Chapter XX: Part I: p. 3) in 1259; “St. Michael de Paternoster-cherch” in 1284; (7)

In =St. Paul’s Churchyard= the chapter-house first attracts our attention, a square, plain, red-brick building, with a modern office for the cathedral architect on one side; the top story was added in the last twenty years of the nineteenth century. These additions are not so noticeable as might be supposed, but are wonderfully harmonised by smoke and weather already. The building is finished with Portland stone, and the two semicircular projecting pediments over the two front doorways are of the same material. In each of these there is a curious niche or recess, which was evidently designed to receive a coat-of-arms, but no coat-of-arms has ever been placed there. The age of the chapter-house is indefinite. Mr. Penrose, the cathedral architect, judges it to have been built shortly after the year 1700. There is negative evidence to show that it did not exist before that date, for in a design of Wren’s, showing the limits of old St. Paul’s, the frontage of houses to the street is incompatible with the position of the chapter-house, and the buildings are also marked as ordinary dwelling-houses. But this plan is not altogether trustworthy, for it does not give the cathedral foundations correctly, and may therefore be inaccurate in other particulars. It is supposed, on account of this inaccuracy, to have been one of the later plans, probably made about 1700, when the old foundations had been built over and forgotten. It bears no date, and the evidence must be taken for what it is worth. Knight, in his _London_, gives a print dated 1701, and says that Wren repaired and restored the chapter-house after the Fire, which is obviously incorrect.

Within the chapter-house all is simple and solid. A square wainscotted hall, paved with plain white marble slabs, deep-set doors and windows in the thickness of the walls, and a fine, wide, shallow-stepped staircase with well-worked iron supports to the handrail. The character of the balustrade changes above the first floor, and the handrail is supported by spiral wooden balusters. The walls of the finely proportioned chapter-room are all wainscotted, otherwise there is nothing to remark upon. This room is occasionally lent to ecclesiastical conferences. In one of the other rooms are eight panels, 2 feet 6 by 1 foot 9 inches, enclosed in small gilt frames. These hang rather high up round the walls. They are monotint, and are Sir James Thornhill’s original designs for the frescoes in the dome of the cathedral. These designs are excellently clear, and show what the now faded frescoes must have been.

The archdeacon of the cathedral has a suite of rooms in the chapter-house, and the remainder of the house is carried out in the same plain domestic style.

The north side of the churchyard consists of a row of dingy brick buildings of various heights and ages. One or two are showing signs of decrepid old age, others still flourishing, with the names of their tradesmen occupants in mighty gilt letters across their smoky fronts. The irregular roofs of tiles or slates, with fantastic little iron railings high up, or windows peeping over the parapets, are sufficiently original to be interesting. Every class of goods seems to find representatives here—we see confectioners, milliners, bootmakers, photographers, etc. The Religious Tract Society has one entrance in the churchyard. On the east side we find all the houses modern, in the modern style, with stone facings; they are chiefly occupied by manufacturers.

We turn next to =Paternoster Row=.

In every large town on the Continent, wherever a cathedral has been erected, there are streets occupied by shops where all kinds of ecclesiastical things are made and sold, such as beads, crucifixes, wax tapers, service books, meditations, and such like. Paternoster Row served this purpose for St. Paul’s in the first instance, and, as there is only one other street so called, namely, the lane of Paternoster in the Riole, one may reasonably conclude that, with this other street, it supplied all the churches and all the faithful of the City with these things. We read of “Paternoster” meaning rosaries, and of a “Paternostrer” or one whose trade it was to make rosaries, etc. There are frequent references to both Paternoster “Street” of St. Michael le Querne, and Paternoster Lane, or Paternoster Church Lane of St. Michael, Paternoster Royal. Of the first, for instance, there are houses and rents spoken of in wills of 1312 and 1321.

This is, in fact, one of the most ancient, as well as one of the most interesting of the City Streets.

We can catch glimpses here and there of the actual residents of this street, the place where they made the rosaries. They should have been a quiet and God-fearing folk; but they were not. In 1381 one Godfrey de Belstred was assaulted by three “Paternostrers” of this parish, whether for purposes of robbery or in a quarrel does not appear; he was picked up wounded, and carried off to die. In the same century we find persons owning houses in this street; one, William de Ravenstone, Almoner of St. Paul’s, leaves by will a house in Paternoster Row. Did his functions permit him to live outside the precinct which sheltered such a goodly company of ecclesiastics? About the same time William Russell—surely the earliest mention of that illustrious name—bequeaths his house in the Row; Garter King-at-arms has a house there; John de Pykenham, Paternostrer, leaves various tenements to his wife, who claims as one of them a house in the Row. William le Marbler, a vintner, has a house there; the name shows that a man might by this time leave the trade of his father, and take to another without changing his surname, just as the name of Chaucer, who never belonged to the “gentle craft,” means shoemaker. There are other instances of “Paternostrers,” all of whom belong to the Parish, if not to the Row, which formed the most important part of it.

