange was built. At two points it had a City gate; it had three monastic houses, St. Helen’s, The Papey, and the Holy Trinity; it has been for three hundred years especially a Jewish quarter; it had the East India Houses one after the other, and it has within its borders the most ancient church in the City, that of St. Ethelburga, with three other churches which were not destroyed by the Fire.

Fenchurch Street.—The origin of the name has been generally accepted as from a supposed situation in a marsh or fen. According to Stow, “of a fenny or moorish ground, so made by means of this borne”—“Langborne.” We may admit the fenny ground, but we are not obliged to admit the existence of a stream here. Maitland, who loves to be precise, says that the stream rose in a place called Magpie Alley close to St. Katherine Coleman, and ran down Fenchurch Street and Lombard Street as far as the west end of St. Mary Woolnoth, where it turned south at Sherborne Lane (whence the name) and divided into many rivulets, where it fell into the Thames. Now, no trace of any such stream has ever been found. Moreover, though the levels of the streets have been raised by many feet, they have been raised in proportion, and if such a stream now ran along Fenchurch Street, it would run up-hill for half its course. Further, the name Sherborne does not mean what Maitland thinks at all. Its real meaning may be found in the Calendar of Wills (vol. i. p. 147, and on many other pages). Langborne appears as Langford in an early list. Somewhere near the end of Sherborne Lane was the wall, and perhaps the fosse of the Roman citadel. But Stow, and Maitland after him, call the ward Langborne and Fennie About. Langborne was one part—that of which Lombard Street is the principal part—and Fennie About the other, in the marshy ground.

The ward is mentioned in a murder case (Riley’s Memorials) in 1276. Reference to the parish occurs repeatedly between 1276 and 1349 (Calendar of Wills). There are mentioned messuages, rents, tenements, shops, a brew-house, etc., in the parish. The street is mentioned separately later. In the fourteenth century there are dwelling-places, tenements, mansion-houses, brew-houses, bakehouses, and shops. But there are no signs of a fen in or about the street. It is suggested that as Gracechurch Street is the street of Grass, so Fenchurch Street is Foin-church, the street of Hay, both streets belonging to the market of hay, grass, and corn. But Professor Skeat replies to this suggestion: “It is impossible to derive fen from the French foin. No French oi becomes e in English. But it might be derived from the Anglo-French fein, which is the corresponding word to the French foin and had the same sense. In this case it ought to be possible to find the spelling fein. Otherwise fen can only mean fen. Note that the English fen may be spelt also fenne. But the Anglo-French fein could not take either n or ne at the end of it. I suspect Stow is right. I see no evidence to the contrary.”

Again, writing later, Professor Skeat says: “I think we can get at Fenchurch now, by help of the history.

“Fen was an extremely common word in Middle English, not merely in the sense of morass, but in the sense of the modern word mud. ‘Mud’ is quite a late word, but I presume that the thing was known in the City even in the earliest times, and the name of it was ‘fen.’ This being so, it is tolerably certain that if the name originally was anything that could be readily turned into fen, that would soon become the pronunciation and the ‘popular’ etymology.

“If we start from the idea of Hay, we proceed through the Norman form which was not foin (this could never have given us fen), but fein or fayn, or fain, pronounced as modern English fain (the nasal n in Norman being of little account except after the simple vowels a and e). But the corresponding verb ‘to cut hay’ was actually ‘fener.’ The phrase ‘Li fain estoient fenÉ’ is quoted from Froissart in Godefroy’s Old French Dictionary, s.v. Fener. And the verb fener is still in use in Burgundy.

“It is easy to see how the word fain could thus be associated with a pronunciation fen, and Englishmen who knew no French (there were plenty of them) may very well have imagined in their hearts that the reference was to the mud in the streets. That there was mud may be taken for granted. There is some left still.

“There was also a remarkable adjective feneresse, whence the word feneresse, a female seller of hay. And there was a word fenerie which meant a barn for hay. And feneron, a hay maker.”

Professor Skeat later repeats that if the word for hay is used by itself in London, it will be in the form of fein-fain. The spelling Fanchurch is especially valuable; in fact, it settles it, for fan may be short for fain whereas fan cannot be another form of fen.

There are extant many ancient deeds connected with this street. Here was a brew-house called Le George super le Hoop.

Roman remains have been found here, vases, things in bronze, and an iron candlestick.

At No. 119 Fenchurch Street is a tavern known as the Elephant. It stands on the site of a house called the Elephant and Castle. In the Great Fire this house, being built of stone, resisted the flames, and offered shelter to many homeless people. Is the same thing related of the churches? They, too, were built of stone. Why did not they resist the flames?

Wallace was taken, on his arrival in London as a prisoner, to the house of William de Leyre in Fenchurch Street.

At the King’s Head Tavern, Queen Elizabeth was regaled with pork and peas on a certain visit to the City.

In Fenchurch Street at present, on the south side, the building numbered 3 and 4, which contains the Castle Mail Packet Company, is well designed, with wide, deeply-recessed windows enriched by mouldings. The ground-floor is encased in grey polished granite. Langbourn Chambers is a huge mass of building. Down the side of the street are various plain brick buildings of different ages interspersed with modern erections, stone fronted.

The huge building at the west corner of Mark Lane running round into Fenchurch Street is so covered with stone ornamentation, statues, etc., that the red brickwork is hardly to be seen. This is the London Tavern, and contains the City Glee Club. Both Mark and Mincing Lanes abound in great commercial buildings. Fen Court has an old stuccoed house over the tunnel-like entrance, but in itself is all composed of flat-windowed expressionless offices. These look down on the ancient graveyard, a very large space for one of the City churches. It is surrounded by railings, and divided down the centre by a flagged path. Several flat tombstones lie in the middle, and one or two altar tombs complete the quiet picture, over which the leaves of the wych-elms throw shadows. Those who have read Mrs. Riddell’s tragic story George Geith of Fen Court will remember her description of the Court. Beyond Fen Court is the Spread Eagle Bread Company, a fine old house of the beginning of the eighteenth century. The gilt eagle spreads its wings in front of a square red-brick block with antiquated windows, and a general tint of age.

The Ironmongers’ Hall, a large building, faces Fenchurch Street.

The earliest notice of the craft is in 1351. The first charter incorporating the Company was granted by Edward IV. in the year 1463, but it appears that a voluntary company or fraternity of members of the iron trade had existed for many years previous to that date.

There followed an Inspeximus Charter of Philip and Mary, dated June 20, 1558, which confirmed the charter of Edward IV.; Letters Patent of the second year of Queen Elizabeth, dated November 12, 1560, by which the charter of Edward IV. was further confirmed. James I., by Letters Patent dated June 25, 1605, confirmed the privileges and possessions of the Company. He also, in 1620, confirmed the Company in the possession of certain lands and tenements therein mentioned, in consideration of £100 paid to him. James II., by charter dated March 18, 1685, confirmed all their privileges and granted new and additional privileges, and by Letters Patent, dated November 19, 1688, he confirmed the last-mentioned charter.

Stow merely mentions the Hall, which occupied the area between Fenchurch and Leadenhall Streets. It existed in 1494 and was rebuilt in 1587. The present Hall was erected in 1748-50 on the site of an Elizabethan house which had escaped the Fire.

The number of liverymen varies; it is now thirty-seven. The Corporate Income is £12,000; the Trust Income is £11,000.

1. Freemen are invited to two dinners yearly, and they, their wives, and children are entitled to the benefit of the various charities bequeathed for their use by members of the Company or others, particulars of which are furnished to them on admission to the freedom.

2. Liverymen form the court and receive fees for their attendance on courts and committees for transacting the business of the Company and the charities. The amount of fees paid to members of the Company for their attendances at courts and committees during the last ten years averages £735 for each year. No fees are paid out of the trust estates.

3. The master and wardens have no privileges beyond the other liverymen, and no liveryman receives any money from the charities.

St. Katherine Coleman stands on the south side of Fenchurch Street, farther east. Its second name is derived from its proximity to a garden, anciently called “Coleman’s Haw.” In 1489 Sir William White, Draper and Lord Mayor, enlarged the church; it was further enlarged in 1620 and a vestry built in 1624. It escaped the Great Fire of 1666, but by the subsequent elevation of Fenchurch Street its foundations were buried. In 1734 the building was pulled down and the present one erected from the designs of an architect named Horne. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1346.

The patronage of the church was in the hands of: The Dean and Canons of St. Martin’s-le-Grand since 1346, then the Abbot and Convent of Westminster, 1509; Thomas, Bishop of Westminster, by grant of Henry VIII., January 20, 1540-41; Bishop of London by grant of Edward VI. in 1550, confirmed by Queen Mary, March 3, 1553-54, in whose successors it continued. The present building is of brick, with stone dressings. The tower rises at the west.

Sir Henry Billingsley, Lord Mayor of London, was buried here in 1606. A few monuments are recorded by Strype, but the individuals commemorated are of little note. The finest monument still preserved is that to Lady Heigham (d. 1634), wife of Richard Heigham, gentleman pensioner to King Charles I.

Sir H. Billingsley left £200 for the poor at his death, but his heirs did not carry out his instructions. Jacob Lucy was donor of £100; Thomas Papillon of £61. Other names also were recorded on the Table of Benefactors erected in 1681. There was a workhouse belonging to the parish.

St. Gabriel, Fenchurch, was situated in the middle of Fenchurch Street between Rood Lane and Mincing Lane. It was burnt down by the Great Fire and not rebuilt, its parish being annexed to St. Margaret Pattens by Act of Parliament. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1321.

The patronage of this church was in the hands of: The Prior and Convent of Holy Trinity, 1321-1519; the Crown from 1540 up to 1666, when the church was burnt down and the parish annexed to St. Margaret Pattens.

Houseling people in 1548 were 200.

For Rood Lane, Mincing Lane, and the other streets south of Fenchurch Street leading to Thames Street, see Group V.

Billiter Street, not, as Stow says, from its first owner Belzetter, but from being the quarter in which stood the Bell Founders. Agnes, sister of Thomas À Becket, had land in Bellzetter Lane, parish of St. Michael, Aldgate. The lane is mentioned in the Calendar of Wills in 1298, and on many occasions afterwards. Strype, in 1720, calls it a lane of very ordinary account, the houses being very old and of timber (the place escaped the Fire), the inhabitants being “inconsiderable, as small brokers, chandlers, and the like.” But the chief “ornament” of this place was Billiter Square, which was then newly built with good brick houses “well inhabited.”

Lime Street runs between Fenchurch and Leadenhall Streets.

In 1576 a passage was constructed at the north-east corner of this street; in the necessary excavation was discovered what Stow calls a “hearth” made of Roman tiles, every tile half a yard square and two inches thick. It was six feet under ground, corresponding in depth with Roman remains found on Cornhill. The passage was duly set up and was standing.

