Chapter XV: Part I: p. 3) in 1259; “St. Michael de Paternoster-cherch” in 1284; (2)

The patronage of the church was in the hands of: The Bishops of
Winchester in 1242; master and chaplains of Corpus Christi College,
Candlewick Street.

Houseling people in 1548 were 200.

The steeple and choir of this church stood on an arched gate, which
was the entry to a great house called Cold Harbour. Dormers were
made on the south side of the church in 1613 to lighten it, and
several galleries subsequently added.

A chantry was founded here by James Andrew, the endowment of which
fetched £8 : 9 : 4 in 1548.

The donors of charities to this church were: Elizabeth Bannister,
£5; Anne Hope, £5; Roger Daniel, £8; and Samuel Goldsmith, £6, paid
by the Company of Dyers.

Two charity schools were erected in 1715 consisting of thirty boys
and twenty-eight girls supported by voluntary contributions from the
inhabitants of the ward.

=Cannon Street= was formerly Candlewick Street. It was part of the ancient Roman highway that ran through the City and was once called Watling Street throughout its whole length. Many deeds are extant relating to Candlewick Street.

Roman remains have been found in Cannon Street including tessellated pavements and a bronze statuette of Hercules.

In 1369 mention is made of the “Yeldehalle” in Candlewick Street, probably the “Hula Dacorum,” Hall of the Danes mentioned in the _Liber Albus_, where we learn that it was occupied by the Cologne merchants and perhaps by those of Dinant also. The building was probably the “Great stone Binn” called “Olde Hall” mentioned by Stow.

One of the Caxton family, of whom there were so many in the City, named William de Caxton, lived here in 1342, and left to the Rector of St. Swithin his mansion in this street for the maintenance of a chantry.

The _Calendar of Wills_ proves that we are in the most populous and ancient part of London. Between 1259 and 1350 there are more than fifty references to Candlewyke Street. The place is famous for its weavers, and especially for the coarse cloth they made here called “burel.” There was a fraternity of the “Burellers” working here. In 1334 one hundred foot-soldiers were provided with “gowns” of cloth made in Candlewyke Street. There was also a petition drawn up by the “good-folk” of this street and Clement’s Lane against the melting of lead in their midst.

From Eastcheap to Walbrook, the title was for many centuries Candlewick, Candlewright, or Canewyke Street. “Candelwykestrete” is mentioned in the City Records as early as 1308; “Canewykestrete” appears 1376-99, and again as “Cainwicke St.” in the map of Ralph Agas c. 1560. Stow gives three possible derivations: (1) From Candlewright, a maker of candles; (2) from the yarn or cotton candle-wick; (3) from candle-wike, a “wike” being a place where things are made. The proximity of Tallow Chandlers’ Hall in Dowgate Hill points to this as the candlemakers’ quarter of the City, and favours the first and third theories rather than the second. In Ryther’s map of London, 1604, it is styled “Conning Streete,” (probably a misprint for Canning Street), and Newcourt in his 1658 map of London calls it “Cannon Street,” so that the change from Candlewick to Canwyke, Conning, and Cannon appears to have taken place within a comparatively short space of time.

The weavers of woollen cloths, brought from Flanders by Edward III., probably dwelt here: “cloth of Candelwykestrete” is mentioned in City records in 1334; and Stow says that these weavers obtained permission in 1371 to meet in the churchyard of St. Lawrence Pountney close by. They appear not to have remained long in the neighbourhood, but their advent led to a settlement of many drapers in this part of the City and ultimately to the founding of the Drapers’ Hall in St. Swithin’s Lane. In Stow’s time the street was “possessed by rich drapers, sellers of woollen cloth, etc.” After the Great Fire the street, Strype says, was “well built and inhabited by good tradesmen.”

There are two churches in the street, which is now extended to the south-east corner of St. Paul’s, sweeping away Distaff Lane, Basing Lane, Little St. Thomas Apostle, and a bit of Budge Row. London Stone is in this street. Beside London Stone Henry Fitz Ailwyn or Alwyne, first mayor of London, had his residence. Here lived the Earl of Oxford, who, about the year 1540, according to Stow, rode to his house with eighty gentlemen in “livery of Reading tawny,” and chains of gold about their necks and “one hundred tall yeomen in the like livery to follow him without chains, but all having his cognizance of the blue boar introduced on their left shoulders.” This retinue was discountenanced by the Tudors and fell into disuse. Perhaps this earl was the last to maintain so great a following.

London Stone was probably the pillar set up in the Roman fort to mark the _milliarium_, the beginning of mile.

Some have supposed this stone to be the remains of a British druidical circle or religious monument. Strype quotes Owen of Shrewsbury as giving rise to this view by his assertion that “the Druids had pillars of stone in veneration, which custom they borrowed from the Greeks, who, as Pausanius writeth, adored rude and unpolished stones.” Malcolm suggests that, if it is of British origin, “policy may have induced the Romans to preserve it, as a relic highly valued by the Londoners, or as the monument of some great event.” The general opinion, since Camden’s time, seems to be that the stone is of Roman origin, but its first purpose still remains uncertain. Stow notes that some considered it to have been set “as a mark in the middle of the City within the wall; but, in truth, it standeth far nearer to the river of Thames than to the wall of the City.” He says, also, that others thought it was set for the payment of debts, on appointed days, “till, of later times, payments were most usually made at the font in Pont’s Church (St. Paul’s), and now most commonly at the Royal Exchange.”

Sir Christopher Wren was of opinion that “by reason of its large foundation, it was rather some more considerable monument in the Forum; for, in the adjoining ground to the south, upon digging for cellars after the Great Fire, were discovered some tessellated pavements, and other extensive remains of Roman workmanship and buildings.” Originally, no doubt, the erection was of considerable proportions, and a suggestion is made in the _Parentalia_ that this milliarium was not in the form of a pillar as at Rome, but probably resembled that at Constantinople, which must have been a large building “for under its roof, according to Cedrenus, and Seidas, stood statues of Constantine and Helena, Trajan, an equestrian statue of Hadrian, a statue of Fortune, and many other figures and decorations.”