PATERNOSTER ROW (AS IT WAS)
]

The street, in fact, belonged to two parishes; one of these was the parish of St. Faith under Paul’s (see p. 340). St. Faith’s parish includes Paternoster Square, the Row, and Ivy Lane, with little fringes or strips, on the north and south. The east end of the Row is in the parish of St. Michael le Querne (see p. 326). This little parish, whose church is now St. Vedast’s, Foster Lane, included no more than 250 feet of the Row, with that part of Chepe west of Foster Lane, and the buildings on the north-west of the cathedral precinct. If you stand now on the site of the church, you will find it difficult to understand how there could be room for a parish church and a graveyard on the little space between the Row and the west end of Cheapside. By measurement, however, you will ascertain that a line drawn from the shop at the end of the Row to the corner of Cheapside is 130 feet in length, while a line drawn perpendicular to the buildings is 110 feet. Now the mediæval builders were ingenious in cramming churches and halls into small areas. I have laid down the church as it might have been, and I put the present statue of Peel at the crossing of the transepts if it was a cruciform church. I do not think, however, that it was cruciform, but that it consisted of a nave and chancel only, with a small burial-ground on the north, and a tower on the east side. The Fire of 1666 left it rootless, broke its windows, melted its glass, calcined its marbles, and destroyed its woodwork. It also burned up the coffins with their contents in the vaults. The parish was poor and small; the “Paternostrers” existed no longer; the parishioners decided not to rebuild the church; they amalgamated their parish with another; they widened the way that led from Newgate Street into Cheapside; and the bones of the dead, which were now so much grey powder, were trampled in the mud and dust of the street.

When the Reformation came, the trade of the street was annihilated. Fortunately for the poor “Paternostrers” the work of destruction was not sudden; it took time for the old services and the old ceremonies, which required their handiwork, to be abolished. What they did when the accession of the Protestant party to power closed their shops; how they got rid of their unsold stock, their piles of rosaries, beads, crucifixes, candlesticks; what new trades they learned; what bankruptcies and disasters fell upon them, no one knows. There is no chronicle to tell of the immediate effects of the Reformation on the trade and the common life of the City. It is, however, certain that the Paternostrers had to try something else.

They vanish; the historian hears no more of them; they rejoiced, we may be very sure, when Queen Mary brought back the ancient things; they trembled when Queen Elizabeth showed herself as independent and as masterful as her father.

But the place is central; it is a quiet and convenient place, retired from the noisy market; it is essentially a street for business of a quiet kind. Therefore the people who had formerly occupied the stalls of Broken Cross, the Standard, and the Great Cross, changed their quarters and took the small shops of the Paternostrers, where they sold paper, parchment, ink, pens, and the like—being the forerunners of the booksellers.

But the day of the booksellers was not yet. Paternoster Row was too large for the stationers; the mercers, silkmen, and lacemen found out the place and began to crowd out the stationers. It became the principal place for the sale of these fashionable goods; in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries all the great ladies went to Paternoster Row for their fineries; latterly the lane was thronged with carriages.

Then came the Fire.

After the Fire, according to Strype, the mercers migrated to Covent Garden, Henrietta Street, and King Street. According to Defoe, the Row was rebuilt after the Fire, for the convenience of these trades; “the spacious shops, back warehouses, skylights, and other conveniences made on purpose for their trade are still to be seen.” He goes on to say that the other traders were then dependent on the more important shops: lacemen were in Ivy Lane, button shops at the Cheapside end, shops for crewels and fringe in Blowbladder Street. He says that this continued for twenty years after the Fire, and that the mercers began then to migrate to Covent Garden, where, however, they did not remain many years. They then returned to the City and established themselves on Ludgate Hill.

But all the mercers and silkmen did not desert the Row. In 1720 there were still some “with many tirewomen.” It is at this period that we first hear of booksellers in the Row. Their previous quarters, before the Fire, had been St. Paul’s Churchyard not far off. After the Fire, some of them went to the upper end of Paternoster Row, where there were built “large warehouses for booksellers well situated for learned and studious men’s access thither, being more retired and private” (Strype). Others retreated, their stocks destroyed by the Fire, in an impoverished condition, to the cheaper street of Little Britain, where they continued for eighty years, when they began to flock into Paternoster Row.

“From the manufacture of paternosters to the publication and sale of books is a long step. The Row, however, gradually lost all its mercers, lacemen, and silkmen, and became the home of books, old and new. Other booksellers there were in other parts, but not many—Dodsley, for instance, in Pall Mall, Murray in Fleet Street, Newbery in St. Paul’s; but the greater number had their shops, being booksellers as well as publishers, in the Row. No longer did the coaches rumble along the narrow street; posts placed across forbade the passage of coach or cart; it became the most quiet street in all London. Gradually another change fell upon the place: the booksellers’ shops disappeared, and with them the throng of scholars who had been wont to meet and talk among the books. The Row became a wholesale place, whither the ‘trade’ came to buy; printers, bookbinders, and papermakers came for orders; and needy authors came, hat in hand, in the hope of picking up a guinea.

“There is a book called _Travels in Town_, written in the year 1839. The author, speaking of the output of books, boldly states that they had all to pass through Paternoster Row—certainly an exaggeration, but by far the greater number had to do so. The busiest day in the month was Magazine day, when the new magazines were sold to the trade. About 400,000 copies left the Row that morning. When we consider the nature of these magazines—the _Gentleman_, _Tait’s_, the _New Monthly_, the _Metropolitan_, _Blackwood’s_, _Fraser’s_—there can be no doubt that among the better class of readers the magazine occupied a much more important place then than it does at present.

“The Row kept up its character as the headquarters of the book trade for many years. But other changes have set in. There now are as many publishers outside the Row as in it. We find publishers about Covent Garden and Charing Cross; booksellers there are, of course, everywhere. The _Directory_ gives a list of over four hundred publishers, of whom not more than forty or fifty need be taken into account. Of the four hundred, however, the Row still numbers thirty; while of booksellers, stationers, and other persons connected with the book trade, there are another thirty in the Row. So the old literary atmosphere hangs about the place, and, though most of the greater publishers are gone, there are enough left to keep up the traditions of the past. And north of the Row, in Paternoster Square and the courts and lanes, other publishers and booksellers are found who lend their name to make the Row and its vicinity still the headquarters of new books.