The name of the street occurs in the Calendar of Wills for the year 1298. We are now approaching that imaginary belt of the City lying between the markets and Thames Street, in which the merchants and the nobles mostly had their houses. Stow enumerates a long list of the great houses in Lime Street:

“In Lime Street are divers fair houses for merchants and others; there was sometimes a mansion-house of the kings, called the King’s Artirce, whereof I find record in the 14th of Edward I., but now grown out of knowledge. I read also of another great house in the west side of Lime Street, having a chapel on the south and a garden on the west, then belonging to the Lord Nevill, which garden is now called the Green yard of the Leaden hall. This house, in the 9th of Richard II., pertained to Sir Simon Burley, and Sir John Burley his brother; and of late the said house was taken down, and the forefront thereof new built of timber by Hugh Offley, alderman. At the north-west corner of Lime Street was of old time one great messuage called Benbrige’s inn; Ralph Holland, draper, about the year 1452 gave it to John Gill, master, and to the wardens and fraternity of tailors and linen-armourers of St. John Baptist in London, and to their successors for ever. They did set up in place thereof a fair large frame of timber, containing in the high street one great house, and before it to the corner of Lime Street three other tenements, the corner house being the largest, and then down Lime Street divers proper tenements; all which the merchant-tailors, in the reign of Edward VI., sold to Stephen Kirton, merchant-tailor and alderman: he gave, with his daughter Grisild, to Nicholas Woodroffe the said great house, with two tenements before it, in lieu of a hundred pounds, and made it up in money £366: 13: 4. This worshipful man, and the gentlewoman his widow after him, kept those houses down Lime Street in good reparations, never put out but one tenant, took no fines, nor raised rents of them, which was ten shillings the piece yearly: but whether that favour did overlive her funeral, the tenants now can best declare the contrary.

“Next unto this, on the high street, was the Lord Sowche’s messuage or tenement, and other; in place whereof, Richard Wethell, merchant-tailor, built a fair house, with a high tower, the second in number, and first of timber, that ever I learnt to have been built to overlook neighbours in this city.

“This Richard, then a young man, became in a short time so tormented with gouts in his joints, of the hands and legs, that he could neither feed himself nor go further than he was led; much less was he able to climb and take the pleasure of the height of his tower. Then is there another fair house, built by Stephen Kirton, alderman; Alderman Lee did then possess it, and again new buildeth it; but now it is in the custody of Sir William Craven.

“Then is there a fair house of old time called the Green gate; by which name one Michael Pistoy, a Lumbard held it, with a tenement and nine shops in the reign of Richard II., who in the 15th of his reign gave it to Roger Corphull, and Thomas Bromester, esquires, by the name of the Green Gate, in the parish of St. Andrew upon Cornhill, in Lime Street ward; since the which time Philip Malpas, sometime alderman, and one of the sheriffs, dwelt therein, and was there robbed and spoiled of his goods to a great value by Jack Cade, and other rebels, in the year 1449.

“Afterwards, in the reign of Henry VII., it was seised into the King’s hands, and then granted, first, unto John Alston, after that unto William de la Rivers, and since by Henry VIII. to John Mutas, a Picarde or Frenchman, who dwelt there, and harboured in his house many Frenchmen, that kalendred wolsteds, and did other things contrary to the franchises of the citizens; wherefore on evil May-day, which was in the year 1517, the apprentices and others spoiled his house; and if they could have found Mutas, they would have stricken off his head. Sir Peter Mutas, son to the said John Mutas, sold this house to David Woodroffe, alderman, whose son, Sir Nicholas Woodroffe, alderman, sold it over to John Moore, alderman, that then possessed it.

“Next is a house called the Leaden porch, lately divided into two tenements; whereof one is a tavern, and then one other house for a merchant, likewise called the leaden Porch, but now turned to a cook’s house. Next is a fair house and a large, wherein divers mayoralties have been kept, whereof twain in my remembrance; to wit, Sir William Bowyer and Sir Henry Huberthorne” (Stow’s Survey, pp. 162-163).

In modern Lime Street the first thing that attracts attention is an old iron gateway leading to a little paved yard where once stood St. Dionis Backchurch. Laid in a horizontal row are nine tombstones, on which one can look down. A steep flight of stone steps leads up to the parish offices, and the backs of business houses surround the court. At No. 15 is the Pewterers’ Hall.

The earliest information respecting the Company is found in the records of the City of London, 22 Edward III., A.D. 1348, when the mayor and aldermen are prayed by the good folk of the trade to hear the state and points of the trade, to provide redress and amendment of the defaults thereof for the common profit, and to ordain two or three of the trade to oversee the alloys and workmanship.

In the year 1443 (22 Henry VI.), in consequence of the complaints of “the multitude of tin which was untrue and deceyvable brought to the City, the defaults not being perceptible until it comes to the melting,” the mayor and aldermen granted to the Company the right to search and assay all the tin which was brought into the City of London.

Edward IV. (1473-74) incorporated the Company by royal charter.

This power was recognised and confirmed by charters granted successively by Henry VIII., Philip and Mary, Queen Elizabeth, James I., and Queen Anne.

An Act of Parliament confirming the Company’s powers to search for bad wares was passed in 1503-1504, 19 Henry VII. c. 6., confirmed by other Acts, 4 Henry VIII. c. 7., 1512-13; 25 Henry VIII. c. 9., 1533-34; and a statute 33 Henry VIII. c. 4., 1541-42, prohibited the hawking of pewter.

The maintenance of the good faith of the trade appears to have been one of the primary considerations in the proceedings of the Company.

In 1555 it was resolved that any member buying metal of tylors, labourers, boys, women, or suspected persons, or between six at night and six in the morning, if the metal should prove to have been stolen, should not only be dismissed the Company, but stand to such punishment as the Lord Mayor and aldermen might direct.

The Company appear to have furnished a certain number of men with arms for the defence of the City, and to have kept at the Hall equipments for them—calyvers, corslets, bills, pikes, etc.—and to have appointed an armourer to preserve them in good condition.

The Company used to cast into bars such tin as was to be transported out of the realm, whereby the poor of the Company were wont to provide for part of their living; but after these bars were made by strangers beyond the sea, the poor were greatly “hindered.” A petition was presented to Queen Elizabeth in 1594, and after a delay of four years Letters Patent were granted to the Company, giving permission for a small charge to be made on the smelting and casting of bars of tin.

The fellowship of the craft and mystery of Pewterers of London and elsewhere represented, before Henry VIII.’s reign, one of the best handicrafts within the realm.

The master and wardens appear at the commencement of the seventeenth century to have exercised the right to nominate the casters of tin in London, and the Company received a small royalty on the casting, which was distributed to the poor of the Company. They also appear to have had from the Council of the Revenue of the Prince of Wales an allotment of certain proportions of the tin produced in Cornwall, and to have derived some profit from the privilege. In fact, the pewter trade in London was supplied with tin from Cornwall through the Company, and frequent disputations are recorded between the Company and the Prince’s Council as to the rate, which was sometimes said to be so high that the poor of the Company could not live thereby.

At a later period the Company, in order to prevent the public from imposition, and to sustain the credit of the pewterers’ trade, appointed the standard assays of the various wares and the weight of metal for each article.

The Hall stands upon a piece of ground presented to the Company by W. Smallwood, Master, 1487. The first building was destroyed in the Great Fire and the present one is that which replaced it.

The Company now have a livery of 103; a Corporate Income of £5400; and a Trust Income of £233.

The Ordinances of the Pewterers were submitted to the mayor and aldermen in 1348. They may be found in Riley (Memorials, 241). They contain clauses similar to those in the ordinances of other trades, including the power of appointing overseers of their own body. Two years later we find a Pewterer named John de Hiltone brought before the mayor on the charge of making “false” salt-cellars and “potels.” The “false” vessels were forfeited. The use of pewter for domestic purposes was universal. Dishes, plates, basins, drinking cups, measures were all made of pewter. There are luncheon-rooms in the City at the present day where steaks and chops are served on pewter: at Lincoln’s Inn the dishes are still of pewter; in the last century children and servants took their meals off pewter. These facts explain the flourishing condition of the Company and its large income.

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St. Dionis Backchurch was situated at the south-west corner of Lime Street behind Fenchurch Street, from which position it probably derived its name of Backchurch. It was burnt down by the Great Fire, and rebuilt by Wren in 1674, and the steeple added in 1684. In 1878 this building was pulled down by an Order in Council. Part of the money obtained from the site was given to the foundation of a new church of St. Dionis at Parsons Green erected in 1885. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1288.

The patronage of the church was in the hands of: In 1248, the Prior and Chapter of Christ Church, Canterbury; then the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury 1552, in whose successors it continued up to 1878, when the church was demolished and the parish annexed to Allhallows, Lombard Street.

Houseling people in 1548 were 405.

Chantries were founded here: By John Carby, Alderman of London, whose endowment fetched £13 in 1548, when James Servaunt was priest; by Maude Bromeholme, whose endowment yielded £5: 7: 4 in 1548; by John Wrotham, whose endowment was £15: 7: 4, when Nicholas Metcalfe was chaplain.

The church originally contained a considerable number of monuments, the most notable of which were in memory of John Hewet of the Clothworkers Company and benefactor of the parish; Sir Robert Jeffreys, Knt., Alderman and Lord Mayor of the City, who died in 1703; and Edward Tyson, M.D.

Some of the donors of charitable gifts were: Dame Elizabeth Clark, £30; Robert Williams, £25, towards a bell; James Church, £10. Many others gave various fittings for the church.

Lionel Gatford (d. 1665); Archdeacon of St. Alban’s, was rector here; also Nathanial Hardy (1618-1670), Dean of Rochester.

Leadenhall Street was so named after the Leadenhall, i.e. the hall covered with lead, which stood at the corner of that street and Gracechurch Street. An early reference to the place is found in the Calendar of Wills in the year 1296, when certain “rents near la Ledenhalle in Gracechurch Street” are mentioned. The next reference does not occur till the year 1369. But in Riley’s Memorials, we are told that on the eve of St. John the Baptist, June 24, the mayor delivered to the chamberlain “one silver mark arising from a certain small garden annexed to Leden Hall, which mark was taken... for completing the pavement belonging to the Court of Leaden Hall.” Riley gives a very brief history of the place:

“At the beginning of the 14th century, it was occasionally used as a Court of Justice; see the MS. Liber de Antiqu. Legibus, at Guildhall, fol. 61. In October, 1326, after the flight of Edward II., the Commons of London met there, when making terms with the Constable of the Tower” (Riley, Memorials, p. 138).

Stow gives a long account of the various hands through which the manor of Leadenhall passed, confusing the hall with the manor on which it was built. In the year 1411, according to Stow, the manor came into possession of the City.

“Then in the year 1443, the 21st of Henry VI., John Hatherley, mayor, purchased licence of the said king to take up two hundred fodder of lead, for the building of water conduits, a common granary, and the cross in West Chepe, more richly, for the honour of the City. In the year next following, the parson and parish of St. Dunstan, in the east of London, seeing the famous and mighty man (for the words be in the grant, nobilis et potens vir), Simon Eyre, citizen of London, among other his works of piety, effectually determined to erect and build a certain granary upon the soil of the same city at Leadenhall, of his own charges, for the common utility of the said city, to the amplifying and enlarging of the said granary, granted to Henry Frowicke, then mayor, the aldermen and commonalty, and their successors for ever, all their tenements, with the appurtenances, sometime called the Horsemill, in Grasse Street, for the annual rent of four pounds, etc. Also, certain evidences of an alley and tenements pertaining to the Horsemill adjoining to the said Leaden hall in Grasse Street, given by William Kingstone, fishmonger, unto the parish church of St. Peter upon Cornehill, do specify the said granary to be built by the said honourable and famous merchant, Simon Eyre, sometime an upholsterer, and then a draper, in the year 1419. He built it of squared stone, in form as now it showeth, with a fair and large chapel in the east side of the quadrant, over the porch of which he caused to be written, Dextra Domini exaltavit me (The Lord’s right hand exalted me). Within the said church on the north wall, was written, Honorandus famosus mercator Simon Eyre hujus operis, etc. In English thus: ‘The honourable and famous merchant, Simon Eyre, founder of this work, once mayor of this City, citizen and draper of the same, departed out of this life, the 18th day of September, the year from the incarnation of Christ 1459, and the 38th year of the reign of King Henry VI.’” (Stow’s Survey, p. 162).

