Chapter VI: Preface (6)

At the south end of Noble Street was Engain Lane, called also Maiden Lane, Ingelene Lane, or Ing Lane. Here a Roman pavement was found (_Proceedings of Soc. Antiq. Series_, i. 2. p. 184). Riley, in his Introduction to the _Memorials_, thinks that this lane is lost. He supposes, however, that the St. Michael “Hoggene Lane” was St. Michael Queenhithe, instead of St. Michael by Huggin Lane, which is adjacent.

A continuation of Maiden Lane is St. Anne’s Lane or Distaff Lane.

In 1339, William de Clif bequeaths tenements in Igene Lane “elsewhere called Ing Lane and Engaynes end, afterwards Maiden Lane” (Prideaux, _Goldsmiths’ Company_, vol. i. p. 4). In 1560, “Mother Lowndes” had a melting furnace in Maiden Lane. In 1627, Lord Nowell had the lease of a house in the lane. In 1642, Lord Campden wanted to purchase the messuage of which he held a lease, but was refused. In Staining Lane stood the almshouses of the Haberdashers for the men of that Company.

In the modern Noble Street the new Post Office Hotel is a conspicuous object on the east. Close by is Ye Noble Restaurant. Lilypot Lane is one consecutive series of the less ornamental style of modern brick and stone warehouses. Ye Olde Bell next to Oat Lane is evidently an old house, and, seen in the vista of the street, has a considerable bow forward. It is plastered. The coat-of-arms over the wooden doorway of the Coachmakers’ Hall arrests attention for a moment. Then we see Nos. 16 and 17 on either side over the entry of Fitchett’s Court, which are really old. They are of roughened red brick, dating from the rebuilding after the Fire. Fitchett’s Court is a narrow stone-flagged _cul de sac_ lined on either side with similar houses. At the upper end is a modern glass-roofed building. It is inhabited chiefly by manufacturers’ agents, but is quaint, with a projecting bowed window near the entry, and a dark woodwork doorway with two carved brackets supporting the cornice. The house mentioned above in Noble Street on the north of the Court is The Royal Mail Tavern. The remainder of this street contains no point of interest. The Coachmakers’ Hall stands on the east side of Noble Street, north of Oat Lane.

THE COACHMAKERS COMPANY

The Hall stands on the site of Shelley House, owned by Sir Thomas
Shelley _temp_ Henry IV. Afterwards it was named Bacon House by
Nicholas Bacon. “A plain man, direct and constant, without all
finesse and doubleness,” who dwelt here till the Queen, Elizabeth,
made him Lord Keeper in 1558, when he moved hence. He was the father
of Lord Bacon, the philosopher. He sometime rebuilt this house, and
was buried in St. Paul’s, where his effigy yet remains. After the
Lord Keeper’s departure, William Fleetwood, Recorder of London,
lived here between 1575 and 1586, yet he seems to have died in a
house of his own building, in Noble Street, to the north of this
(1593-94). By continual industry, advanced by natural good parts, he
attained to the name of an eminent lawyer. He was a man of a merry
conceit, eloquent and very zealous against vagrants, mass-priests,
and papists. In 1638, Sir Arthur Savage and others sold the house to
one Charles Bostock, scrivener. Now, the Common Scriveners had been
a Company of this City by prescription, time out of mind. They made
regulations for their profession in 1373; in 1390 they began their
Common Paper, a book of ordinances and signatures, still extant. Yet
there is no account of any Hall for them. In 1497 they met at the
dwelling-place of Henry Woodcock, their warden; in 1557 at Wax
Chandlers’ Hall. Their Charter of Incorporation (January 28,
1616-17) ordained a Hall, so in 1631 they bought Bacon House for
£810. After the Great Fire of 1666 they rebuilt this.

Afterwards the Coachmakers Company treated for its purchase, and
bought it with houses in Oat Lane, for £1600, raised by gift. For
though coaches had become common since the seventeenth century
began, and the Coach and Coach-Harness Makers had been incorporated
in 1677, they had up till then no Hall.

Early in the nineteenth century the Hall had become a warehouse,
whose counting-house retained the Coachmakers’ arms and a name-list
of their benefactors. In 1841 they rebuilt it; in 1843 furnished it
anew by subscription.

In 1870, borrowing money, they built the present Hall.

THE COACH AND COACH-HARNESS MAKERS COMPANY

The date of the first charter is 31st May, 29 Charles II., 1677, and
is for the general protection and supervision of the trade of
coachmakers and coach-harness makers.

In the early days of the Company, the master, wardens, and
assistants used to visit all the workshops within the prescribed
limits of the Company’s sphere of action, but that seems to have
engendered bad feelings among the various members of the trade, and
so gradually fell into desuetude; but in 1864 the Company granted
the free use of the hall for the operative Coachmakers’ Industrial
Exhibition, which was opened under the auspices of the Marquis of
Lansdowne and the Very Reverend Dean Milman, D.D. From that time to
the present the Company have continuously offered prizes to those
connected with the trade.