“As for the social side of the Row. It once boasted two places of resort where men could meet and dine, or sit and talk. The first of them was Dolly’s Chop House. This house was built in the time of Queen Anne for a certain cook named Dolly. It is said to have stood on the site of an ordinary kept by Tarleton the Elizabethan mime. If this is true, there was probably, according to the conservative habits of our people, a tavern kept up on the spot continuously. It was not the custom, in the early years of the eighteenth century, to create a new tavern, but to carry on an old one. However, Dolly’s remained a place of great resort for more than a hundred years. It seems to have been famous for its beefsteaks.

“The other, a more important place, was the Chapter Coffee House. This place was in the eighteenth century the resort of the booksellers; here they met for the sale, among themselves, of copyrights, and for the sharing of any new enterprise in new books. Here also met many of the wits and writers during the last half of that century—Goldsmith, Johnson, Lloyd, Churchill, and many others came here to sup and to talk. Chatterton found his way here, sitting in a corner and thinking himself already admitted among the acknowledged poets of the day. In the early part of this century the coffee house was frequented by a knot of writers of some importance in their own day. There was Alexander Stevens, Dr. Buchan, the Rev. W. Murray, the Rev. Dr. Berdmore, Walker ‘the rhetorician,’ Dr. Towers, Dr. Fordyce, Johnson, called in his day ‘king of the booksellers,’ Phillips, editor of the _Monthly Magazine_, Alexander Chalmers, Macfarlane, and others whose names are well-nigh forgotten, who yet thought themselves no mean citizens, and formed a group which came here every night and talked. Sad it is to think that to these circles, as well as to that of the Chapter Coffee House, Time will apply the sponge and efface their names and their sayings from the memory of the world.” (_Paper on Paternoster Row._)

PATERNOSTER ROW AS IT IS
]

=Ave Maria Lane= was “so called” (Stow) “because of stationers and text writers who wrote and sold there all sorts of books then in use, namely, A.B.C. with the Pater Noster, Ave, Creed, the Graces, etc.”

On the east side of Ave Maria Lane was the “Vicarage” of the Vicars Choral of St. Paul’s, “bounded on the east by the Penitentiarie’s house; on the west by Ave Maria Lane; on the south by the highway leading through St. Paul’s churchyard; and on the north by the Bishop’s Palace.”

The Garden of the Bishop of London’s Palace on the west was divided from Ave Maria Lane by a great brick wall reaching to an old house in Paternoster Row, the Three White Lyons.

The site of the Bishop’s Palace was in London House Yard. The Palace was pulled down in 1650 and tenements built upon its site.

Here has been demolished the old tavern, No. 8, distinguished by its sign of the Goose and the Gridiron. The tavern stood, perhaps, on the site of the Mitre, where, in 1642-44, was exhibited a collection of curiosities which, according to their Catalogue, must have consisted mainly of rarities similar in kind to those of “Tradeskins Ark” at Lambeth, or of the Royal Society when lodged at Gresham College. The Catalogue says they are “daily to be seen at the place called the Music House at the Mitre near the west end of St. Paul’s Church.” The sign may have been designed in burlesque of that of the Swan and Harp in Cheapside, as cited in _Little London Directory_ of 1677. It formed the meeting-place of the St. Paul’s Masonic Lodge, to which Wren belonged for many years. He presented to the sodality of the Lodge, the mallet and trowel that had been used in laying the first stone of St. Paul’s (_Midd. and Herts. Notes and Queries_, vol. ii. p. 179).

=Amen Corner= is chiefly modern, but the two brick houses next the gate which shuts in Amen Court are both ancient, one of them being restored. Through great claret-painted wooden gates we pass to Amen Court where there is an unbroken line of old seventeenth-century houses facing the back of Stationers’ Hall. These are all of brick, creeper-covered, with iron lamp-holders arching over the doorways, and link sockets attached. One or two have quaint old iron scrapers. They were built by Sir C. Wren. The court is the ecclesiastical residence for many of the dignitaries connected with St. Paul’s. A gravelled walk leads round the corner by a buttressed wall to the more modern part. Quite a large garden space lies before the houses. The later row, built in 1876, are in a modern Queen Anne style, and the material used is glowing red brick.

The lodge or entrance to this side from the lane stands back behind picturesque iron gates with red brick piers surmounted by great urns. Over the foot entry is a Latin inscription, and in the street on a stone slab set in the brickwork under a projecting cornice are the words:

Pro omnibus mortus christus ut et qui vivunt jam non sibi vivant sed ei
qui pro ipsis mortuus est et resurrexit.

In Ave Maria Lane are the ordinary business houses.

Amen Corner formerly ran from Ave Maria Lane as far as the wall. The present court has been constructed on part of the ground formerly occupied by the Oxford Arms Inn. Stationers’ Hall (see p. 199) was also built against the wall; its small garden is the old burial-ground of St. Martin, Ludgate Hill.

St. Martin’s Lane had St. Martin-le-Grand on the east side. This was a house for Augustine canons, and William of Wykeham was one of its deans. It formed a precinct with its own liberty, which survived the Dissolution. In the sanctuary Forrest, the murderer of the little princes in the Tower, died (see _Mediæval London_, vol. ii. p. 234). Stow tells the story of the famous action in which the City challenged the claims of sanctuary set up by St. Martin’s in the year 1442.