Before the middle of the fourteenth century Leadenhall had become a market for poultry. In 1345 it was ordered that strange folk, i.e. people from outside the City, bringing poultry for sale should no longer hawk it about from house to house, but should take it to the Leaden Hall, and should there sell it, and nowhere else. Also that citizens who sell poultry should offer it on the west side of the Tun of Cornhill (Riley, pp. 220, 221).

The market was not, however, confined to the sale of poultry, as is proved by the following request of the commons of the City, in the year 1503:

“Please it, the lord mayor, aldermen and common council, to enact, that all Frenchmen bringing canvass, linen cloth, and other wares to be sold, and all foreigners bringing wolsteds, sayes, Stamins, Kiverings, nails, iron work, or any other wares, and also all manner of foreigners bringing lead to the city to be sold, shall bring all such their wares aforesaid to the open market of the Leaden Hall, there and no where else to be sold and uttered, like as of old time it hath been used, upon pain of forfeiture of all the said wares showed or sold in any other place than aforesaid; the show of the said wares to be made three days in the week, that is to say, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday; it is also thought reasonable that the common beam be kept henceforth in the Leaden Hall, and the farmer to pay therefore reasonable rent to the chamber; for better it is that the chamber have advantage thereby than a foreign person; and also the said Leaden Hall, which is more chargeable now by half than profitable, shall better bear out the charges thereof; also the common beam for wool at Leaden Hall, may yearly pay a rent to the chamber of London, toward supportation and charges of the same place; for reason it is, that a common office, occupied upon a common ground, bear a charge to the use of the commonalty; also, that foreigners bringing wools, felts, or any other merchandises or wares to Leaden Hall, to be kept there for the sale and market, may pay more largely for the keeping of their goods than free men” (Stow’s Survey, p. 164).

A granary was kept at Leaden Hall, the use of which depended entirely on the forethought of the mayor. Thus, in 1512, Roger Acheley, the mayor, found that there were not one hundred quarters of wheat in all the garners of the City. He took immediate steps, and not only imported wheat for present necessities, but also filled the granaries of the City. Stow adds a note as to the activity of the mayor: “He kept the market so well, that he would be at the Leaden Hall by four o’clock in the summer mornings; and thence he went to other markets, to the great comfort of the citizens.”

In 1529 a petition was presented by the Commons to the Common Council on the uses to which Leaden Hall might be put. It should not be let out to farm to any person or to any Company incorporate for any time of years, and they proceeded to give their reasons.

About the year 1534 an effort was made to convert Leadenhall into a Burse. This failed, and the Burse continued to be held in Lombard Street until the building of the Royal Exchange. This is interesting, because it shows that Gresham was not alone in desiring to have a convenient building for the meeting of the merchants.

“The use of Leaden Hall in my youth (says Stow) was thus:—In a part of the north quadrant, on the east side of the north gate, were the common beams for weighing of wool and other wares, as had been accustomed; on the west side of the gate were the scales to weigh meal; the other three sides were reserved for the most part to the making and resting of the pageants showed at Midsummer in the watch; the remnant of the sides and quadrants was employed for the stowage of wool sacks, but not closed up; the lofts above were partly used by the painters in working for the decking of pageants and other devices, for beautifying of the watch and watch-men; the residue of the lofts were letten out to merchants, the wool winders and packers therein to wind and pack their wools” (p. 166).

The market in 1754 is thus described by Strype:

“Leadenhall is a very large building of Free-stone, containing within it three large Courts or Yards, all encompassed with buildings, wherein is kept a market, one of the greatest, the best, and the most general for all provisions in the City of London, nay of the Kingdom; and, if I should say of all Europe, I should not give it too great a praise. The building hath flat battlements leaded at the top; and, for the conveniency of People’s coming to this great market, which is kept every day of the week, except Sundays, for one thing or the other, besides the principal entrance out of Leadenhall Street, there are two or three others, one out of Lime Street, and the rest out of Gracechurch Street.

“Of the three Courts or Yards that it consists of, the first is that at the north-east corner of Gracechurch Street, and opens into Leadenhall Street; this court or yard contains, in length, from north to south, one hundred and sixty-four feet, and, in breadth, from east to west, eighty feet; within this court or yard, round about the same, are about one hundred standing stalls for butchers for the selling only of beef, and therefore this court is called the Beef Market, many of which stalls are eight, ten, or twelve feet long, and four, five, or six feet broad, with racks, hooks, blocks, and all other conveniences for the sale of their meat: All which stalls are either under warehouses above head, or sheltered from the weather by roofs over them. This yard is, on Tuesdays, a market for leather, to which the tanners do resort. On Thursdays the waggons from Colchester, and other parts, come with Baiz, etc., and also the Felmongers with their wool; and on Fridays it is a market for raw hides, besides Saturdays for Beef, as also other provisions.

“The second market-yard is called the Green yard, as being once a green Plat of Ground. Afterwards it was the City’s Store-yard for Materials for building, and the like, but now a market only for veal, mutton, lamb, etc. This yard is one hundred and seventy feet in length, from east to west, and ninety feet broad from north to south: It hath in it one hundred and forty stalls for the butchers, all covered over, and of the bigness of those in the beef-market. In the middle of this Green yard Market, north to south, is a row of shops, with kitchens, or rooms over them, for fishmongers; and, also, on the south side and west end, are houses and shops also for fishmongers. Towards the east end of this yard is erected a fair market-house, standing upon columns, with vaults underneath, and rooms above, with a bell-tower and a clock, and under it are butchers’ stalls. The tenements round about this yard are, for the most part, inhabited by cooks, victuallers, and such-like; and, in the passages leading out of the streets, into this market, are fishmongers, poulterers, cheesemongers, and such-like traders for provision.

“The third market belonging to Leadenhall is called the Herb Market, for that herbs, roots, fruits, etc., are only there sold. This market is about one hundred and forty feet square; the west, east, and south sides have walks round them, covered over for shelter, and standing upon columns; in which walks there are twenty-eight stalls for gardeners, with cellars under them. There is also, in this yard, one range of stalls covered over for such as sell tripe, neats-feet, sheeps-trotters, etc., and, on the south side, the tenements are taken up by Victuallers, Cheesemongers, Butchers, Poulterers, and such-like.

“The rooms in the stone building about the beef-market, which is properly Leadenhall, are employed for several uses, as the west side was wholly used for the stowage of wares belonging to the East-India Company; on the east side is the meal-warehouse and the Wool-hall; on the south end is the Colchester Baiz-hall, and at the north end is the warehouse for the sealing of leather.

“The general conflagration of this city, in 1666, terminated in that part of the City near adjoining to this hall; all the houses about it, and within the yards belonging to it, being destroyed, there did, of this fabric, only remain the stonework; since which, the Courts and yards belonging to this building, and some other adjacent grounds purchased by the City, are wholly converted into a market for the City’s use; the place for the reception of Country butchers, and others who brought provisions before to the City, being then only in Leadenhall Street, between Gracechurch Street and Lime Street, which was very incommodious to the market people, as well as to the passengers.”

Leadenhall Market is in four rays of varying lengths; the longest is about 80 feet, the shortest about 30. These are covered in by a wide arched roof of glass, supported by girders, and are about 30 feet wide. At each entrance there is a similar design. On either side a couple of massive fluted columns are surmounted by griffins, which support the arch. These are decorated with gilt. Over the entry is an arch of great height, with a stone relief, and on the frieze below the words “Leadenhall Market.” The market was built in 1881, designed by Sir Horace Jones, and is occupied to a very great extent by poulterers and butchers. There are roughly about fifty holdings and two taverns, the Lamb and the Half Moon.

There was a chapel in the market, to which was attached a Fraternity of the Trinity of sixty priests, with other brethren and sisters, in which service was celebrated every day.

The chapel was taken down in 1812 (see MediÆval London, vol. ii. p. 373).

In Leadenhall Street have been found Roman remains, a pavement, pottery, etc.

A crypt existed under the house 153 Leadenhall Street until 1896, when it was destroyed.

“Under the corner house of Leadenhall and Bishopsgate Streets, and two houses on the east, and one on the north, side thereof, was situate a very ancient church of Gothic construction, the principal part of which is still remaining under the said corner house, and two adjoining in Leadenhall Street; but part of the north aisle beneath the house contiguous in Bishopsgate Street, was lately obliged to make way to enlarge the cellar. When or by whom this old church was founded I cannot learn, it not being so much as mentioned by any of our historians or surveyors of London that I can discover.

“Some other ancient architectural remains, perhaps originally connected with the former, were also found under the houses extending up the eastern site of Bishopsgate Street. The description of their situation, given by Maitland, fixes their locality to the side of the very house at which the fire of 1765 commenced; and which appears to have continued until that time in the same kind of occupation as it was when the ensuing account of these ruins was written. ‘At the distance of 12 feet from this church,’—namely the remains already noticed at the north-east corner of Leadenhall Street—‘is to be seen, under the house at the late Mr. Macadam’s, a peruke-maker in Bishopsgate Street, a stone building of the length of 30 feet, breadth of 14, and altitude of 8 feet 6 inches above the present floor; with a door in the north-side, and a window at the east end, as there probably was one in the west. It is covered with a semi-circular arch, built with small piers of chalk in the form of bricks, and ribbed with stone, resembling those of the arches of a bridge. What this edifice at first was appropriated to is very uncertain; though, by the manner of its construction, it seems to have been a chapel; but the ground having been since raised on all sides, it was probably converted into a subterraneous repository for merchandise; for a pair of stone stairs, with a descending arch over them, seems to have been erected since the fabric was built’” (Wilkinson, Londina Illustrata).

The most important house in the street next to the Leadenhall itself was the East India House, which stood near to the Hall. The Company first met, according to tradition, at the Nag’s Head Tavern, Bishopsgate; they then had a house in Leadenhall Street; they took on lease in 1701—perhaps it was their first house—Sir William Craven’s large house in Leadenhall Street, with a tenement in Lime Street. This is probably the house pictured in a print in the British Museum.

In 1726 the “Old” East India House was built, of which several parts were retained in the new buildings of 1799.

Hardly any part of the City, unless it be the south of Cornhill, is so honeycombed with courts and passages as the quarter upon which we are now engaged. For the most part they are not distinguished by any historical associations. Some of them formerly contained taverns and inns. The courts are greatly diminished in size; some of them were narrow lanes with houses standing face to face, a few feet apart; some of them formerly contained gentlemen’s houses. Why were these houses built in a court? The explanation is easy. The town-house of noble or merchant was built like a college: a gateway with a chamber over it in front, rooms beside the gate in case of a nobleman with a retinue; in other cases a wall enclosing a garden in a square, on either side rooms, at the back the Hall and what we call reception rooms, with the private rooms of the family. When land became more valuable the rooms beside the gateway became shops, then there was building at the back of the shops, the sides became contracted, and there were left at last only the court, the gateway, and the house beyond. There are several places in the City where this history of a house may be traced, the modern offices being built on the site of the old foundation, the gateway having disappeared, and the court still remaining.