CANNON STREET, LOOKING WEST
]

Strype considers it likely that this stone was, in after days, the place from which proclamations and public notices were made. This is confirmed in _Pasquill and Marforius_ (1589): “Set up this bill at London Stone. Let it be done solemnly with drom and trumpet.” Malcolm considers that it was certainly regarded for some ages as “a rallying point for the citizens in times of insurrection, as Guildhall would now be.” At any rate, when in 1540 Jack Cade, “the Kentish rebel, who feigned himself to be Lord Mortimer,” forced his way into the City from Southwark, he marched to London Stone, where he found a great concourse of citizens, the Lord Mayor being among them. Here, according to Holinshed’s account, he struck his sword upon the stone, exclaiming, “Now is Mortimer Lord of this City,” as if, Pennant remarks, “that had been a customary ceremony of taking possession.” This scene occurs in the second part of _Henry IV._, Act iv. Sc. 6, where Shakespeare makes Cade enter Cannon Street with his followers, and strike the stone with his _staff_ instead of his _sword_. To quote Fabian, “Rome, Carthage, and Jerusalem have been caste downe” with many other “cytyes,” yet

Thys, so oldely founded,
Is so surely grounded,
That no man may confounde yt,
It is so sure a stone
That yt is upon sette,
For though some have it thrette
With Manasses grym and great,
Yt hurt hath it none:
Chryste is the very stone
That the Citie is set upon:
Which from all his foon
Hath ever preserved it.
By means of dyvyne servyce
That incontinuall wyse
Is kept in devout guyse
Within the mure of it.

However great the stone may have been in the beginning, the ravages and fires of London could have left but little of the original remaining in the sixteenth century.

After the Fire its foundations were disclosed by Wren: no doubt a certain part of its upper end had been destroyed in the flames and possibly damaged in clearing away debris, but at all events a small portion of it, in shape somewhat like a cannon ball, was saved, says Strype, and placed within “a new stone handsomely wrought, cut hollow underneath, so as the old stone may be seen, the new stone being over it to shelter and deface the venerable one.” Strype’s map shows that the stone, in its new case, was at first re-erected on the old site on the south side of the street. On December 13, 1742, it was complained of as an obstruction, and was removed by order of the churchwardens of St. Swithin, at a cost of 12s., to the opposite of the “kerbstone” on the north side of the street. By kerbstone is here meant the stone protecting the foot of the buildings and not (as now) a stone protecting a pavement. At the beginning of 1798 the church was about to undergo a complete repair, and the historic stone was actually doomed to be removed as a nuisance. Fortunately Mr. Thomas Maiden, a printer of Sherborne Lane, championed the cause, and prevailed on one of the parish officers to preserve it and to have it replaced against the church wall. The enclosing stone, “somewhat like a Roman altar,” had formerly a curved bar of iron projecting across the elliptical aperture through which the relic is seen; but the present grill was placed over the front of the case in 1869, when the present inscription, in English and Latin, was cut in the wall of the church over the stone at the instance of a Committee consisting of members of the London and Middlesex Archæological Society, and the parish officers. At the same time a careful examination of the stone itself was made. It was found to measure about a foot cube, and that instead of being basaltic, capable of giving off sparks when struck by steel, it was in reality an oolite, such as the Romans used extensively in their buildings, and sometimes for coffins and sepulchral monuments, thus corroborating the idea of its Roman origin.

In Cannon Street is the Cordwainers’ Hall.

THE CORDWAINERS COMPANY

The Allutarii or Cordwainers appear to have been voluntarily
associated together as a craft or mystery from very remote times,
probably as early as the Conquest, in close connection with the
municipality of London. Its object was to encourage and regulate the
trades connected with the leather industry, and included the
flaying, tanning, and currying of hides, and also the manufacture
and sale of shoes, boots, goloshes, and other articles of leather.
In the thirteenth and following centuries several branches separated
and formed distinct communities, such as the girdlers, tanners,
curriers, and leather sellers.

The first existing Ordinance of the Cordwainers (Allutarii) is found
in _Liber Horn_, folio 339, and was made in the 56th year of King
Henry III., Anno Domini 1272.

The Company was originally called the “Allutarii,” and became first
connected with the “Coblers” in the 14th century. Maitland explains
that the Cobler was not only the maker but the vendor of boots and
shoes. As people in cold countries always wanted shoes, the Guild or
Fraternity of shoemakers was certainly ancient. In 1375 the
“reputable” Cordwainers submitted their ordinances to the mayor. In
1378 we learn that “discreet” men of the trade had authority to
seize hides badly tanned. In 1395 the Cordwainers and the
Coblers—_i.e._ the workers in new and old shoes—adjusted their
differences, but that in 1409 the dissensions between them broke out
again and were once more composed. In 1387 three journeymen
cordwainers were haled before the mayor, charged with illegally
forming a Fraternity of themselves excluding the masters. Another
indication of the existence of an ancient Fraternity is that of the
brawling and fighting in 1304 of the cordwainers and the tailors.

The first charter of incorporation was granted by King Henry VI.
1439, whereby, in consideration of the payment of fifty marks, he
granted to the freemen of the Mysterie of Cordwainers (Allutariorum)
of the City of London that they should be one body or commonalty for
ever, that they should every year elect and make of themselves one
master and four wardens to rule and govern the said mysterie, and
all men and workers of the mysterie and commonalty, and all workmen
and workers whatsoever of tanned leather relating to the said
mysterie, to search and try black and red tanned leather and all new
shoes which should be sold or exposed for sale, as well within the
said City as without, within two miles thereof.

The above charter was exemplified and confirmed by the charter 4 and
5 Philip and Mary (June 17, 1557).