“This college claimed great privileges of sanctuary and otherwise, as appeareth in a book, written by a notary of that house, about the year 1442, 19 Henry VI., wherein, amongst other things, is set down and declared, that on the 1st of September, in the year aforesaid, a soldier, prisoner in Newgate, as he was led by an officer towards the Guildhall of London, there came out of Panyer Alley five of his fellowship, and took him from the officer, brought him into sanctuary at the west door of St. Martin’s church, and took grithe of that place; but the same day Philip Malpas and Robert Marshall, then sheriffs of London, with many others, entered the said church, and forcibly took out with them the said five men thither fled, led them fettered to the Compter, and from thence, chained by the necks, to Newgate; of which violent taking the dean and chapter in large manner complained to the king, and required him, as their patron, to defend their privileges, like as his predecessors had done, etc. All which complaint and suit the citizens by their counsel, Markham, sergeant at the law, John Carpenter, late common clerk of the city, and other, learnedly answered, offering to prove that the said place of St. Martin had no such immunity or liberty as was pretended; namely, Carpenter offered to lose his livelihood, if that church had more immunity than the least church in London. Notwithstanding, after long debating of this controversy, by the king’s commandment, and assent of his council in the starred chamber, the chancellor and treasurer sent a writ unto the sheriffs of London, charging them to bring the said five persons with the cause of their taking and withholding afore the king in his Chancery, on the vigil of Allhallows. On which day the said sheriffs, with the recorder and counsel of the City, brought and delivered them accordingly, afore the said lords; whereas the chancellor, after he had declared the king’s commandment, sent them to St. Martin’s, there to abide freely, as in a place having franchises, whiles them liked, etc.” (Stow). The whole of the district is now being gradually covered by the mighty buildings of the General Post Office, which has inherited the name of its predecessor, and is known as St. Martin-le-Grand. For the history see _London in the Nineteenth Century_, p. 307.

THE CITY BOUNDARY, ALDERSGATE
]

=Aldersgate=, formerly called Aldrechegate and Aldresgate, was built during the Saxon occupation. It is named in the laws of Ethelred. It is also mentioned in the _Calendar of Wills_, but not very early. Riley contains some interesting notices of the gate and the ward.

Thus in 1277 an inquest is held on the unlucky Matilda, wife of Henry le Coffeur, who fell down, being drunk, broke her right arm, and soon after died, and was laid in the house of the said Henry in the ward of Anketin de Auvergne, _i.e._ Aldersgate. In 1339 the Chamberlain of Guildhall expended 20s. 4d. on the pavement of the gate of Aldersgate, the pavement being one of cobbled stones laid close and rammed down. The first pavements were those laid down in much frequented places such as the City gates and markets, where otherwise the feet of the passers-by would make pools of mud. In 1346 a certain Simon is hanged for robbery in the ward of Aldersgate—observe that the name of the alderman is no longer given to the ward. In 1350 mention is made of shops within Aldersgate. In 1375, there are ordinances, already referred to, concerning “foreign” poulterers. In 1379 there are ordinances respecting the cattle-market of Smithfield without Aldersgate. In 1391 a scrivener stands in pillory without Aldersgate for forgery.

Aldersgate was not thrown open as a highway. Bishopsgate received the traffic from the north; Aldgate from the east; Newgate from the west; and Bridge Gate from the south. Aldersgate simply opened upon the moor beyond which was the great forest. It became necessary to have this gate for access to Smithfield, when that place began to be used as a market for horses and cattle; as the City playground, and as the site of races, wrestling matches, and archery practice. It was also, later, used as a place of execution; and it was partly occupied by religious houses.

Stow’s derivation from the “Elder” or “Older” gate is too far-fetched. It is named probably from one Ealdered, its earliest name being “Aldredesgate.” It is mentioned in a deed witnessed by Henry of London Stone, Mayor of London. In 1274 John Blackthorn is alderman of this ward, but in 1115 there is found in the documents of St. Paul’s a Warda Brickmarii Montlarii, Ward of Brickman, the Moneyer, which is probably Aldersgate.

Stow says of it:

“This is the fourth principal gate and hath at sundry times been increased with buildings, namely, on the south, or inner side, a great frame of timber hath been added, and set up, containing divers large rooms and lodgings; also on the east side is the addition of one great building of timber, with one large floor, paved with stone or tile, and a well therein curbed with stone, of a great depth, and rising into the said room, two stories high from the ground; which well is the only peculiar note belonging to that gate, for I have not seen the like in all this City to be raised so high” (Stow).

“The gate described by Stow was taken down in 1617, and rebuilt the same year from a design by Gerard Christmas, the architect, as Vertue thought, of old Northumberland House. On the outer front was a figure in high relief of James I. on horseback, with the prophets Jeremiah and Samuel in niches on each side; on the inner or City front an effigy of the King in his chair of state. King James, on his way to take possession of his new dominions, entered London by the old gate; the new gate referred to this circumstance, with suitable quotations from Jeremiah and Samuel placed beneath the figures of the two prophets. The heads of several of the regicides were set on this gate, which suffered by the Great Fire, but was soon after repaired and ‘beautified.’ The whole fabric was sold on the 22nd of April, 1761, and immediately taken down. I may add that it is written Aldrichgate in the London Chronicle of Edward IV.’s time, printed by Sir Harris Nicholas; and that John Day, the printer of Queen Elizabeth’s time, dwelt ‘over Aldersgate,’ much in the same manner as Cave subsequently did at St. John’s” (Cunningham).