“Anno 1136. A very great fire happened in the City, which began in the house of one Ailward, near London Stone, and consumed all the way east to Aldgate, and west to St. Erkenwald’s shrine in St. Paul’s Cathedral, both which it destroyed, together with London Bridge, which was then constructed of wood.

“It is reasonable to conjecture, that the accumulation of ruins these extensive fires occasioned left the distressed inhabitants little choice in their determination; and as it would have caused infinite trouble and inconvenience to have cleared and removed the same, they wisely preferred sacrificing a few (to them) useless buildings, raised and levelled the ground, and began a foundation for new dwellings on the site of the roofs of some of their remaining habitations. The amazing descent to the banks of the Thames from several parts of the City confirms the opinion that most of the buildings denominated crypts, oratories, or undercrofts, were, in their pristine states, level in their foundations with the dwelling-places of their original builders. What greatly adds to the probability is the circumstance of our being informed that near Belzeter’s Lane (Billiter Lane) and Lime Street, three new houses being to be built, in the year 1590, in a place where was a large garden plot enclosed from the street by a high brick wall, upon taking down the said wall and digging for cellarage, another wall of stone was found directly under the brick wall with an arched gateway of stone, and gates of timber to be closed in the midst towards the street. The timber of the gates was consumed, but the hinges of iron were then remaining on their staples on both sides: moreover, in that wall were square windows with bars of iron on each side this gate. The wall was above two fathoms deep under the ground, supposed to be the remains of those great fires before mentioned. Again, we learn, on the east side of Lime Street opening into Fenchurch Street, on that site, after the fire of 1666, Sir Thomas Cullum built thirty houses, and that a short time previous to 1757, the cellar of one of the houses giving way, there was discovered an arched room, ten feet square and eight feet deep, with several arched doors round it stopped up with earth” (Wilkinson, Londina Illustrata, vol. ii. p. 43).

In 1660 the mayor, Sir Thomas Allen, resided in Leadenhall Street and entertained Monk. At the corner of St. Mary Axe stood, in the fifteenth century, the town-house of the De Veres, Earls of Oxford.

Gibbon’s great-grandfather, one of the last of the younger sons of county families who came to London and went into trade, had his shop as a draper in Leadenhall Street.

In this street Peter Anthony Motteux, translator of Don Quixote, kept an “East India” shop. He was a Huguenot, and could speak and understand many languages. He was also employed as a linguist at the Post Office. In addition to his shop and his office, he worked as a poet and man of letters generally; being the author of plays, prologues, and epilogues. He is best known by his completion of Urquhart’s Translation of Rabelais. He was a loose liver, and died in a disorderly house in St. Clement Danes. Like the lady of PÈre la Chaise, “Resigned unto the Heavenly Will, His wife kept on the business still.”

St. Katherine Cree, in Leadenhall Street, is on the site of the cemetery of the Priory of Holy Trinity, whence it derives its name Creechurch or Christchurch. This priory is said to have been built in the same place where Siredus sometime began to erect a church in honour of the Cross and of St. Mary Magdalen. This ancient church contributed thirty shillings to the Dean and Chapter of Waltham. The abbey church here is also dedicated to the Holy Cross, and when Matilda founded Christ Church or Trinity she gave to the Church of Waltham a mill instead of this payment. But little is known of the building of Siredus; but Matilda’s Priory is said to have occupied parts of the parishes of St. Mary Magdalen, St. Michael, St. Katherine, and the Blessed Trinity, which now was made but one parish of the Holy Trinity, and was in old time of the Holy Cross or Holy Rood parish. At this time, therefore (1108), the old parish of the Holy Rood had disappeared, and four parishes appear on its site. In the perambulation of the old soke of the Priory we find the parishes of Coleman Church (St. Katherine), St. Michael, St. Andrew (Undershaft), and of the Trinity (now St. James’s, Duke’s Place), but St. Mary Magdalen and Holy Rood are not mentioned. This loss of St. Mary Magdalen is not easily explained. Could the Church of St. Andrew have been dedicated formerly to St. Mary Magdalen? Such changes in dedication are known, and, even in this ward or soke, Stow tells us that St. Katherine Coleman was called St. Katherine and All Saints.

This would make up all the parishes which are given at the several periods in this locality. The existence of St. Katherine Coleman and St. Katherine Cree as two distinct parishes adjoining is remarkable. The parish of St. Katherine Coleman belonged to the ancient establishment of St. Martin’s-le-Grand, and so remained until the Dissolution. Was it a part of this parish which was taken into the precinct of the Trinity? The inhabitants of the enclosed parish of Cree Church at first used the Priory church, but it was agreed afterwards that they should have a church erected, and use the Priory church only at certain times. This would be what we might expect of a part of a parish detached at the establishment of the Priory, but which desired to be released from the control of the prior, and to be a parish of itself, with its own church. We must not confound the parish of St. Mary Magdalen with a small parish of St. Mary the Virgin, St. Ursula and the 11,000 Virgins. This was on the west side of St. Mary Axe, and belonged to the Priory of St. Helen. The church was destroyed, and the parish united, by Edmund Grindal, Bishop of London, to St. Andrew, Undershaft, in the year 1561.

The parishioners had been allowed to worship at an altar in the Priory church, but this being inconvenient, St. Katherine’s was built through the agency of Richard de Gravesend, Bishop of London, 1280-1303. It was rebuilt in 1628-1630, possibly after the design of Inigo Jones. The steeple, which was built in the early sixteenth century, is still standing. The church was consecrated by Laud in 1631. In 1874 the parish of St. James’s, Duke’s Place, was annexed. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1436.

The patronage of which was in the hands of the Prior and Canons of Holy Trinity, London. Henry VIII. seized it in 1540, and soon after granted it to Sir Thomas Audley, who gave it, by his will dated April 19, 1544, to the Master and Fellows of Magdalene College, Cambridge, in whose successors it continued.

Houseling people in 1548 were 542.

The church is a mixture of the Gothic and classical styles. It contains two narrow aisles separated from the nave by Corinthian columns and round arches, above which is a clerestory. The roof is groined, and the arms of the City and several City Companies are displayed on it. The building is 94 feet long, 51 feet broad, and 37 feet high. It is larger than the original church, of which the sole relic now existing is a pillar at the south-west, less than three feet above ground, owing to the higher level of the new church. The stone steeple rises at the west and consists of a tower surmounted by a Tuscan colonnade with a cupola and vane; its total height is 75 feet.

A chantry was founded here at the Altar of St. Michael.

The church is not rich in historical monuments. It contains, however, the tomb of Nicholas Throckmorton, Chief Butler of England and intimate friend of Lady Jane Grey and Queen Elizabeth.

Tradition said that Hans Holbein was buried here, but there is no evidence for it except that he died in the vicinity.

There is a brass in the floor in front of the communion table, commemorating Sir John Gayer, Lord Mayor in 1646 and staunch adherent of Charles I., for which he suffered imprisonment.

At the west end there is a bas-relief to Samuel Thorpe (died 1791): this is only interesting as being the work of the elder Bacon.

Sir John Gayer bequeathed £200 for charitable purposes, amongst them a fee for a sermon to be preached on October 16 annually, and though the charity is now diverted, yet the “Lion sermon,” in commemoration of the donor’s delivery from a lion in Arabia, is still kept up.

There was a charity school at the end of Cree Church Lane, in which forty boys were clothed and taught, by subscriptions from the inhabitants of the ward.

Roger Maynwaring (1590-1653), Bishop of St. David’s, was a perpetual curate here; also Nicholas Brady (1659-1726), joint author of Tate and Brady’s version of the Psalter.

The north of Leadenhall Street between St. Katherine Cree and Aldgate, from the year 1130 and the suppression of the Religious Houses, was covered with the buildings of the Priory of the Holy Trinity already described (see MediÆval London, vol. ii. p. 241).

The buildings of the Priory were given by the King to Sir Thomas Audley in 1531 after the surrender.

The Earl of Suffolk, son of the Duke who was beheaded in 1572, sold the house and precinct to the City of London, and built Audley End in Essex. The City seems to have pulled down the mansion and laid out the grounds in streets and courts. The disposition of these seems to preserve, to a certain extent, that of the old Priory.

When the people began to settle in the precinct, they found themselves, although so close to St. Katherine Cree, without a parish church. They therefore petitioned the Archbishop of Canterbury, who obtained permission of the King to build a new church here, and to erect a new parish. The church was finished and dedicated to St. James in 1622. The memory of the consecration is described at length by Strype. This quarter was assigned to the Jews by Oliver Cromwell in 1650. Here is the Great Synagogue of the German Jews.

St. James’s was one of the most notorious of the many places for irregular marriages, those without licence, because as standing in the ancient precinct of the Priory it was without the jurisdiction of the bishop.

St. James’s, Duke’s Place, escaped the Great Fire of 1666.

In 1873 the church was pulled down and its parish united with that of St. Katherine Cree Church. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1622.

This church was in the gift of the Lord Mayor and Commonalty of London from 1622.

Few monuments, and none of much note, are recorded by Stow. Booker, an astrologer, was commemorated by a stone inscription.

Sir Edward Barkham is the only benefactor whose name is recorded by Stow.

The modern Leadenhall Street is at the west end full of fine, well-executed Chambers. Of these, New Zealand Chambers are the most noticeable. The building is by R. Norman Shaw in the pseudo-ancient style. It was erected in 1872, and is carried out in red brick. The bayed windows on either side of the entrance are placed in wide recesses which run right up the frontage. Africa House is in a commonplace style, but has rather good stone panels on the front. On the north Leadenhall House is solidly faced in granite, with granite columns on the frontage. West India House is neatly built in white stone.

Farther eastward the street is singularly dull; it is lined at first by dreary blocks of imitation stone buildings. These are succeeded by brick buildings all turned out of the same mould. The north side is better than the south, and is chiefly made up of solid, well-built houses on various designs.

At No. 153 the ground-floor is occupied by a bric-À-brac shop. Below the parapet there is a curious triangular pediment let into the brickwork. This encloses a round stone with an inscription on it, of which the first word seems to be “incendio”; on either side is a small shelf.

The London Joint Stock Bank is a few doors off. No. 140, an Aerated Bread Shop, is fantastically built, in imitation of an old style. The Peninsular & Oriental Steamship Company is in a stone and terra-cotta building, with well-designed figures in slight relief in the corners of the windows.

Aldgate, spelt otherwise Alegate or Algate, was probably, but not certainly, opened and constructed by Queen Matilda, Consort of Henry I., who is also said to have built the bridge over the Lea at Bow. There seems no reason for doubting the story.

On the spelling of the name Professor Skeat writes, September 18, 1897:

“It occurs to me to say that in any case of interpreting spellings, the date of the spelling is of the greatest service. We now know the meanings of all the vowel symbols at all dates. If we can obtain a few early spellings of Aldgate, with approximate dates, we ought to be able to decide it. We have to remember that all, in composition meant ‘wholly,’ and was adverbial as in Al-mighty, and ‘wholly gate’ gives no sense. If ‘for all’ were intended, it would be alra, aller, or alder, the genitive of plural. This is not a question of etymology but of grammar. On the other hand, if the M.E. Ald [now spelt Old] were meant, I have proof that a Norman scribe would be apt to omit the d; so that Alegate would, in fact, be quite regular. And it would not necessarily become Oldgate in course of time; just as Acton, though it means Oaktown, is called Acton still. This is due to what we call the preservation of a short or shortened vowel, owing to stress.”