The charter or Letters Patent of Queen Elizabeth, dated August 24,
in the fourth year of Her Majesty’s reign (A.D. 1562), exemplifies
and confirms the exemplification of Philip and Mary.

The charter further grants to them the government of all persons
exercising the said trade within the City of London and three miles
round about the said City and suburbs, the privilege having
previously run only to two miles. Also the power of making bylaws
for such purpose is thereby given to the master, wardens,
assistants, and commonalty.

King James I., in the tenth year of his reign, granted another
charter to the Company.

A new charter was granted by King James II. in the first year of his
reign, but it would appear that this charter was afterwards annulled
by Act 2 William and Mary, cap. 9; but this same Act restored and
confirmed all previous charters.

The first Hall was burned in the Great Fire: it stood in Great
Distaff Street; since this street was swallowed up by Cannon Street,
the Hall, rebuilt after the Fire, and again in 1788, and greatly
altered since then, has now a frontage in Cannon Street.

The livery is now 100; the Corporate Income is £7700; the Trust
Income £1600.

Of the cordwainers, Stow speaks as follows:

“In this Distar Lane, on the north side thereof, is the
Cordwainers’, or Shoemakers’ hall, which company were made a
brotherhood or fraternity, in the 11th of Henry IV. Of these
cordwainers I read, that since the 5th of Richard II. (when he took
to wife Anne, daughter of Vesalaus, King of Boheme), by her example,
the English people had used piked shoes, tied to their knees with
silken laces, or chains of silver or gilt, wherefore in the 4th of
Edward IV. it was ordained and proclaimed, that beaks of shoone and
boots should not pass the length of two inches, upon pain of cursing
by the clergy, and by parliament to pay twenty shillings for every
pair. And every cordwainer that shod any man or woman on the Sunday
to pay thirty shillings.”

Suffolk House, in =Suffolk Lane=, stands upon the site of the old Merchant Taylors’ School, and hence also upon the site of the =Manor of the Rose=.

This was a famous mansion once called Poultney’s Inn, from Sir John Poultney, who dwelt here after his removal from Cold Harbour. This was probably in 1348, for in that year (the year after he founded his college of Corpus Christi, by the church of St. Lawrence Poultney (or Pountney) on Lawrence Poultney Hill) he gave the Cold Harbour to the Earl of Hereford and Essex, for “one Rose at Midsummer, to him and his heirs for all services, if the same were demanded” (Stow). It seems most probable that this light “service” is accountable for the name of the Manor of the Rose. Subsequently the Manor belonged to John Holland, Duke of Exeter, then to William de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk, attainted and beheaded 1450. His son John, made Duke of Suffolk in 1463, does not appear to have possessed it, but his son John, Earl of Lincoln, owned it at the time of his attainder in 1487. It remained with the Crown until 1495, when it was restored to Edmund de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk, on whose forfeiture of it by treason it was granted in 1506 to Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, who kept possession of it until he was attainted and beheaded in 1521. Shakespeare (_Henry VIII._, Act i. Sc. 2) alludes to “The Rose within the parish of St. Lawrence Poultney,” in connection with the Duke of Buckingham. After remaining with the Crown for about four years it was granted in 1526 to Henry Courtenay, Earl of Devon, who had recently been created Marquis of Exeter. He was beheaded in 1539, when the property again fell to the Crown. In 1540 it was granted to Robert Radcliffe, Lord Fitzwalter, Earl of Sussex, whose son and grandson held it in turn. In 1560-61 it was sold and shortly after divided into moieties, of which one part was afterwards sold for the use of the Merchant Taylors’ School. All that remained intact of the mansion perished in the Fire of 1666, except a few portions of which the chief were a wall in Ducksfoot Lane, and a crypt extending from Suffolk Lane to Lawrence Poultney Hill. At the rebuilding of the City, No. 3 Lawrence Poultney Hill stood over this crypt, which remained until that house was pulled down in 1894, when, despite the protests of the antiquarians, the crypt was ruthlessly destroyed.

OLD MERCHANT TAYLORS’ SCHOOL, SUFFOLK LANE, CANNON STREET
]

After the Fire the school was rebuilt on the old site, in 1675, the head-master’s house being erected adjoining it.

The school premises were enlarged at various times, especially in 1829. In 1875 they became too small for the requirements of the school, and the old Charterhouse School having been removed to Godalming, the Charterhouse site was bought by the Merchant Taylors Company for £90,000, and Merchant Taylors’ School was moved to its present quarters. The old premises were taken down, and Suffolk House was erected in part upon their site in 1882.

The pious Robert Nelson, author of the _Fasts and Festivals_, was born in Suffolk Lane, June 22, 1656. His father, John Nelson, was a wealthy trader to the Levant.

Strype calls =Ducksfoot Lane= Duxford. The name is, perhaps, a corruption of Duke’s Footmen’s Lane, tradition asserting that this lane contained the servants’ entrance to the Duke of Suffolk’s house, the Manor of the Rose. In that case “footmen” is equivalent to retainers, or men-at-arms, whose quarters would probably be at the back of the mansion. Wilson (_History of St. Lawrence Poultney_) thinks it was once called Duke’s-foot-lane, meaning a narrow way to the mansion.

The only old house in the Lane is No. 2, which possesses a very interesting interior. The building is now used for offices, but was originally a merchant’s residence. The old dining-room is a fine chamber, having panelled walls profusely decorated with florid designs in raised composition. The panel over the chimney-piece is particularly good. The entablature of the handsome mantel is supported by fluted Ionic pilasters, the frieze filled with flowers and fruit, and the keystone embellished with a curious rural scene. There are several other quaint mantels in the house, one being of coloured marbles exquisitely painted with figures and scenes. The great staircase with its wainscotted walls and fine balusters is a good piece of work. The cellars are very extensive, and there are traces of a subterranean passage which formerly led to the Thames. The staircase and the old dining-room were copied by Mr. John Hare, and staged at the Garrick Theatre for Mr. Pinero’s play _The Profligate_, first performed in 1889.