Milton took a “pretty garden-house” in Aldersgate Street on his return from his foreign tour.

ST. BOTOLPH, ALDERSGATE

This church is opposite the General Post Office, at the corner of
Little Britain. The building was repaired in 1627, but was damaged
by the Great Fire. It was pulled down in 1754, when the present
church was erected. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1333.

The patronage of the church was in the hands of: The Dean of St.
Martin-le-Grand, as a Rectory, 1333; the Dean and Canons of St.
Martin-le-Grand, as a Donative or Curacy, united to St. Martin’s
December 18, 1399; the Abbot and Convent of Westminster; the Dean
and Chapter of Westminster, who are still the patrons.

Houseling people in 1548 were 1100.

The present church is divided into a nave and side aisles by
Corinthian columns, and contains galleries on the north, south, and
west sides respectively. The building is of brick. The tower rises
at the west, crowned by a turret. There is a façade of four Ionic
columns on the east side, constructed in 1831. The churchyard is of
considerable size and extends to the south and west of the church;
it is open to the public and is well laid out.

Chantries were founded here: For Thomas de Lilsington and Lucy his
wife; by John Bothe. Here was the Brotherhood of Holy Trinity at
that altar in the south part of the which, and for which the King
granted a licence to Lady Johanna Asteley, Robert Cawode, and Thomas
Smythe, sen., July 9, 1446.

The oldest monument remaining is that of Dame Anne Packington, a
benefactress to the parish, who died in 1563. There are also
monuments to Sir John Micklethwait, President of the College of
Physicians, and Dr. Bernard, also a medical practitioner of the
seventeenth century; to Richard Chiswell, principal bookseller of
his time, who died in 1711; and to Daniel Wray, F.R.S., F.S.A., one
of the original Trustees of the British Museum and friend of the
poets Dyer and Akenside.

The charitable gifts belonging to this parish recorded by Stow are
very numerous. Richard Chiswell, bookseller, was the donor of £50 to
the schools at his death; Mrs. Hannah Jones of £60 in all during her
life and at her death.

Fifty boys and fifty girls were clothed and educated by
subscription.

The churchyard has been converted into a pleasant garden with smooth grass plots and irregularly growing trees, and is locally known as the Postmen’s Park. In the _Daily Chronicle_ of April 16, 1896, a condensation of a speech by Mr. Norman, senior, churchwarden of St. Botolph Without, appeared, part of which was as follows:

“The land in question had been let by the Charity Commissioners for building in spite of the protests of the parishioners. It was in digging for foundations that an enormous quantity of human remains came to light, and the workmen at last became disgusted and refused to remove any more the masses of bones disturbed. The building lessees, however, determined to go on and legal proceedings were taken. The result was a declaration by the judge that although about one half of the site was a portion of the churchyard, technically, the whole site had now been dealt with in such a way as to enable the central governing body to build upon it.

“Many tons of human remains were still unexcavated, while a vast quantity piled pell-mell against the church tower—preparatory to the intended removal—had been covered with a few inches of earth. It seemed impossible that the central governing body should now treat the ground as a building site, especially as one of their principal duties was the preservation of open spaces where they were most wanted, viz. in the heart of the City, besides which they had now vested in them the whole of the parish property of the value of about £100,000. He had every hope that they would see their way to foregoing the small profit derivable from letting the site for building purposes, and he believed there was now a probability of the ground being secured for the public, in which event the churchyard garden would not only be preserved, but enlarged and greatly improved.”

On the west side of St. Martin’s Lane, Aldersgate, near Blowbladder Street stood a great house called Northumberland House, which at one time belonged to the Percies. Henry IV. gave it to the Queen and it was called her wardrobe; in Stow’s time it was a printing house.

In Bull and Mouth Street stood the Bull and Mouth Inn. It became one of the famous coaching inns of London.

The principal towns served from the Bull and Mouth were: Holyhead, Oxford, Birmingham, Shrewsbury, Kidderminster, Worcester, Leominster, Ludlow, Hereford, Kendal, Glasgow, Leeds, Halifax, Sheffield, Nottingham, and Northampton. Coaches started from these places daily, three times, or twice a week. The traffic appears strangely divided; this, however, was due to the competition of other coaches. Thus, a coach started twice a day for Birmingham, and also twice a day for Kendal.

Twenty-one coaches ran out of the Bull and Mouth every Monday. The same number came in. Other days were quite as busy. Besides, there were the wagons, of which twelve went out every week. The offices of the Post Office are now built over the site of this inn.

Farther north to the west of Aldersgate is the district ravaged by the fire of 1897, which burned down blocks of houses and streets. Jewin Crescent and Australian Avenue were the centre of the conflagration, but both have risen from their ashes. In Jewin Street Milton lived before his third marriage.

=Little Britain= was in the reigns of the Stuarts the centre of the bookselling trade, as Paternoster Row was later. Here lived Richard Chiswell (d. 1711), “the Metropolitan bookseller”; also Samuel Buckler, publisher of the _Spectator_; and Benjamin Franklin lodged for a time in “Little Britain.” But the association which confers the greatest distinction upon the street is that it was for a short time the residence of Milton when he lodged with the bookseller Millington about 1670.