And again, writing on 21st September, he says:

“The list of spellings which you send me is most interesting, but it is not easy to explain it. I can remember a time when I should have drawn the conclusion that they are very much against connecting the word with the Old Mercian ald, which we now spell old. But my recent investigations tell the other way; not only were perfectly common words persistently (but regularly) mis-spelt in Domesday and early charters, from the time of the Conquest till about 1350, but in many instances (as would likely be the case in official documents) such habits became stereotyped. The early scribes were nearly all Norman, and they brought in Norman spelling to that extent that the whole of modern English is pervaded by it; indeed, no one who does not know the phonetic laws of Anglo-French can explain why the word house is spelt with ou, or the word build with ui.... The explanation of the spelling Ald in 1270 is probably simply this: that this particular charter (contrary to practice) was entrusted to an English scribe. It is a simple supposition—English spellings began to prevail in these matters in the period from 1350-1400, and it is just here that we get two instances. The Normans learnt Latin easily: to an English scribe it was a foreign language. This is why the French scribes were preferred for writing Latin documents. After 1400 such French spellings as affect the true sound are rare; this is why, after that the E. form prevails. But we must remember that many Englishmen do not fully pronounce the d in Aldgate even now, but slur it over; and in days of phonetic spelling such things were reproduced. I should say the evidence can only be explained, on the whole, from the supposition that the English word was Ald, preserved in composition instead of being turned into old (as it did when standing alone); and this will explain eald also, as eald is the Wessex form of Ald, adopted in 1598 as a mere bit of pedantry, but at the same time showing that the belief then prevailed. This is all I have to say about Aldgate.”

The gate was rebuilt by Norman, first Prior of Holy Trinity. The weigh-house for weighing corn was in the gateway.

After the Fire, Aldgate was used for the prisoners who had been confined in the Poultry Compter.

In 1374 the gate was let on lease to Geoffrey Chaucer. Here followeth the lease itself:

“To all persons to whom this present writing indented shall come, Adam de Bury, Mayor, the Aldermen, and the Commonalty of the City of London, greeting. Know ye that we, with unanimous will and assent, have granted and released by these presents unto Geoffrey Chaucer the whole of the dwelling-house above the gate of Algate, with the rooms built over, and a certain cellar beneath, the same gate, on the South side of that gate, and the appurtenances thereof; to have and to hold the whole of the house aforesaid, with the rooms so built over, and the said cellar, and the appurtenances thereof, unto the aforesaid Geoffrey, for the whole life of him, the said Geoffrey. And the said Geoffrey shall maintain and repair the whole of the house aforesaid, and the rooms thereof, so often as shall be requisite, in all things necessary thereto, competently and sufficiently, at the expense of the same Geoffrey, throughout the whole life of him, the same Geoffrey. And it shall be lawful for the Chamberlain of the Guildhall of London, for the time being, so often as he shall see fit, to enter the house and rooms aforesaid, with their appurtenances, to see that the same are well and competently, and sufficiently, maintained and repaired, as aforesaid. And if the said Geoffrey shall not have maintained or repaired the aforesaid house and rooms competently and sufficiently, as is before stated, within forty days after the time when by the same Chamberlain he shall have been required so to do, it shall be lawful for the said Chamberlain wholly to oust the before-named Geoffrey therefrom, and to re-seise and resume the same house, rooms, and cellar, with their appurtenances, into the hand of the City, to the use of the Commonalty aforesaid; and to hold the same in their former state to the use of the same Commonalty, without any gainsaying whatsoever thereof. And it shall not be lawful for the said Geoffrey to let the house, rooms, and cellar, aforesaid, or any part thereof, or his interest therein, to any person whatsoever. And we, the Mayor, Aldermen, and Commonalty aforesaid, will not cause any gaol to be made thereof, for the safekeeping of prisoners therein, during the life of the said Geoffrey; but we and our successors will warrant the same house, rooms, and cellar, with their appurtenances, unto the before-named Geoffrey, for the whole life of him, the same Geoffrey, in form aforesaid: this however excepted, that in time of defence of the city aforesaid, so often as it shall be necessary, it shall be lawful for us and our successors to enter the said house and rooms, and to order and dispose of the same, for such time, and in such manner, as shall then seem to us to be most expedient. And after the decease of the same Geoffrey, the house, rooms, and cellar aforesaid, with their appurtenances, shall wholly revert unto us and our successors. In witness whereof, as well the Common Seal of the City aforesaid as the seal of the said Geoffrey, have been to these present indentures interchangeably appended. Given in the Chamber of the Guildhall of the City aforesaid, the 10th day of May, in the 48th year of the reign of King Edward, after the Conquest the Third” (Riley’s Memorials, pp. 377-378).

“This,” says Stow, “is one and the first of the four principal gates, and also one of the seven double gates, mentioned by Fitzstephen. It hath had two pair of gates, though now but one; the hooks remaineth yet. Also there hath been two portcloses; the one of them remaineth, the other wanteth, but the place of letting down is manifest.”

“This gate being very ruinous, was pulled down Anno 1606; when, in digging for a new foundation, divers Roman coins were discovered, two of which Mr. Bond, the Surveyor, caused to be cut in stone, and placed in the east front on each side the passage. The first stone of this edifice was laid Anno 1607, at the depth of sixteen feet, and finished Anno 1609.

“Here was only one postern, and that on the north side, for foot-passengers; and a water-conduit at the south-east angle thereof; but the last being disused for many years, two houses were erected in lieu of it, in the year 1734, and a postern made on the south side of the gate. The apartments over this gate are appropriated to the use of one of the Lord Mayor’s Carvers, and at present are lett to the Charity School founded by Sir John Cash” (Maitland, vol. i. pp. 22-23).

The gate was taken down in 1761.

In 1291, Thomas de Alegate leaves to his wife Eleanor, his houses within Alegate (Calendar of Wills). The street is often mentioned afterwards.

The ward of Aldgate in the year 1276 was called the ward of John of Northampton, the then alderman. There was a hermitage on the south side of the gate within a garden; the garden was let, in 1325, to one Peter a “blader,” or corn merchant. It is not stated whether the hermitage was then occupied. There were houses beside the gate in 1354. The Prior of Holy Trinity, Aldgate, was alderman ex officio of Portsoken Ward; in 1378 we find him sworn to fill the office “and faithfully to do all things touching that office.”

In 1349, the Calendar of Wills speaks of tenements in “Algate Street.” Roman remains have been found in Aldgate; at the gate there was a “Roomland”; without the gate was a great pit for the burial of those who died of the plague. In 1315 Sir John de Sandale, leaving London on business of the King, put the Great Seal into the custody of Sir William de Ayremynn at his inn near Aldgate. In the same year he received at his inn Edward de Baliol, newly returned from beyond the sea.

At the east end of the street, under a house facing the pump, was still to be seen, until 1868, a crypt formerly supposed to have been that of an ancient church, dedicated to St. Michael and taken down when the Priory of the Holy Trinity was first founded.

This handsome Gothic structure, which is situated between the east end of Leadenhall and Fenchurch Streets, under the houses fronting the pump at Aldgate, is still remaining entire, exhibiting a most beautiful specimen of ancient architecture.

It is shown (L. & M. ArchÆological Journal, iv. p. 223 et seq.) that the crypt could not have been that of St. Michael’s Church. The paper referred to proved that the Church of St. Michael was not on that site at all. It quotes from the Liber Dunthorne the boundaries of the soke of the monastery of the Trinity, which are very nearly the same as those of Aldgate ward.

It concludes that it was more likely the crypt of a great house, perhaps the ward house.

Rowland Taylor, before being burned for heresy, was taken to the Woolpack, an inn without Aldgate, and kept there.

A curious story is told concerning the Duke of Buckingham in 1663. “When the Duke came from Newmarket he stayed at an Inn by Aldgate. Here a fellow told him his fortune, saying that he would die unfortunately, as his father did, or that a similar attempt would be made upon him by the 1st of April. On the Tuesday prior to the date of the letter, the usher of the duke’s hall went to bed about 9 at night and rose again about one in the morning and came up at the back and private way to the duke’s chamber where only he, his lady, and a maid were talking. The maid opened the door at his knock and the usher rushed in with a naked sword, at which the maid squeaking gave my lord an alarm and he turning back snatched up a knife and by his boldness daunted the fellow so that he got within him, became master of his sword, and by that time company came in. The duke sent after the fortune-teller but the writer did not know whether he had heard of him.”

Northward of Aldgate, Mitre Street leads to Mitre Square which is surrounded by large new buildings belonging to merchants. The ward school is reached through a rounded tunnel-like entry and proves a pleasant surprise. In itself it is only a square old brick house without an atom of style or ornament, but before it is a garden plot where lilac bushes grow, and over the blackened bricks of the house and adjoining wall climb big trees, hiding the dinginess. From here we get a view of the old red-tiled roofs of the houses in Duke Street. In the school there is free education, and 110 children are clothed at the expense of the charity.

At the back of the ward school stood, until 1874, St. James’s, Duke’s Place (see p. 165).

St. Botolph, Aldgate, stands at the junction of Aldgate Street and Houndsditch, and is said to have been originally founded about the reign of William the Conqueror. The old building remained standing till 1741, when it was pulled down and the present one erected under the direction of the elder Dance and completed in 1744. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1362. The patronage of the church was in the hands of: The Prior and the Canons of Holy Trinity, London; Henry VIII.; Robert Halywell, by grant of Elizabeth; George Puttenham, granted by Elizabeth in the 30th year of her reign; Francis Morrice, by James I., in the 7th year of his reign, since which time it has been held by several private persons, but is now in the hands of the Bishop of London. The benefice, which had been previously united with that of St. Katherine by the Tower, was in 1899 united with that of Holy Trinity Minories.

Houseling people in 1548 were 1530.

The present church is built of brick, with stone dressings. It includes two side-aisles separated from the central portion by Tuscan columns, supporting a flat ceiling. There are a great many windows, mostly filled with stained glass. The tower stands at the south, facing Aldgate High Street, and is surmounted by a small spire.

Chantries were founded here: For John Romeney, at the Altar of the Blessed Virgin Mary, to which Humphrey de Durham was admitted chaplain, June 3, 1365; by Thomas Weston, whose endowment fetched £5: 6: 8 in 1548; by Alex. Sprot and John Grace, whose endowments yielded £22: 15: 8 in 1548.

The most interesting monument in this church is a tomb inscribed to the memory of Thomas, Lord Darcy and Sir Nicholas Carew, both of whom were concerned in the Roman Catholic plots against Henry VIII. and beheaded on Tower Hill, the former in 1537 and the latter in 1538. The memory of Robert Dowe, the charitable Merchant Taylor, is preserved by a monument erected by his Company, originally affixed to a pillar in the chancel, but now removed to the east gallery.

A great number of benefactors are recorded by Stow, some of the most notable of whom were: Robert Cockes, donor of £100; George Clarke, donor of £200 for a public school, and other large sums for parish purposes. The sum total of all the yearly gifts belonging to this parish recorded, amounted to £151: 15: 8.

There were two charity schools, one in the Freedom having fifty boys and forty girls, erected by Sir John Cass, alderman; the other, in East Smithfield, having forty boys and thirty girls maintained by subscription.