=Laurence Pountney Hill.=—Stow calls this hill St. Laurence Hill. The part from Cannon Street to Suffolk Lane was formerly Green Lettice Lane, but was renamed under the present title only, on the widening of Cannon Street, 1853-54. The two houses at the corner of Suffolk Lane are splendid specimens of early eighteenth-century architecture. Both are finished with a handsome cornice. The doorways of both are side by side and have lintels and architraves of such rich carving as to be unsurpassed in the City by any doorways of similar size and style. The lintels are both concave: that on the southern house contains garlands of flowers, a cherub’s head, and the date 1703, that on the northern consists of a large scallop shell having in it two naked children. The staircase in the northern house, with its fine twisted balusters, is one of the best original staircases left in the City. The southern house has been modernised for business premises and spoiled. Next below is a plot recently bared, where was the vault alluded to under Suffolk Lane.

At the north-east corner of Ducksfoot Lane is an old house, a good specimen of the domestic architecture after the Fire. Next to it eastwards is the southern half of St. Lawrence Pountney Churchyard now disused. It contains three trees and several tombs. In summer a large-leafed plant covers almost the whole area. Across the enclosure is another fine old house, now used for offices, containing handsome rooms and a fine balustered well-staircase.

Dr. William Harvey, the discoverer of the circulation of the blood, came to live with his brother Eliab opposite St. Lawrence Pountney Church, after the surrender of Oxford. Both Eliab and another brother Daniel were rich and distinguished merchants on the hill. Richard Glover, the author of _Leonidas_, was also an eminent merchant on this hill.

The character of Laurence Pountney Lane on both sides (except the modern warehouses on the east side at the corner of Upper Thames Street) is that of the rebuilding after the Fire. Perhaps as a whole this lane preserves this character better than any other thoroughfare in the ward. At the Upper Thames Street end, on the west side, is a house which, though rebuilt on the Upper Thames Street front, retains the old side wall. This is still pierced with narrow windows filled with little squares of glass in lead-work. On the same side of the lane are several carved lintels, and well-panelled deeply recessed doorways. Near the lower end is an old house beneath which is an archway leading to a courtyard, cellars, and offices. The house is partly tenanted by Messrs. Cooper, Box & Co., who first made beaver hats here in 1830 or thereabouts. The back part at the end of the yard, and the front windows were added about 1855. The cellars at the rear of the yard used to contain the vats in which the beaver hats were dyed. The lease of the house dating from shortly after the Fire is still in existence. In the yard is an arched doorway of stone, and solid arches of the same material support the walls of the house in the basement cellars. The stone no doubt came out of the ruins of buildings destroyed in the Fire; possibly some of it from the Manor of the Rose.

At the beginning of 1543 Master Arundel kept a house of entertainment in this lane, much resorted to by the gay young men of that time. Henry, Earl of Surrey, the poet, was summoned before the Privy Council to answer certain charges, when Mistress Arundel, being examined, said that the Earl of Surrey and other young noblemen frequented her house. They ate meat in Lent and committed other improprieties. At Candlemas they went out at 9 o’clock at night, with stone bows, and did not return till past midnight; and next day there was a great clamour of breaking of windows, both of houses and churches, and shouting at men in the street, and the voice was that those hurts were done by my lord and his company. Again at night, rowing on the Thames, they used these stone bows to shoot, as she was told, “at the queens on the Bankside” (MS. quoted by Froude, vol. iv. p. 253).

=St. Lawrence Poultney= or =Pountney= was situated on the west side
of Laurence Pountney Lane, between Cannon Street and Thames Street
in the Ward of Candlewick Street. Thomas Cole added to it a chapel
of Jesus, for a master and a chaplain, and this together with the
parish church was made into a college by John Poultney and confirmed
by Edward III. At the suppression of the religious houses it was
valued at £97 : 17 : 11 and surrendered in the reign of Edward VI.
The church was burnt down by the Great Fire and its parish annexed
to that of St. Mary Abchurch. The earliest date of an incumbent is
1318.

The patronage of the church was in the hands of: The chaplains of
this college; Henry VIII., who seized it and so continued in the
Crown till Queen Elizabeth granted it to Edward Dorening and Roger
Rant as an appendage of the manor of East Greenwich.

Houseling people in 1548 were 270.

No benefactors are recorded by Stow. There are few monuments
recorded, and those of little note: John Oliffe, alderman, was
buried in the church in 1577; also Robert and Henry Radcliffe, Earls
of Sussex.

William Latymer was master of this college; he was prosecuted for
complaining with John Hooper, of Edmund Bonner, Bishop of London.

In Martin’s Lane a high tower resembling the steeple of a church projects at the end of a block of modern buildings. The old clock, which is attached and hangs out over the street, makes the resemblance to a church more noticeable. The building was erected on the site of the old church of St. Martin Orgar. The churchyard below is comparatively large and includes a row of trees. It is considerably above the level of the street. At the east end are some old seventeenth or eighteenth century houses with rusticated woodwork beneath their gables. On the west side of the lane No. 7 is an old eighteenth-century house, a fine specimen, with brick courses across its frontage.

=St. Martin Orgar= was situated in St. Martin’s Lane, near
Candlewick Street. It was burnt down in the Great Fire and not
rebuilt, its parish being annexed to St. Clement’s, Eastcheap. The
earliest date of an incumbent is 1348.

The patronage of the church was in the hands of: Orgarus, who gave
it about 1181 to the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul’s, who held it up
to 1666, when the church was burnt down.

Houseling people in 1548 were 280.

Chantries were founded here by: William Cromer, whose endowment
fetched £30 : 15 : 4 in 1548, when John Carre was priest; John
Weston, who gave to the Augmentation of Our Lady’s Mass to be “songe
by note” £12 : 18 : 8 a year in 1548; William Oreswicke, whose
endowment for two chaplains fetched £13 : 5 : 0 in 1548.