The street at present is lined on one side by the uniform row of the buildings in the hospital precincts; these are of dingy brick with stuccoed ground-floor. On the east, there are a few modern buildings mingled with one or two older ones, which give the street a quaint aspect. No. 37 and the two numbers to the south of it are decidedly picturesque.

A full account of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital and Priory has been given in _Mediæval London_, vol. ii. p. 251.

The Priory on its suppression was granted to Sir Richard, afterwards 1st Baron, Rich, with the exception of the choir and south transept of the church, which were given to the parishioners, and it is this beautiful fragment that now forms the church of St. Bartholomew the Great.

ST. BARTHOLOMEW THE GREAT
]

ST. BARTHOLOMEW THE GREAT

The date of the first prior, Rahere, was 1123, that of the first
rector 1544.

When the Priory was suppressed, the patronage was given by Henry
VIII. to Sir Richard Rich, who granted it to Queen Mary. It was
inherited by Queen Elizabeth, who regranted it to Sir Richard (then
Lord) Rich, in whose family it remained until it was purchased by
William Phillips early in the nineteenth century, in whose
descendants it now remains.

From West Smithfield, the entrance to the church is through an Early
English arch with the dogtooth ornament. The length of the church is
over 130 feet, the breadth 57 feet; the Lady Chapel, built early in
the fourteenth century, is about 60 feet long by 26 feet wide. The
style of the building is mainly Norman, and was executed by Rahere
(1123-1144) and his successor Thomas of St. Osyth (1144-1174);
during the next half-century the Early English nave was added. The
clerestory, in the Perpendicular style (1405), is in marked contrast
with the Norman Triforium beneath it: the ambulatory passes behind
the altar. The most striking innovation early in the fifteenth
century was the pulling down of the Norman apse and the erection of
an east wall, rendering the eastern portion of the church square
instead of semicircular; a new apse was built, however, by Aston
Webb, to whom also is due the flat oak ceiling of the tower, erected
in 1886, and the north transept, and the north and west porches, in
1893. A bone crypt is situated beneath the eastern part of the Lady
Chapel, and was vaulted by arches of a single span of 22 feet; it
was restored in 1895. Three bays of the east walk of the cloister
exist, and were restored in 1905. The tower, built in 1628, contains
five of the oldest bells in London, dating from before 1510.

Many chantries were founded here, but went with the suppression in
1539.

This church contains a number of interesting monuments. The most
notable is that of the founder, Rahere, placed on the north side of
the church within the communion rails. In the south aisle there is
the tomb of Sir Walter Mildmay (d. 1589), one of Queen Elizabeth’s
ablest statesmen, and founder of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. On the
south wall there is a monument to Edward Cooke, a physician of
repute who died in 1652; this is composed of a soft kind of marble,
known as “weeping marble,” because in a damp atmosphere it breaks
out into moisture. The renovation of the church has caused it to
weep no more. Thomas Roycroft, the printer of the Polyglot Bible (d.
1677), has a memorial by the Lady Chapel screen, erected by his son
Samuel. On the north wall of the choir a tablet records the death of
John Whiting, who, on his death in 1704, left the parish a sum of
money for educational purposes, which is still applied in accordance
with his wishes. Sir John Deane, the first rector here and founder
of the Witton Grammar School, Northwich, in 1557, is commemorated by
a brass opposite the founder’s tomb. The font in the south transept
is that in which the painter Hogarth was baptized in 1697; he was
created a life-governor of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in
acknowledgment of his gift of staircase paintings when the Hospital
was rebuilt.

There were many charities attached to this parish after Stow’s time
(1605), but they were all swept away under Bryce’s Act except John
Whiting’s schools.

Thirty boys and twenty girls were maintained by subscription and
John Whiting’s gift.

Perhaps the most notable rector was Thomas Westfield (1605-1644),
Bishop of Bristol.

ST. BARTHOLOMEW THE LESS

This church served as the Hospital chapel in monastic times, and has
been used as a parish church for those within the Hospital precincts
since the dissolution of the priory. In 1789 the interior of the
tower was remodelled by the younger Dance, but in 1823 the church
was practically rebuilt by Thomas Hardwick. It has since been
restored, and the only trace of the old work is to be found in the
vestibule beneath the tower. The date of the first custodian was
1223. The date of the first vicar was 1532.

The patronage of the church was in the hands of: The Priors of St.
Bartholomew, Smithfield, up to 1532; the Governors of St.
Bartholomew’s Hospital.

The interior was remodelled on an octagonal plan by Dance in 1789;
this shape is obtained by means of clustered columns and arches
although the area enclosed by the walls is almost square. Above the
arches there is a clerestory pierced by windows. The ceiling is
groined.

No chantries are recorded to have been founded here.

_Pictorial Agency._

GENERAL POST OFFICE
]

The old church contained a large number of monuments and a few have
been preserved. The most ancient is one in memory of William
Markeley, who died in 1439. There is a tablet erected by Sir Thomas
Bodley, founder of the Bodleian Library at Oxford, to his wife Anne.
Sir Ralph Winwood, James I.’s ambassador to Holland and Secretary of
State, was buried here; also James Heath, author. In 1573 Inigo
Jones was baptized in this church. His father was a clothworker
living in or near Cloth Fair.

No charitable gifts or bequests are recorded by Stow.