James Ardene (1636-91), D.D., Dean of Chester, 1682, was perpetual curate here in 1666; also White Kennett (1660-1728), Bishop of Peterborough.

St. Botolph’s Churchyard is a wide gravelled space with seats provided by the Metropolitan Public Spaces Association. There is an altar-tomb near the centre, and a row of flat tombstones of the usual pattern set back against the wall of the church. There are a few plane-trees and a row of little limes. It is a pleasant breathing space, used by the poorest of humanity, who come here for a little rest and sleep.

High Street, Whitechapel, is of great width and contains some large new brick and stone buildings. The Three Nuns Hotel, an immense red-brick building erected in 1877, and recently added to, stands near the station. By Crown Place, No. 23, is an old bow-windowed chop-house. On the east the chief feature is the large number of shops or stalls open to the street, covered by an awning or by a glass roof. These belong chiefly to butchers, and have a characteristic aspect. The last five or six houses before Mansell Street are all of considerable age and very picturesque.

Returning now westward we find:

The church and parish of St. Mary Axe, which are mentioned in the Calendar of Wills in the thirteenth century. Stow says of it:

“In St. Marie street had ye of old time a parish church of St. Marie the Virgin, St. Ursula and the eleven thousand Virgins, which church was commonly called St. Marie at the Axe, of the sign of an axe, over against the east end thereof, or St. Marie Pellipar, of a plot of ground lying on the north side thereof, pertaining to the Skinners in London. This parish, about the year 1565, was united to the parish church of St. Andrew Undershaft, and so was St. Mary at the Axe suppressed and letten out to be a warehouse for a merchant.”

Cunningham corrects this statement. The church was called St. Mary Axe because it possessed an Axe, one of the three with which the 11,000 Virgins were beheaded.

The parish is now united with that of St. Andrew Undershaft.

The Church of St. Andrew Undershaft stands at the corner of St. Mary Axe, and on the north side is the churchyard, a little space where a few young trees grow. It derives its name from the May-day custom of setting up a pole higher than the steeple before the south door. This custom was discontinued after “Evil May Day” (see Tudor London, p. 24). The present building, occupying the site of the original one, of unknown date, was erected, according to Stow, in 1520, at the expense of a Sir Stephen Jennings, William Fitzwilliams, and others. The work of restoration has been carried on here during the last thirty years. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1361. The patronage has always been in the hands of the Bishop of London, in whose successors it continues; he presented to it in 1361.

The church is a late example of the Perpendicular style, consisting of a nave and two side aisles, and surmounted by a tower, rebuilt in 1830, which is about 91 feet in height, and contains six bells. The aisles are divided from the nave by clustered columns and obtusely pointed arches, and above this is the clerestory. The spandrels between the arches were embellished with scriptural paintings in 1726, but they are now much faded. In 1875 the series of full-length portraits of Edward VI., Elizabeth, James I., Charles I., and Charles II., were transferred from the east window to the west, and modern stained glass took their place. A chantry was founded here by Alan de Chepe in 1311.

The most interesting monument is that of the great antiquarian John Stow; it is made of terra-cotta and is placed near the eastern end of the north wall. There is another dedicated to Sir Hugh Hammersley, sheriff 1618, and Lord Mayor 1627, part of the sculpture of which is very fine. On the east wall of the north aisle is a brass to Nicholas Levin, sheriff in 1534, and a liberal contributor to the work of building the church; the brass is not large, but twenty well-defined figures have been introduced. Sir William Craven, Lord Mayor, 1640, a great benefactor to the parish, was interred here, but has no monument; also Peter Antony Motteux, who wrote comedies and masques, and died in 1718. Seven remarkable old books are preserved in the vestry, Foxe’s Acts and Monuments, Sir W. Raleigh’s History of the World, and others; a fragment of the chain which formerly fastened Foxe’s book to a desk is still retained.

This church and parish received many charitable gifts, some of the donors of which were: Robert Gayer, £50; Sir Thomas Rich, £400; the widow of Mr. Van Citters, £200, for the apprenticeship of two parish children, 1706; and Joseph Chamberlain, £121: 1s. in 1706. There was a charity school for fifty boys and thirty girls who were clothed, taught, and put out as apprentices by contribution. Among the most notable rectors were: John Russell (died 1494), Bishop of Rochester; John Pricket, Bishop of Gloucester; Robert Grove (1631-1696), Bishop of Chichester; and William Walsham How (1823-1897), Bishop of Bedford and of Wakefield.

Stow died in this parish and, it is believed, in St. Mary Axe itself, his windows overlooking the grounds and ruins of St. Helen’s nunnery.

Another parish church stood in St. Mary Axe, at the north end against the wall. It was called St. Augustine’s-in-the-Wall. In the year 1430 the church was allotted to the Fraternity of the Papey, the house for poor priests.

The house was suppressed in the reign of Edward VI., and was afterwards occupied by Sir Francis Walsingham (see MediÆval London, vol. ii. p. 377).

The modern St. Mary Axe is not interesting. The old house at the corner of Great St. Helen’s is the first to be noticed. Next to it is another old one, stuccoed. A few doors northward is the Grapes public-house. Then follow a succession of more or less new warehouses, with narrow frontage, chiefly in red brick, not unpicturesquely designed. A very new red brick building with much ornamental detail is St. Anne’s Chambers, Nos. 37 to 41. This is succeeded by the ward school, which is of red brick and bears its name across its frontage. It is the ward school of Cornhill and Lime Street, and was established 1710. The present building was erected in 1846. A little model of St. George and the Dragon gives a touch of vivacity to its appearance. Beyond this are large brick business houses and warehouses. Bishopsgate Avenue is occupied chiefly by stationers and printers.

Bevis Marks.—“Then next is one great House, large of Rooms, fair Courts and Garden Plots, sometime pertaining to the Bassets, since that, to the Abbots of Bury in Suffolk, and therefore called Buries Marks, corruptly Bevis Marks. And since the Dissolution of the Abbey of Bury, to Thomas Heneage the Father, and Sir Thomas Heneage the Son.

“This House and Ground is now encreased into many Tenements: And among the rest, the Jews of London have of late built themselves a large Synagogue here, wainscotted round. It stands East and West like one of our Churches. The great Door is on the West: Near to which West End is a long Desk upon an Ascent, somewhat raised from the rest of the Floor; where I suppose the Law is read. The East wall is in part railed in; and before the Wall is a Door, which is to open with a Key, where their Law seems to be laid up. Aloft on this Wall are the Ten Commandments, or some part of them, inscribed in Golden Hebrew Letters without Points. There be seven great Branched Candlesticks of Brass hanging down from the Top; and many other Places for Candles and Lamps. The Seats are Benches, with Backs to them that run along from West to East” (Strype, vol. i. bk. ii. p. 73).

The modern Bevis Marks is lined on the west by substantial red-brick buildings chiefly occupied by merchants.

Heneage Lane, leading out of Bevis Marks, a narrow and dark thoroughfare, contains the synagogue of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews. It is a plain structure externally, built in the year 1700. Standing in the midst of its courts and almshouses the place has somewhat the appearance of a Spanish convent. The interior is spacious and fitted with two galleries, one for women. The children attend service under one of the galleries.

The derivation of Houndsditch as given by Stow is as unsavoury as the reputation the street later earned. “Called Hounds-ditch for that in old time when the same lay open much filth (conveyed forth of the Citie) especially dead dogges was there laid or cast.” Beyond the mud wall that enclosed the ditch was a “fayre field” where were the almshouses of the Priory of Holy Trinity.

“In my youth, I remember,” continues Stow, “devout people as well men as women of the Citie, were accustomed oftentimes, especially on Frydayes weekely, to walke that way purposely, and there to bestow their charitable almes; every poor man or woman lying in their bed within their window, which was toward the street open so low, that every man might see them.”

At present looking down Houndsditch from Bishopsgate Within the street presents a not unpicturesque appearance. On the south, indeed, it is one continuous row of dull brick box-like houses, but on the north one or two old projecting houses break the line. No. 96 is an old stuccoed house which projects in a broad bay above the first floor. Besides these old houses several high plain warehouses break up the monotony of the street line. Houndsditch is the centre of the old-clothes trade. To the north lie huge warehouses and industrial dwellings.

Bishopsgate.—There were two northern gates to the Roman wall: one of them corresponding with Newgate and the other with Bishopsgate. But the Saxon and mediÆval Bishopsgate was not built on the site of the Roman gate, but a little to the west. The foundations of the Roman gate have been found in Camomile Street; they were built with carved stones taken from some Roman building, perhaps a villa, an illustration of my theory that the wall was built in great haste and that all the stone buildings of the City were used in its construction.

The massive masonry of the ancient “Newgate” has also been found close by the later gate in Giltspur Street.

The traffic along Bishopsgate Street, which led into the Roman Fort, and to the Bridge from the north and eastern parts of the island, caused a settlement and a street to be established here long before the wall was built. For the same reason, when the City began to fill up after its long period of desolation, the line was one of the first to be settled again, while on either side there were vacant spaces, orchards, fields, and gardens. Houses and shops sprang up both within and without the wall; the latter only when the Norman power had removed the fear of another siege. It is impossible to say with any certainty when the street was actually recognised as such. Thus, to quote such facts as are accessible in Riley’s Memorials, in the Calendar of Wills, etc., we find that in 1259, 1272, 1285, and 1288 there are mentioned “houses near, or within, Bishopsgate,” and in 1309 and 1311 there are “houses without” Bishopsgate. In 1329 we find a brew-house in Bishopsgate Street. Again, in 1314 the shops of one Roger Poyntel are in danger by reason of an overhanging elm-tree, thanks to which we learn that there were at that time residents close by the gate; in 1305 a tourelle in the wall near the gate is given to William Coeur de Lyon, chaplain, on condition that he keeps it in repair; in 1314 another tourelle near the gate is given to John de Elyngham, chaplain in charity, on the same condition; in 1318 the upper chamber of the gate, together with a tourelle on the east, and a garden against the wall, is granted to John de Long, an Easterling, or member of the Hanseatic League, on the same condition. In 1324 he renounced his lease and, apparently, went home. (Here we have an instance of a Hanseatic merchant living outside the Domus, or Aula Teutonicorum, where they were all supposed to live. But no absolute rule about anything can be laid down in these centuries.) The Almaines or Easterlings who were responsible for the repair and maintenance of the gate, were exempt from toll. On the other hand (another illustration of the conflicting “rights” of the time), the Bishop of London claimed one stock out of every cart-load of wood that passed through the gate. Let the Bishop, then, keep the hinges in repair!

The gate was built, it is said, by Bishop Erkenwald in 685. One supposes, since he did not rebuild on the Roman foundations, that a way had been made through the wall on the west side, and that traffic had, for convenience, chosen that way. The gate was considered, in some sense, to be under the special care of the Bishop. But the burden of its maintenance was laid upon the Hanseatic merchants. The case was tried and decided in 1282, when the merchants were ordered to keep the gate, and to find men and money if necessary in its defence for one-third of the cost. On the antiquities of the gate, hear also Stow:

“The eldest note that I read of this Bishopsgate, is that William Blund, one of the sheriffs of London, in the year 1210, sold to Serle Mercer, and William Almaine, procurators or wardens of London Bridge, all his land, with the garden, in the parish of St. Buttolph without Bishopsgate.