The church contained monuments to: William Crowmer, mayor, who built
a chapel on the south side of the church, and who was buried there
in 1433; Sir Humphrey Browne, Lord Chief Justice (d. 1562); Sir
Allen Cotton, lord mayor (d. 1628). There was also a monument to
Queen Elizabeth.

According to Stow the parish enjoyed the benefits of many
benefactors. Among others, Benedict Barnham was donor of £10 yearly;
Thomas Nicolson of £5; Sir Humphrey Walwyn of £5; and James Hall of
three tenements to the value of £18 : 10 : 0.

Brien Walton (d. 1661), Bishop of Chester, was rector here.

=Crooked Lane= has been partly destroyed to make way for the approach to London Bridge, which has also swallowed up St. Michael’s Lane and Great Eastcheap. In Crooked Lane stood a house before the Fire called “the Leaden Porch,” which belonged to one Sir John Sherston in the fifteenth century. The lane also contained St. Michael’s Church, the burial-place of William Walworth.

=St. Michael, Crooked Lane=, was situated on the east side of
Miles’s Lane, Great Eastcheap, and was one of the thirteen
“Peculiars” in the City, subject to the Archbishop of Canterbury. It
was repaired and redecorated in 1610, but burnt down by the Great
Fire and rebuilt from Wren’s designs in 1687; the steeple was not
built till 1698. In 1831 the building was pulled down, its parish
being united with those of St. Magnus and St. Margaret. The earliest
date of an incumbent is 1286.

The patronage of the church was in the hands of: The Prior and
Convent of Christ Church, Canterbury, before 1286; the Archbishop of
Canterbury, who presented in 1408, in whose successors it continued
up to 1848, when the church was annexed to St. Magnus the Martyr.

Houseling people in 1548 were 354.

The church built by Wren, which was without aisles, measured 78 feet
in length and 46 feet in breadth. The tower was surmounted by a
circular lantern in three stages, supporting a cupola with a lofty
vane and cross, and reached a height of about 100 feet.

Chantries were founded here: By William Walworth (mayor 1380) of
five chaplains; he endowed it with lands, etc., which fetched £20 :
13 : 4 in 1548, when the priests were William Berte, Thomas Harper,
William Hale, William Clayton, and John Nesehame; by John Rothinge,
who left £6 yearly, which is appropriated to finding a Walworth
chaplain; by Walter Morden, who endowed it with the “bores hedde” in
Eastcheap, valued at £4 a year; by William de Burgo, who had the
King’s licence June 21, 1318, whose endowment fetched £6 : 13 : 4 in
1548; by Pentecost Russel and Gerard de Staundon at the altar of St.
Thomas Martyr and St. Edmund; the King granted his licence July 14,
1321, for himself, his father and mother, and G. de Staundon, late
parson of Stevenage, Herts; by Henry Grubbe, for which the King
granted his licence April 20, 1371; by Roger Steere, who endowed it
with tenements valued at £8 : 8 : 0 yearly, which is spent towards
finding the Walworth chaplains; by William Jordan, who left £5 :
16 : 8 to find a priest, but this was also appropriated to the
Walworth chaplains; by Robert Brocket, who endowed it with £7 a
year; by John Longe, who left 10s. per annum; March 10, 1380-81—the
King granted his licence to William Walworth, citizen and merchant
of London, to unite diverse chantries in this church, founded by
Pentecost Russell; Matilda and Roger Steere; John Harewe; John
Abell; W. Burgh; Henry Grubbe; William Jordan; Walter Mordon; and
Thomas atte Leye, which by changes of time are insufficient to
maintain these chantries, and he was further empowered to found a
college of one master and nine chaplains there.

The church formerly contained monuments to: John Lovekin,
fishmonger, four times Lord Mayor, through whom the church, 1348,
1358, 1365, and 1366, was rebuilt; also Sir William Walworth, the
mayor who overthrew Wat Tyler—he enlarged the church with a new
choir and side-chapels and founded a college in connection with it;
Sir John Brug, mayor 1520, donor of £50.

No legacies or charitable gifts are recorded by Stow.

John Poynet (d. 1556), Bishop of Rochester and of Winchester, was
rector here; also Adam Molens or Molyneux (d. 1450), Bishop of
Chichester, who was slain at Portsmouth by the Marines, incited by
Richard, Duke of York; Giovanni Giglii (d. 1498), Bishop of
Worcester.

At the end of =Swan Lane= is Old Swan Pier, beneath which are the famous Old Swan Stairs; these now consist of stone steps followed by a flight of wooden ones, descending straight into the water. Stow calls them “a common stair on the Thames.” In 1441, when the Duchess of Gloucester did penance at Christchurch-by-Aldgate, she landed here, and walked the rest of the way. When persons did not care to risk “shooting London Bridge,” it was customary for them to land at these stairs, walk to the other side of the bridge, and then take to the water again. Pepys in his _Diary_ (1661) mentions taking Mr. Salisbury to Whitehall: “But he could not by any means be moved to go through the bridge, and we were fain to go round by the Old Swan Pier”; and Boswell says that he and Johnson “landed at the Old Swan and walked to Billingsgate,” where they took oars for Greenwich.

The race for Doggett’s Coat and Badge, open to watermen, is rowed between the Old Swan and the White Swan at Chelsea. Near these stairs was John Hardcastle’s counting-house, where were first brought forth the Hibernian Society, the London Missionary Society, the British and Foreign Bible Society, and the Religious Tract Society.

At the end of Swan Lane (west side) is the entrance to the subway called Waterside. It passes beneath Tennants’, Commercial, and Dyers’ Hall wharves, in front of Red Bull Wharf (the only place where it emerges into the open), and ultimately runs under the City of London Brewery into All Hallows Lane. In Strype’s 1754 map the whole of the riverside from Swan to All Hallows Lane is shown as a broad path (40 feet wide) open to the water, and called New Key, upon which debouch all the lanes leading from Thames Street to the shore. It was part of a design of Wren for improving the river-bank after the Great Fire. In a map of 1819 the “key,” though mostly open, is shown to be a subway under a portion of the brewery. It is marked as a “Public Way.” It has been gradually covered over by the extension of the brewery and the wharves, so that now what was once a riverside walk has become a subway, from which the water is nowhere visible, unless one of the wharf doors happens to be open.