=Bartholomew Close= is a curious place with many ramifications. Beginning at the south end, in the bit adjoining Westmoreland Buildings, there is nothing of especial interest. The old house at the end facing westward is used for offices, the remainder containing printing, publishing, and manufacturing premises. The great wide space, Bartholomew Close proper, has been to a very great extent rebuilt. On the east there are plain substantial business houses. At the corner of the entrance from Little Britain there is a large eighteenth-century house in excellent repair. This has a line of no less than nine windows across its breadth and is four stories in height. It has evidently been at one time a single dwelling-house. It is now cut up into three numbers, and contains many offices. On the north side of the Close there is a row of houses of the Georgian period which occupy the site of the Frater of the Monastery. These stand back a little from the line of the street. One has a small garden, and the others covered entries or one-storied offices before them.

The next arm of the Close, running up to the passage to the church, contains also a long line of old houses on the west. Many of these have small shops on the ground-floor; some possess the slightly bowed windows in fashion at the time they were built.

THE BUTCHERS COMPANY

As early as the year 1180 the fraternity or guild of Butchers of the
City, then and long after called “bochers,” was in existence.

This Company was incorporated in the year 1606, having existed
without a charter from time immemorial. I venture to advance the
theory that one reason why the Butchers did not seek corporation
before this date was the authority which the City claimed and
exercised in all matters connected with food, and especially with
meat, fish, and bread; and that which every alderman exercised in
his own ward. Thus it was the duty of the alderman to be notified as
to the names of every person in the ward exercising any trade
connected with food; and the mayor’s regulations as to the trade of
butcher (see _Liber Albus, passim_) seem to leave little need for
the scrutiny of a Master.

The principal seat of the butchers was in Newgate Street, then
called St. Nicholas Shambles. The spot was chosen as a place near
the principal communications of the City with the north and west
respectively. Animals brought in to be slaughtered had not far to go
within the City. Moreover, it was not a crowded part of London, and
was removed from the principal place of trade and from the port. The
butchers had also a market at the “Stocks,” and another at East
Chepe. There was, however, a very great dislike to living near the
Shambles or to keeping shops and stalls near those of the butchers.

Thus Riley (_Memorials_) quotes a complaint against the butchers
that they carried their offal through the streets to a jetty called
Butchers’ Bridge. The way, I suppose, was down Warwick Lane, Creed
Lane, and St. Andrew’s Hill to Puddle Dock or near it. The carriage
of this stuff, often stinking and always dripping blood along the
street, caused great complaints. Thus orders were issued one after
the other in 1368, 1369, and 1371, commanding the butchers to find a
place outside the City for a slaughter-house. The law was never
obeyed: probably the butchers made some kind of compromise or were
more careful in the carriage of the offal. They had already a place
on the banks of the Fleet to which they were allowed to cart their
refuse, on condition that it was thrown in at the turn of the tide.

The livery of the Company is 159; their trust and charitable Income
amounts to £831 a year.

Daniel Defoe, son of James Foe, citizen and butcher, was a member of
this Company by patrimony; admitted January 12, 1687.

CLOTH FAIR
]

The first glimpse of =Cloth Fair= from the Smithfield end is full of interest and attraction. It abounds in very old houses with projecting stories and gable ends. Many of these have the bowed curve of old age resembling the curving back of an old man. In others door-lintels and window-frames have slipped out of their horizontal lines. Barley Mow Passage is dull; it contains only plain warehouse-like buildings. In Cloth Fair, Nos. 6 to 4 are covered with rough stucco and have bayed windows and gable ends. These are the fronts of those seen over the churchyard. In New Court are buildings of a similar nature. There are interspersed with these quaint remnants of old domestic architecture business houses of no particular style. No. 13 on the north side, and the next one or two following it, are really old, and then we come to the corner of Kinghorn Street, where one of the oldest taverns remaining in London stands. This is the Dick Whittington. The corner is rounded off, and each story projects a little farther than the lower one. There is an ornamental cornice and gable end; the whole is covered with rough stucco.

OLD COACH AND HORSES, CLOTH FAIR
]

=Smithfield.=—Stow says: “Then is Smithfield Pond, which of old times in recordes was called Horse Poole, for that men watered horses there, and was a great water. In the 6th of Henry the fifth a new building was made in this west part of Smithfielde betwixt the said Pool and the River of the Wels or Turnemill Brooke in a place (then called the Elmes, for that there grew many Elme trees), and this had been the place of execution for offenders, since the which time the building there hath been so increased that now remaineth not one tree growing.”

LONG LANE, SMITHFIELD, 1810
]

The Elms here mentioned was the place of public execution until the middle of the thirteenth century; an honour transferred to St. Giles-in-the-Fields, and later to the more notorious Tyburn. Among the best known of those who suffered execution at Smithfield is William Wallace. Jack Straw, the rebel, was hanged at Smithfield, and here took place the picturesque scene, when the beautiful boy-king, Richard II., met Wat Tyler, and showed courage such as won admiration for the promise of his future, a promise destined to remain unfulfilled. Then and later Smithfield was the great jousting field and playground of London. Many were the brilliant tourneys held here, when knights met in chivalrous contest, and all the flower of England’s manhood drew together to try prowess at arms.

Smithfield, however, will be always best remembered by the blood of the martyrs which watered the ground. The spot where these cruelties took place is probably somewhere near the gate of St. Bartholomew’s. Between 1555 and 1611, many were the sufferings endured at Smithfield. Timbs says that of the 277 martyrs in Mary’s reign the greater number suffered here.

BARTHOLOMEW FAIR, 1721
]

In Henry VIII.’s reign poisoners were boiled to death at Smithfield. A place more closely associated with the life of London than this could hardly be imagined, yet nowadays who associates Smithfield with anything but markets!