“Next I read in a charter, dated the year 1235, that Walter Brune, citizen of London, and Rosia his wife, having founded the priory or new hospital of our blessed Lady, since called St. Mary Spittle without Bishopsgate, confirmed the same to the honour of God and our blessed Lady, for canons regular.

“Also in the year 1247, Simon Fitzmary, one of the sheriffs of London, the 29th of Henry III., founded the hospital of St. Mary, called Bethlem without Bishopsgate.

“This gate was again beautifully built in the year 1479, in the reign of Edward IV., by the Haunce merchants.

“Moreover, about the year 1551, these Haunce merchants, having prepared stone for that purpose, caused a new gate to be framed, there to have been set up, but then their liberties, through suit of our English merchants, were seized into the king’s hand; and so that work was stayed, and the old gate yet remaineth.”

In 1731 the old gate was taken down and another erected. This, with the other City gates, was removed in 1760.

If we walk down Bishopsgate Street Within, we cannot do better than take Stow with us, remembering that he is writing in the year 1598:

“And first to begin on the left hand of Bishopsgate street, from the gate you have certain tenements of old time pertaining to a brotherhood of St. Nicholas, granted to the parish clerks of London, for two chaplains, to be kept in the chapel of St. Mary Magdalen, near unto the Guildhall of London, in the 27th of Henry VI. The first of these houses towards the north, and against the wall of the city, was sometime a large inn or court called the Wrestlers, of such a sign, and the last in the high street towards the south was sometime also a fair inn called the Angel, of such a sign. Among these said tenements was on the same street side a fair entry, or court, to the common hall of the said parish clerks, with proper almshouses, seven in number, adjoining, for poor parish clerks, and their wives and their widows, such as were in great years not able to labour. This brotherhood, amongst other, being suppressed, in the reign of Edward VI. the said hall, with the other buildings there, was given to Sir Robert Chester, a knight of Cambridgeshire; against whom the parish clerks commencing suit, in the reign of Queen Mary, and being like to have prevailed, the said Sir Robert Chester pulled down the hall, sold the timber, stone, and lead, and thereupon the suit was ended. The almshouses remain in the queen’s hands, and people are there placed, such as can make best friends; some of them, taking the pension appointed, have let forth their houses for great rent, giving occasion to the parson of the parish to challenge tithes of the poor, etc.”

After mentioning St. Ethelburga, St. Helen’s, and St. Andrew Undershaft, he goes on:

“Then have you one great house called Crosby place, because the same was built by Sir John Crosby, grocer and woolman, in place of certain tenements, with their appurtenances, letten to him by Alice Ashfeld, prioress of St. Helen’s, and the convent, for ninety-nine years, from the year 1466 unto the year 1565, for the annual rent of £11: 6: 8.

“Richard, Duke of Gloucester, and lord protector, afterwards king, by the name of Richard III., was lodged in this house; since the which time, among other, Anthonie Bonvice, a rich merchant of Italy, dwelt there; after him, Garmain Cioll, then William Bond, alderman, increased this house in height, with building of a turret on the top thereof: he deceased in the year 1576, and was buried in St. Helen’s church. Divers ambassadors have been lodged there; namely, in the year 1586, Henry Ramelius, chancellor of Denmark, ambassador unto the queen’s majesty of England from Frederick II., the king of Denmark; an ambassador of France, etc. Sir John Spencer, Alderman, lately purchased this house, made great reparations, kept his mayoralty there, and since built a most large warehouse near thereunto.

“From this Crosbie place up to Leaden Hall corner, and so down Grass Street, amongst other tenements, are divers fair and large built houses for merchants and such like.

“Now for the other side of this ward, namely, the right hand, hard by within the gate, is one fair water conduit, which Thomas Knesworth, mayor, in the year 1505, founded: he gave £60, the rest was furnished at the common charges of the city. This conduit hath since been taken down and new built. David Woodroffe, alderman, gave £20 towards the conveyance of more water thereunto. From this conduit have you, amongst many fair tenements, divers fair inns, large for receipt of travellers, and some houses for men of worship; namely, one most spacious of all other thereabout, built of brick and timber by Sir Thomas Gresham, knight, who deceased in the year 1579, and was buried in St. Helen’s church, under a fair monument, by him prepared in his life: he appointed by his testament this house to be made a college of readers, as before is said in the chapter of schools and houses of learning.

“Somewhat west from this house is one other very fair house, wherein Sir William Hollis kept his mayoralty, and was buried in the parish church of St. Helen. Sir Andrew Jud also kept his mayoralty there, and was buried at St. Helen’s: he built almshouses for six poor alms people near to the said parish church, and gave lands to the Skinners, out of the which they are to give 4s. every week to the six poor alms people, 8d. the piece, and 25s. 4d. the year, in coals amongst them for ever” (Stow’s Survey, p. 181).

Shakespeare, who lived for a time in St. Helen’s, and therefore knew Crosby Hall well, has introduced it in Richard III. Sir Thomas More lived here for a time, the guest of Bonvici, to whom from the Tower he wrote, and in whose gown, of silk camlet, he went to his execution. In 1547 Bonvici let the house on lease to William Roper, More’s son-in-law, and to his nephew William Rastell, a printer. Under Edward VI., Bonvici, Rastell, and Roper went abroad, but came home under Mary. Meantime Edward VI. had conferred the house upon Sir Thomas D’Arcy, afterwards Lord D’Arcy, who seems to have sold it to William Bond, alderman and sheriff. Sir John Spencer next became the owner of the house. He received the Duc de Sully, Grand Treasurer of France, with all his retinue.

The way in which the inheritance of this great merchant came to the Comptons is told by Hare:

“Sir John Spencer, having but a poor opinion of the Compton family in that day, positively forbade the first Earl of Northampton to pay his addresses to his daughter, who was the greatest heiress in England. One day, at the foot of the staircase, Sir John met the baker’s boy with his covered barrow, and, being pleased at his having come punctually when he was ordered, he gave him sixpence; but the baker’s boy was Lord Northampton in disguise, and in the covered barrow he was carrying off the beautiful Elizabeth Spencer. When he found how he had been duped, Sir John swore that Lord Northampton had seen the only sixpence of his money he should ever receive, and refused to be reconciled to his daughter. But the next year Queen Elizabeth, having expressed to Sir John Spencer the sympathy which she felt with his sentiments upon the ingratitude of his child, invited him to come and be “gossip” with her to a newly-born baby in which she was much interested, and he could not refuse; and it is easy to imagine whose that baby was. So the Spencer property came to the Comptons after all” (Hare, vol. i. pp. 284-85).

In 1642 the Earl of Northampton was killed at Hopton Heath, beside the King. Here lived the Countess of Pembroke, Sidney’s sister, immortalised by Ben Jonson’s epitaph. In 1640 Sir John Langham, sheriff in 1642, leased the house; it is said to have been used as a prison for Royalists. His son, Sir Stephen Langham, succeeded, and in his time a great part of the house was destroyed by fire. In 1672, its great hall became a Presbyterian meeting-house; it was then turned into a packers’ warehouse. In 1831 it was converted into an institute for lectures and is now a restaurant.^[3]

The streets and courts leading out of Bishopsgate Street Within are neither important nor numerous. On the west side going south from the gate were inns called the Vine, the Four Swans, the Green Dragon, the Black Bull, and the Cross Keys (in Gracechurch Street).

Beginning at the south end of the modern Bishopsgate we see on the west the Bank of Scotland, the National Bank of Australasia, and the Delhi and London Bank, housed under one roof in a large stone building with the lower windows enclosed in exceptionally high and bold arches. Baring Bros. Bank is opposite. It is a plain, well-proportioned brick building, symmetrical and without tawdry ornament; it was designed by R. Norman Shaw. It is flanked on either side by a public-house, The Black Lion and the City of London Tavern. Just opposite the entrance of Threadneedle Street the Wesleyan Centenary Hall attracts attention by its size and solidity. Four immense fluted columns run up the facade to a frieze and triangular pediment. It was erected in 1839. Close by is the Bank of Scotland. It looks out on the really fine National Provincial Bank of England at the north corner of Threadneedle Street. This has fluted stone columns running up to the frieze along the whole frontage. They enclose very tall, round-headed windows, and above the windows are deep panels of great size executed in basso-relievo. It was erected in 1833 and the architect was J. Gibson. Along the parapet of the roof at intervals are placed statues which break the hard line.

Immediately opposite the entry, on the east side of the square we see a dreary block of brick houses; these are Crosby Buildings, and are fully occupied by representatives of trade and commerce. On the south side there is an old stuccoed house with a square pillared porch. The next house is of red brick with decorative brick panels let in on the face. This is an old house which has been recased. Its fine stuccoed doorway is still preserved. On the west a large red brick building bearing date 1876 fills up the space, and on the north is an old brick house with a plain projecting pediment over the door, and brackets similar to those on the south side. No. 7 in the north-east corner is a new stone house of plain but rather original design. A couple of little plane-trees grow up at either end of the quiet square.

A covered entry leads from Crosby Square to Great St. Helen’s. The first part of this tortuous thoroughfare is lined by the side of Crosby Buildings, modern brick, on the one side, and the end of the stuccoed synagogue, which stands back from the frontage of the street, on the other. About this part, and the narrow lane which succeeds it running north and south, there is little to say; the substantial business spirit pervades even the bricks and mortar. But in the open space beyond, facing the church, are some features of interest. Nos. 8, 9, and 10 have all been rebuilt in the large-windowed flat modern style. No. 7 is a fine old red brick house. No. 2 is a delightful one and has an ornamental doorway with fluted columns and pilasters supporting the lintel, beneath which on either side are cherubs’ heads. Across the wide space before the quaint and interesting church are other red brick houses, some old and some of more modern date. Close by the entry the builder is at work on the site of some charming old gabled houses demolished within the last five years.

There is a well-known tradition that a church was built here in the fourth century by the Emperor Constantine, and there is a record preserved which proves that the church was in existence before the year 1010. A church standing on this site was given by one Ranulph, and Robert his son, to the Dean and Canons of St. Paul’s at a date unknown. About 1212, permission was obtained to found the Priory of St. Helen for nuns of the Benedictine Order and with this the real history of the church begins. It is always stated that the north aisle of the church was used by the nuns, while the south was occupied by the parishioners, but the first rector mentioned dates from 1541, that is to say, after the suppression of the Religious Houses. On the dissolution of the priory in 1538 the church was given in its entirety to parochial uses. It was largely repaired in 1631 (under the direction of Inigo Jones), in 1841, 1865, and again in 1891-93. In 1873 the Parish of St. Martin Outwich was united with this, its church having been pulled down.

Houseling people in 1548 were 220.

The church consists of two parallel naves, each of 122 feet in length and about 25 feet in width, and a south transept, out of which two eastern chapels open. In the north wall is an arched doorway which led from the choir into the priory, also a hagioscope through which the nuns were able to discern the high altar from the cloisters. All this part and some of the south transept dates from the thirteenth century; the side chapels were added about the middle of the fourteenth and the rest dates from the fifteenth century.

A chantry was founded in honour of the Holy Ghost for the soul of Adam Fraunceys, to which Joan, Prioress of the Convent of St. Helen, presented Robert Gryngeley, May 18, 1399, and for Agnes his wife (Hennessey’s Chantries, p. 39).