The Fishmongers’ Hall rises squarely beside London Bridge, and not far off is the Monument, with an absurd _chevaux de frise_ of spikes rising from its golden ball, and representing flames, very much as they are represented in the contemporary illustrations of the Fire. St. Magnus’s white steeple makes a good foreground.

THE FISHMONGERS COMPANY

The origin of the Fishmongers Company is lost in remote antiquity;
it is unquestionable that it existed prior to the reign of Henry
II., and originated in an association or brotherhood.

The Fishmongers Company lost the greater part of its earlier
records, books, and muniments in the Great Fire of London; the
earliest existing record in the possession of the Company being a
court book dating from 1592.

The privileges of the Company were confirmed by royal charters in
the reign of Edward I., 1272, Edward II., 1307, and Edward III.,
1327.

The first extant charter is in Norman French, dated July 10, 1364,
37 Edward III.

It recites that from ancient times, whereof memory runs not, it was
a custom that no fish should be sold in the City of London but by
fishmongers, except stockfish, which belongs to the mistery of
stockfishmongers (subsequently incorporated with the fishmongers),
and further recites that the mistery of fishmongers had grants from
the King’s progenitors in ancient times, that the fishmongers should
choose yearly certain persons of the mistery to well and lawfully
rule the same.

The foregoing charter was confirmed by a proclamation of the
following year, July 12, 1365, 38 Edward III., which granted further
power and privileges to the mistery of fishmongers of the City of
London.

_Pictorial Agency._

FISHMONGERS’ HALL, PRESENT DAY
]

By a further mandate of King Edward III., dated July 24 in the same
year, the King granted to the fishmongers of the said city, and of
the liberty of the halmote of the same mistery, that no person,
stranger or inhabitant, should in any manner occupy the mistery of
fishmongers in the said city, or intermeddle therewith, unless he
were of the same mistery; and that the fishmongers of the same
liberty should be able in every year to elect four persons (to be
sworn) to oversee the buying and selling of fish in the said city,
and well and faithfully to rule the said mistery “for the common
commodity of our people.”

In the twenty-second year of King Richard II., May 9, 1399, another
charter was granted.

By an Inspeximus of 6 Henry VI., July 10, 1427, the charter of King
Richard II. was confirmed.

By charter of 23 Henry VII., dated July 3, 1508, the Letters Patent
of 11 Henry VI., 1433, are set forth and ratified and confirmed.

By a charter of 24 King Henry VII., dated September 20, 1508, the
stockfishmongers of the City of London were incorporated by the name
of “The Wardens and Commonalty of the Mistery of Stockfishmongers of
the City of London,” with perpetual succession and a common seal.

In the twenty-seventh year of King Henry VIII., 1537, a charter was
granted by which the two corporations of the Fishmongers Company and
Stockfishmongers Company were incorporated as one company, and in
the same year a deed was executed between the two companies
regulating the terms of such union.

_Pictorial Agency._

LONDON BRIDGE
]

The rest of the brief history furnished by the Company is a recital
of the later charters, which do not seem of very great importance.
The number of liverymen in 1898 was 344; the Corporate Income was
£46,053; the Trust Income was £7235.

Freemen, the widows of freemen, and freewomen, being in poor
circumstances, are eligible for pecuniary relief by way of grant or
pension, or for election to the Company’s almshouses. The children
of freemen are eligible for weekly pensions or pecuniary relief.

Loans are also made by the Company in special cases in aid of
freemen in necessitous circumstances.

The Company has established a number of educational exhibitions for
the children of deserving freemen, and subscribe liberally to the
City of London Institute.

FISHMONGERS’ HALL IN 1811
]

The children of freemen are also eligible for the nominations to
Christ’s Hospital in the gift of the Company.

Liverymen have the usual privileges, and receive invitations in turn
to dine at livery dinners in the Company’s hall.

The Company’s first hall was the house of Lord Fanhope given to the
Fishmongers by him in the reign of Henry VIII. It was rebuilt after
the Fire by Jarman. It stood on the north foot of the present
bridge. The present hall was erected when New London Bridge
swallowed up its predecessor.

ST. MAGNUS, LONDON BRIDGE

St. Magnus stands on the south side of Thames Street at the bottom
of Fish Street Hill; it was called the “Martyr” from its dedicatory
saint, who suffered martyrdom in Cæsarea in the time of Aurelian the
Emperor. It was burnt down by the Great Fire, and rebuilt by Wren,
who completed it in 1676, with the exception of the steeple, which
was not added till 1705. The parish of St. Margaret, New Fish
Street, was annexed to this after the Fire. In 1831 that of St.
Michael, Crooked Lane, was also annexed. The earliest date of an
incumbent is 1247.

_Drawn by G. Shepherd._

ST. MAGNUS
]

The patronage of the church was in the hands of: The Prior and
Convent of Bermondsey before 1252, and the Abbot and Convent of
Westminster alternately, since 1252; Henry VIII. seized it, and
granted it to the Bishop of Westminster, 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.

Houseling people in 1548 were 535.

The building is one of the most beautiful of all the City churches;
it measures 90 feet in length, 59 feet in breadth, and 41 feet in
height. It contains a nave and side-aisles separated by slender
Ionic columns standing a considerable distance from each other. The
steeple rising near London Bridge is seen to great advantage, and is
considered one of the best of Wren’s works. It consists of a tower
with a cornice, parapet, and vases, surmounted by an octagonal
lantern with a cupola, which, in its turn, is surmounted by a
slender lantern and spire, with a finial and vane. The total height
is 185 feet.