In the centre of the open space is an inclined plane winding downward with a corkscrew turn until it passes into the basement of the Meat Market. Northward is the huge building erected by Act of Parliament in 1860, the year preceding the dismarketing of Newgate, which was closed at its opening seven years later. Sir Horace Jones was the architect, and the style is that generally known as Italian. The chief points of architectural effect are the four towers, the frontispieces or façades of the public roadway, which passes through the market from north to south, and the pedimented gateways to the east and west fronts. The plan or interior arrangement of the ground-floor is exceedingly simple. A great central roadway runs through from north to south. This was a compromise or concession to existing interests. It is from 50 to 60 feet wide, and the gateways at the entrances are very fine.

That on the south is ornamented by emblematical figures representing London and Edinburgh, and that on the north by similar figures symbolic of Dublin and Liverpool.

The central roadway is bisected by an east and west avenue 25 feet in width. The entrance gates at the ends of this are somewhat similar to those of the larger roadway. Six smaller avenues run parallel to the central roadway, cutting this secondary avenue at right angles. The blocks between the avenues contain the shops. These average about 36 feet by 15, and have offices and accommodation rooms above. The four corner blocks formerly contained taverns, but only two of these now remain. The roof is an adaption of the Mansard principle, and is filled in with glass louvres. A peculiar feature of the market is the great underground basement which is hollowed out to a depth of 22 feet, and extends even some distance beyond the limits of the building. This is supported by iron girders measuring roughly about five miles, and containing about 3000 tons of wrought iron. This is intersected by railway lines. Over the northern half the Metropolitan Railway has running powers; the southern forms a depot of the Great Western Railway. There are here two hydraulic hoists, and the meat brought by the Great Western lines is hoisted straight into the market. The circular depression mentioned as being in the centre of West Smithfield is in connection with this depot. All other meat is brought in vans and unloaded in the usual way. From 1 o’clock in the middle of the night for three mornings in the week, and from 2 o’clock the other two mornings the market is open, and closes alternately at 1 o’clock and 2 o’clock in the daytime.

From very early times Smithfield has been a market in addition to its manifold other uses. Stow says:

“There be the pens or folds, so called of sheep there parted, and penned up to be sold on market days.”

The Poultry Market adjoining was opened December 1, 1875. It covers an area of rather less than 1½ acres. It is similar generally in exterior treatment to the market already described but differs in small particulars. It is also on a different plan internally from the Meat Market, having a square of shops round the outer edge and four intersecting avenues which cut it up into central blocks. Here every shop has its cellar beneath, and the vaults which run beneath the avenues are occupied by a cold-air storage company, to whom belongs the great ventilating shaft in the triangular bit of land facing King Street. The London, Chatham, and Dover line also cuts diagonally beneath the market, but though the tunnelling is raised a little above the level of the flooring it still leaves room for vaults where it passes. There is one tavern in the Poultry Market.

The General Market is more expensive to the holder than either of the above, for it is let by tender to the highest bidder, whereas the others, by Act of Parliament, cannot claim a higher rental than a penny per square foot, and something extra for office space, etc.

This market was built to supersede the old Farringdon Market, and was at first meant for vegetables. At the time (1883) there was a movement towards a new Fish Market, and so the building was devoted to that purpose. The fish business, however, was not successful, and in December 1889 the market was transformed into a general market supplementary to the meat and poultry. It is now fully occupied, and brings in a very good rental.

The Fish Market on Snow Hill was opened in 1888. It is of triangular shape, and contains an inner triangle also. This is managed on much the same plan as the rest, but does not seem to be very successful; for some reason the fish trade does not flourish at Smithfield.

For a full account of Bartholomew Fair, so popular while it lasted, see _London in the Eighteenth Century_, p. 465.

GROUP VII

FLEET STREET AND ADJACENT STREETS

On the south side, Fleet Street presents a long line of historical associations—Bridewell, the Carmelites or Whitefriars, the Fleet Prison, Alsatia, and Sanctuary. These are all described in other parts of this work (see _London in the Eighteenth Century_). On the north side are the courts and streets of later origin. These, with the houses and shops of that side, present memories chiefly of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Roman remains have been found all along the river on the west of the City. In the year 1800 was discovered a sepulchral monument, now in the Guildhall Museum; a tessellated pavement was found in 1681, near St. Andrew’s, Holborn; in 1595, a stone pavement supported on piles was found near Chancery Lane, the piles proving the marshy character of the ground; the “old Roman bath” is in Strand Lane; in 1722, in digging for the foundations of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, an arch, a stone sarcophagus, and other Roman relics were found; and on Thorney Island itself numerous Roman remains have been discovered. In other words, there were Roman villas and residences all along the river from Ludgate to Westminster inclusive.

Fleet Street began to be settled before the thirteenth century; in 1228, one Henry le Buke slew another in Fleet Street and took sanctuary in St. Mary Overies, Southwark. In 1311, certain servants of the King’s household were arrested for a burglary in Fleet Street; at the same time complaints were made that the way from “La Barre du Novel Temple” and the Palace of Westminster was choked with bushes and thickets. One of the residents of Fleet Street supplied Edward II. with boots and tassels of silk in 1321. Shortly after, the houses from the Temple Church northwards were erected by the Templars.

The history of Fleet Street from the sixteenth century is much more detailed than can be given here; the reader must be referred to the special histories of the street and the locality. It suffered greatly in the Plague of 1625, when over 500 of the parishioners of St. Dunstan’s were carried off.