The church contains a remarkable number of interesting monuments. The following are commemorated: Alderman John Robinson, Merchant Taylor and merchant of the Staple of England; died 1599. Francis Bancroft, who bequeathed over £28,000 to the Drapers Company for the erection of almshouses and a school for boys; he died 1727. Martin Bond, M.P. in 1624 and 1625 for the City of London. Alberticus Gentilis, Merchant Adventurer and a prolific legal author who was an exile from Italy on account of his Protestant opinions; he became Regius Professor of Civil Law at Oxford and died in 1608. Sir Thomas Gresham, founder of the Royal Exchange and Gresham College, who died in 1579. Sir Andrew Judde, Lord Mayor in 1550, and a great benefactor of the parish. Sir Julius CÆsar, judge, Master of the Rolls under James I.; his monument was executed by Nicholas Stone, Master Mason to King Charles I. Sir William Pickering, Knt., soldier and scholar, whose monument is the most magnificent in the church; he distinguished himself greatly under Henry VIII., Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth; he died in 1574. Sir John Crosby, already mentioned in connection with Crosby Hall. Sir John Spencer, Lord Mayor in 1594, commonly known as “Rich Spencer” on account of his vast wealth. The Rev. J. E. Cox, D.D., who was Vicar-in-charge of the united parishes, wrote The Annals of St. Helen’s, Bishopsgate, London; he was for nine years in succession Grand Chaplain of England. On the floors of the two chapels there are several brasses very well executed.

A considerable number of benefactors are recorded by Stow, but the amounts of their gifts were small individually. Sir John Crosby, at his death in 1475, bequeathed 500 marks for the repair of the church. In more recent times Francis Bancroft bequeathed over £28,000; this has been devoted to founding a school at Woodford, Essex, for boys—100 boarders and 200 day-boys. Sir Andrew Judde left the Skinners Company trustees for the accomplishment of charitable aims.

There were five almshouses near the church for as many decayed Skinners and their wives. Six almshouses also were founded by Sir Andrew Judde; in Little St. Helen Street there were seven houses for the same number of widows, each of whom had £5: 4s. per annum.

Thomas Horton (d. 1673), Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge, 1649, was rector here.

For an account of the ancient nunnery of St. Helen, see MediÆval London, vol. ii. p. 313.

St. Helen’s Place is a quiet corner with monotonous rows of Early Victorian or Georgian brick houses finished off with yellow paint. No. 1, near the entrance, and No. 2 have slight pillared porches over their doorways. In the northeast corner the small but richly-decorated front of the Leathersellers’ Hall attracts attention. The place is shut off from the street by spiked iron gates.

Dealers in leather are supposed to have existed as a society or corporation in Britain from the time of the Romans.

The “leathersellers,” as a company, are first mentioned about A.D. 1372, in Edward III.’s reign, when their “probi homines,” or “bons gentz,” their wardens or seniors, came before the Court of Aldermen, together with those of the craft of Pursers, afterwards amalgamated with the Leathersellers Company, and jointly presented a bill or “supplication” desiring some stringent regulations to be made for the prevention of the sale of other than genuine leather, and to prevent fraudulent colouring of leather.

The leathersellers were known as a corporation in London, and were governed by ordinances, 1377-99.

The first charter of incorporation was granted to the Company by 22 Henry VI., 1444. It is still in their possession, and, “after reciting the petition of Thomas Bigge and fourteen others, men of the mistery of leathersellers of the city of London, sets forth an ordinance made by Richard Whittington, mayor, and the aldermen of the city, 21 Richard II., A.D. 1398, that two or four of the better or more approved men of the mistery should yearly be chosen and sworn to guard and oversee defaults in the same mistery, and to present, from time to time, to the mayor and chamber of the said city aforesaid for the time being; and that none of the mistery aforesaid, to wit, master or servant, should be rebellious or contrarious to such men so chosen and sworn, duly exercising search in the said mistery, nor points, or laces, unless they were well and sufficiently made, nor straps of the leather of sheep or calf, nor thereof any other work, should falsely or deceitfully be wrought to the deception of the people under pain of the heavy punishment upon such cases ordained, and the payment of 6s. 8d.; to wit, to the use of the Chamber of the city aforesaid 40d., and to the use of the said mistery 40d.”

There are now 151 members of the livery. They have a Corporate Income of £17,000 and a Trust Income of £3000. With the Leathersellers were incorporated the White Tawyers, or makers of white leather; the Pouchmakers, the Pursers, the Mailmakers, the Galoche-makers, the Tiltmongers, the Leather-dressers, the Parchment-makers and the Leather-dyers.

The earliest quarters of the trades connected with Leather were in the north under London Wall. Here they had their first hall. After the dissolution of the Religious Houses the Company obtained the site of the nunnery known as St. Helen’s. Part of the house was converted into the Company’s Hall, the old Refectory becoming the Company’s place of meeting and banqueting. This ancient structure was destroyed in 1797, the present one was built in 1878.

The low small Church of St. Ethelburga peers over some old houses, which seem to have stuck to it as barnacles to a decayed ship.

This church is dedicated to Ethelburga, who was sister of Erconwald, fourth Bishop of London, and first Abbess of Barking. In all probability the parish was formed and the church was built in the century which succeeded the Conquest. It escaped the Great Fire, and has subsequently had a great deal of attempted restoration. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1304.

The patronage of the church was in the hands of: the Prioress and Convent of St. Helen’s, London, 1366; then Henry VIII. seized it and it was granted in 1569 to the Bishop of London, and continues with his successors.

Houseling people in 1548 were 140.

The present church, originally Early English, appears to have been altered at the close of the fourteenth century or early fifteenth. It is very small, measuring less than 60 feet by 30, and under 31 feet in height, and is almost crowded out by houses. Entrance is obtained through an archway between two shops, the upper stories of which conceal everything but the top of the west window and turret. It contains a south aisle separated from the rest by four pointed arches, with a clerestory above. The roof is divided into compartments and slopes slightly at the sides. The arch at the entrance of the nave is fine and there are remnants of wood-carving, probably of the sixteenth century, on the porch.

A chantry was founded here at the Altar of the Blessed Virgin Mary by Gilbert Marion, and Christina his wife, to which Thomas More was admitted chaplain, December 15, 1436.

There are tablets affixed to the wall commemorating parishioners, but little interest attaches to the individuals. The only two connected with this church of any eminence are John Larke, a friend of Sir Thomas More, who was executed in 1554 for denying the King’s supremacy; and Luke Milbourne (1649-1720), Dryden’s hostile critic, rector here in 1704. William Bray (d. 1644), chaplain to Archbishop Laud, was also sometime rector.

In Clark’s Place is a building containing the Marine Society, with the statues of a woman and boy in a niche. In Bishopsgate Street, No. 68, is an old stuccoed house with projecting upper stories. No. 67 is also old though not so noticeable.

Part of Ethelburga House and the numbers on the north, as far as 23 inclusive, are in this ward. The corner house has a stone mitre of large size on its corner and an inscription, rather quaintly worded, announcing that the gate stood formerly “adjoining to this spot.” Looking back down Bishopsgate from here we get a fine perspective view. The modern buildings are of all heights, but distance blends them not inharmoniously, leaving enough variety to be pleasing.

The Mail Coach public-house is at the corner, and on the opposite house is a small mitre in memory of the Bishopsgate.

Just outside the City Wall is

This church escaped the Great Fire of 1666, but was rebuilt in 1725-29 by James Gold. In 1615 the City gave the parishioners additional ground on the west for burial purposes. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1323.

The patronage of the church has always been in the hands of the bishops of London since 1323.

Houseling people in 1548 were 650.

The building includes two aisles, separated from the main body by composite columns. There are galleries on the north, south, and west. The steeple rises at the east end, and the chancel, therefore, is formed beneath the tower. It is built of stone and consists of three stories, the third of which is completed by a small composite temple surrounded by a balustrade and surmounted by an urn. The remainder of the exterior is of red brick with stone dressings.

Sir Paul Pindar, a great benefactor to the church, who acted as James I.’s Turkish Ambassador in 1611, was buried in this church, and a monument was erected to his memory. Close to this, also in the chancel, is a brass plate in memory of Sir William Blizard, President of the Royal College of Surgeons, who died in 1835. John Keats was baptized here in 1795, and Edward Alleyn, founder of Dulwich College, in 1566. Here also Archibald Campbell, 7th Earl of Argyll and father of the celebrated first marquis, was married in 1609.

There were a considerable number of small charitable gifts belonging to this parish. Of the larger, Ralph Pindar was a donor of £60; Nicholas Reive, of £406: 5s. in 1626; William, Earl of Devonshire, of £100.

There was one charity school for twenty-five boys and twenty-five girls, who were taught and made apprentices by subscription and legacies. Also almshouses in Lamb’s Court for the poor of the parish, maintained by Dulwich College, and three almshouses by the pesthouse for three poor widows, the gift of Lady Lumley.

Some of the notable rectors were: Alfred Earle, Bishop of Marlborough, in 1888; Charles James Blomfield (1786-1857), Bishop of Chester; John Lake (1624-89), Bishop of Chichester.

On the site of Spital Square, Bishopsgate Street Without, stood the ancient house called St. Mary Spital, for an account of which see MediÆval London, vol. ii. p. 322.

Bishopsgate Street Without is a curious mixture of old houses, some with grotesque features, and modern buildings presenting only a strip of much-ornamented stone or brick frontage. After the Great Eastern Hotel on the west, the frontage of the station presents a very long row of uniform buildings in new red brick with stone dressings and ornamental gable ends. The famous old house named Paul Pindar’s was pulled down to make way for these.

Paul Pindar (b. 1565) was the son of Ralph Pindar, alderman’s deputy for the ward of Bishopsgate. At sixteen he was apprenticed to one Parvish, an Italian merchant who sent him to Venice as his factor, and he stayed there many years. In 1615 he was sent to Turkey as Ambassador by request of the Turkey Company, and he remained there for nine years. He returned in 1623, and was knighted. The King offered him also the Lieutenancy of the Tower, which he declined. Charles thereupon made him Farmer of Customs.

In 1639 he possessed £236,000, out of which he gave large sums to the King. He died August 22, 1650. The row of houses that now stand on the site of his house have fairly good shops on the ground-floors, and there are one or two archway entrances into the station premises near the north end. The Black Raven public-house is one of these. Acorn Street, Skinner Street, and Primrose Street need very little comment. They are chiefly composed of the sides of houses fronting Bishopsgate, and some ordinary modern brick buildings.

Nos. 131-2-3 are old plaster houses, and No. 120, beyond Acorn Street, has a projecting bay window carried up two stories. This is also an old house. These are all on the west side. On the east, beginning again from the south end, the first building to attract attention is the Metropolitan Fire Brigade Station, erected 1885. It is an improvement on the monstrosities continually perpetrated in the name of the Fire Brigade. The Bishopsgate Institute is near Brushfield Street. It fronts Bishopsgate with an elaborate yellow terra-cotta faÇade, and has an open entry. The entrance to the Bishopsgate Chapel is under an old stuccoed house, and the chapel itself is a large stuccoed building. Beyond this, after a Great Northern Receiving Office, are some very old houses, plastered with rough stucco in imitation of stone. These are Nos. 82 to 84. One of them has wooden rusticated work from above the first story to the top of the gable end. The date 1590 is stated to have been visible on one of them within the memory of man. On the corner house of Spital Street is a tablet noting the point of the City Bounds. This was placed here in 1846.