Chantries were founded here by: Andrew Hunt, whose endowment fetched
£6 : 13 : 4 in 1548, when Gilbert Smythe was chaplain; Thomas
Makinge, whose endowment yielded £16 in 1548, when Thomas Parker was
chaplain; Sir John Deepdene, Knt., for himself and Elizabeth his
wife, at the Altar of Blessed Virgin Mary, and also at the same
altar by Robert Ramsey, for himself and Jane his wife, for which the
King granted his licence, February 5, 1404-1405—the endowments
fetched £16 : 13 : 4 in 1548, when Joseph Stepneth was chaplain;
Ralph de Gray, whose endowment fetched £4 in 1548; Hugh Pourt, who
was sheriff of London 1303, for himself and Margaret his wife, at
the Altar of Blessed Virgin Mary, to which Hugo de Waltham was
admitted chaplain, October 10, 1322—this chantry was augmented by
Roger Clovill, and the King granted his licence in mortmain, June
10, 1370; John Bever, for the support of two priests, whose
endowment fetched £20 : 6 : 8 in 1548, but no priests have been
found since Henry IV.’s time—the King granted his licence, May 26,
1448, to constitute the Guild of S. Maxentius and S. Thomas; Andrew
Hunt and several others founded and endowed the Brotherhood of Salve
Regina, whose gifts fetched £49 : 0 : 4 in 1548, when John Swanne
and William Bunting were the chaplains.

The old church was the place of sepulture of several persons of note
in their day, amongst whom may be mentioned Henry Yeuele,
master-mason to Edward III., Richard II., and Henry IV.; Sir W.
Gerrard, mayor in 1555; and Sir John Gerrard, mayor in 1601; and
Thomas Collet, for twenty years deputy of this ward, who died in
1703. On the demolition of St. Bartholomew by the Exchange, the
remains of Miles Coverdale were brought here, as he had been rector
of the church 1563-66. His monument is on the east wall, south of
the communion table.

Sixty boys and forty girls were maintained in the Candlewick and
Bridge Wards.

The parish did not possess many large charitable gifts: Samuel Petty
was donor of £600, of which only £250 was received, owing to the
bonds not being good; Susanna Chambers, £17; Thomas Arnold, £2 :
12s.; John Jennings, £13.

Besides Miles Coverdale, other rectors of note were: Richard de
Medford or Mitford, Bishop of Chichester in 1389; Maurice Griffith
(d. 1558), Bishop of Rochester.

=Great Eastcheap=, now destroyed, was in Stow’s time a market-place for butchers: it had also cooks mixed among the butchers and such others as sold victuals ready dressed of all sorts. “For of old time when friends did meet and were disposed to be merry, they went not to dine and sup at taverns but to the cooks, where they called for meat what they liked which they found ready dressed and at a reasonable rate.” In Great Eastcheap was the immortal tavern of the Boar’s Head, already mentioned p. 106.

There was apparently another Boar’s Head in this ward. Maitland mentions it:

“In this Ward there was a house called The Boar’s Head, inhabited by William Sanderson, which came to King Edward VI. by the Statute about Chantries; which, with the shops, cellars, solars, and other Commodities and easements, he sold in the second of his reign, together with other lands and tenements, to John Sicklemore and Walter Williams for two thousand six hundred and sixty-eight pounds, and upwards” (Maitland, vol. ii. p. 793).

=Fish Street Hill=, or New Fish Street, formerly Bridge Street, led to Old London Bridge past St. Magnus’s Church. It contained an ancient stone house which had once been occupied by the Black Prince, and was afterwards converted into an inn called the Black Bell. Very frequent mention is made of Bridge Street. Here lived Andrew Horne, fishmonger, City Chamberlain, author of the _Liber Horne_. A note which concerns him may be found in Riley’s _Memorials_, A.D. 1315. Among the signs of the street were the “King’s Head”; the “Harrow”; the “Swan and Bridge”; the “Star”; the “Mitre”; the “Golden Cup”; the “Salmon”; the “Black Raven”; the “Crown”; the “Maiden Head”; the “White Lion”; the “Swan,” etc. Foundations of Roman buildings have been found here. Riley has notices of the street between 1311 and 1340. Notices are found in the _Calendar of Wills_ from 1273. In the Guildhall MSS. the earliest mention of the street is 1189. In this street stood the Church of St. Margaret, not rebuilt after the Fire. This church was on the west above Crooked Lane.

=St. Margaret, New Fish Street=, sometimes called St. Margaret,
Bridge Street, stood on the east side of Fish Street Hill, where the
Monument now stands; it was destroyed by the Great Fire, and its
parish united to that of St. Magnus the Martyr. The earliest date of
an incumbent is 1283.

The patronage of the church, before 1283, was in the hands of: The
Abbot and Convent of Westminster, 1283-84; Henry VIII., who granted
it to the Bishop of Westminster, January 20, 1540-41; the Bishop of
London, by grant of Edward VI. in 1550, confirmed by Queen Mary,
March 3, 1553-54, in whose successors it continued up to 1666, when
the parish was annexed to St. Magnus.

Houseling people in 1548 were 200.

Chantries were founded here by: Roger de Bury, for which the King
granted his licence in 1318; John Coggeshall, at the Altar of St.
Peter—his endowment fetched £13 : 10s. in 1548, when Richard Bec was
chaplain; Thomas Dursley, whose endowment yielded £4 in 1548; John
Rous, whose endowment fetched £5 in 1548; Robert Whaplode, whose
endowment yielded 40s. in 1548.

Only one monument of note is recorded by Stow, that of John
Coggeshall, 1384, and the reason of his eminence is not stated.

Some of the chantries belonging to this parish were: £2 : 10s., the
gift of John Wybert; £2, the gift of Katherine Parry; £1 : 10s., the
gift of Mr. Mosyer.

Candlewick and Bridge Wards maintained sixty boys and forty girls.

John Seton (d. 1568), Prebendary of York, author of _Dialectica_;
William Cotton (d. 1621), Bishop of Exeter; Samuel Hasnet,
Archbishop of York 1629, are among the notable rectors.

On the east side, higher up, stood the Church and burial-ground of St. Leonard’s Milk Church, also destroyed by the Fire and not rebuilt (see p. 266). The most important building in Fish Street is, of course, the Monument.

For =The Monument= we quote the account taken by Maitland from the life of Sir Christopher Wren:

“In the year 1671, the Surveyor began the building of the great fluted column of Portland Stone, and of the Dorick Order (commonly called the Monument of London, in memory of the burning and rebuilding of the City), and finished it in 1677. The Artificers were obliged to wait sometimes for Stones of proper scantlings; which occasioned the work to be longer in execution than otherwise it would have been. The altitude from the pavement is two hundred and two feet, the diameter of the shaft or body of the column is fifteen feet, the ground bounded by the Plinth or lowest part of the pedestal is twenty-eight feet square, and the pedestal in height is forty feet. Within is a large staircase of black marble, containing three hundred and forty-five steps, ten inches and an half broad, and six inches rising. Over the Capital is an Iron Balcony, encompassing a Cippus or Meta, thirty-two feet high, supporting a blazing urn of brass gilt. Prior to this, the Surveyor (as it appears by an original drawing) had made a design of a pillar of somewhat less proportion, viz.: fourteen feet in diameter, and after a peculiar device: For, as the Romans expressed by Relievo, on the pedestals, and round the shafts of their Columns, the history of such actions and incidents as were intended to be thereby commemorated; so this Monument of the conflagration and resurrection of the City of London was represented by a pillar in flames; the flames, blazing from the loopholes of the shaft (which were to give light to the stairs within), were figured in brasswork gilt, and on the top was a Phoenix rising from her ashes, of brass gilt likewise.” The total expense was about £14,500.

THE MONUMENT IN 1752

From a drawing by Signor Canalsti.
]

The height (202 feet) is supposed to be equal to its distance eastward from the house in Pudding Lane in which the Fire broke out. Inside are 345 steps, by which any one after paying 3d. may ascend to the caged-in platform near the top. The pedestal has Latin inscriptions on the north, south, and east panels. In 1681 a further inscription, running round the base of the pedestal, was added as follows:

This pillar was set up in perpetual remembrance of that most
dreadful burning of this Protestant City begun and carried on by y^e
treachery and malice of y^e Popish factio, in y^e beginning of
Septem in y^e year of our Lord 1666 in order to y^e carrying on
their horrid plott for extirpating the Protestant religion and old
English liberty, and the introducing Popery and slavery.

This was obliterated in the reign of James II., but recut in that of his successor, causing Pope’s comment:

Where London’s column, pointing to the skies,
Like a tall bully rears its head and lies.

The obnoxious inscription was not erased until 1831.

On the west panel of the pedestal is a bas-relief representing Charles II. in Roman dress attended by Liberty, Genius, and Science.

In the background the City is being rebuilt, and at the King’s feet Envy tries to rekindle the flames.

ST. LEONARD, EASTCHEAP

This church stood at the corner of Eastcheap on Fish Street Hill; it
was sometimes called St. Leonard Milk Church, from one Am. Milker,
who built it. It suffered considerably from a fire in 1618, but was
subsequently well repaired. The building was destroyed by the Great
Fire, and its parish annexed to that of St. Benet, Gracechurch
Street. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1348.

The patronage of the church was in the hands of: The Prior and
Convent of Christ Church, Canterbury, 1353; Henry VIII., who seized
it in 1540, and soon after gave it to the Dean and Chapter of
Canterbury.

Houseling people in 1548 were 260.

Chantries were founded here by: Reginald de Canterbury, citizen, at
the Altar of St. Thomas the Archbishop in 1329, when John de
Lacelbrigge was admitted chaplain; William Ivorye, whose endowment
yielded £8 : 6 : 8 in 1548; John Bromesburye and John Wasselbye,
whose endowments fetched £10 in 1548; Margery Bedyn, whose endowment
yielded £10 : 8s. in 1548; Hugo Browne, whose endowment fetched
£18 : 11s. in 1548; John Doggett, whose endowment yielded £10 in
1548; Robert Boydon.

A considerable number of monuments were recorded by Stow to have
been well preserved. That of the greatest antiquity was one in
memory of John Johnson, who died 1280. Several were erected to
various members of the Doggett family, of whom Walter Doggett was
sheriff in 1380, John Doggett, a citizen of eminence in his day,
buried 1456 (_circa_); Robert Fitzhugh (d. 1436), Bishop of London,
was rector here.

=Pudding Lane= was formerly Rother Lane, or Red Rose Lane. It was called, according to Stow, “Pudding Lane, because the butchers of Eastcheap have their scalding houses for hogs there, and their puddings with other filth of beasts are voided down that way to their dung boats on the Thames. This lane stretcheth from Thames Street to Little East Cheap, chiefly inhabited by basket makers, turners and butchers, and is all of Billingsgate Ward” (Cunningham). But the lane has its chief claim to remembrance in the fact that here originated the Great Fire.

In Stow’s time it was occupied by basket-makers, turners, and butchers. On the north-east of the lane stood Butchers’ Hall, destroyed by the Fire, and rebuilt; burned again in 1829; rebuilt in 1831; removed to Bartholomew Close in 1884.

ST. GEORGE’S CHURCH

St. George’s Church was burnt down in the Great Fire, rebuilt by
Wren in 1674, and became the parish church for St. Botolph’s,
Billingsgate, which had been also destroyed but not re-erected. In
1895 the building was closed on account of its dilapidated state.
The earliest date of an incumbent is 1321. [Since pulled down.]

The patronage of the church was in the hands of: The Prior and
Convent of St. Saviour, Bermondsey, in 1321; then the Crown, since
1541 up to 1666, when it was annexed to St. Botolph, Billingsgate,
and with it to St. Mary-at-Hill.

Houseling people in 1548 were 123.