At present the number of the livery is 115. The Corporate Income is
£970; there is no Trust Income. The Company have of late held
exhibitions and offered prizes for the encouragement of
coach-building.

St. Olave’s Churchyard is on the south side of Silver Street. A stone inscription tells us that the road was widened 8 feet in 1865 just at this point. The disused graveyard is now open to the public as a recreation ground, and the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association have distributed seats about among the old tombs. Low down by the steps at the entrance is a stone slab bearing a heading of a skull and cross-bones, and beneath the following words:

This was the parish church of St. Olave’s, Silver Street, destroyed
by the Dreadful Fire in the year 1666.

ST. OLAVE, SILVER STREET

This church was situated on the south side of Silver Street, in
Aldersgate Ward. It was destroyed in the Great Fire and not rebuilt,
its parish being annexed to that of St. Alban’s, Wood Street. The
earliest date of an incumbent is 1343.

The patronage of the church was always in the hands of the Dean and
Chapter of St. Paul’s.

Houseling people in 1548 were 130.

No monuments of any interest are recorded.

The parish received two charitable gifts: a messuage purchased for
£58, the gift of Roger James; and £5 : 10s., to be paid every tenth
year, the gift of Bernard Hyde.

In Silver Street, No. 24 is the Parish Clerks’ Hall.

PARISH CLERKS

The Parish Clerks were first incorporated by 12 Henry III., 1232,
and confirmed by 14 Henry IV., 1412. In 1547, the first year of
Edward VI., all lands and properties belonging to fraternities not
being mysteries and crafts, were declared Crown possessions; thus
the Parish Clerks suffered the loss of their hall in Bishopsgate,
which was sold to Sir Robert Chester in 1548. In vain they disputed
the King’s claim; in vain obtained powerful support in the City, and
hoped to win the day: Sir Robert pulled down their hall, and they
were homeless. Then they took quarters at the north-west corner of
Broad Lane in the Vintry; the site is now thrown into the roadway of
Queen Street Place. Immortal Machyn, in his diary, 1562, records
that, after service at the Guildhall chapel and procession, that
year the Parish Clerks went to “their own” hall to dine; this was
the Broad Lane house. Little enough is known of the premises: the
Clerks were paying thirty-one nobles (£10 : 6: 8) rent in 1583; in
1592 they commenced publishing the Bills of Mortality; on renewing
the lease in 1628, for forty years, they handed to “the superior”
£40 as fine. By this time they had been reincorporated by the 8
James I., 1611, and were confirmed by 12 Charles I., 1636. They seem
to have covered their rent from 1648 onwards by letting the lower
rooms and cellars on lease for £11 per annum. In 1625 the Star
Chamber granted them permission to set up a printing-press in this
hall for the purpose of issuing the weekly Bills of Mortality. Here
also the Company appointed its own joiner, carpenter, and
bricklayer, nor omitted to secure the all-important cook. By 1637
the bricklayer had new-tiled the roof; he charged £12: also the
joiner had wainscotted the parlour, but the Clerks thought his bill
of £13 rather too much; he must include “some convenient work in
addition,” to be set up above the three doors in the newly
wainscotted room, then they would pay him and appoint him their
official joiner. The Great Fire destroyed this hall two years before
the lease was up. For some time the Court of the Company wandered
from tavern to tavern, but in 1671 ultimately settled at their
present hall in Silver Street.

=Monkwell Street=, anciently written Mugwell, Muggewell, or Mogwell Street, was so called, according to Stow, after a well in the Hermitage of St. James at the north end of the street. The Hermitage was a cell belonging to Garendon Abbey where two or three of the brethren resided as chaplains. There is no doubt about the house or the Hermitage, and very possibly there was a well within its small precinct. At the same time the ancient form of the name, Mugwell, does not suggest the word Monk. It seems probable that the name was originally Mugwell, and that after the Dissolution the memory of the well was kept up by a corruption of the name. The street appears to have been outside the industries of North London. It is mentioned many times in the _Calendar of Wills_, but never in connection with workshops or trading shops. Between 1277 and 1576 there are the entries of the street. They all speak of rents, tenements, and houses. In the year 1349 we find a brewery in the street. This naturally inclines us to think that there must have been a well—? Mugwell—to supply the brewery. In Riley’s _Memorials_ it is mentioned once only in connection with a tourelle of London Wall near the street. The Hermitage was succeeded by Lamb’s Chapel.

THE BARBERS

This Fraternity should also be of extreme antiquity. When or why the
barbers took upon themselves the practice of surgery I do not know.
It was the custom of the Roman Catholic Church to allow
ecclesiastics to become physicians on the condition (Council of
Tours, 1163) that they abstained from fire and steel; Rabelais, for
instance, in the fifteenth century, practised medicine subject to
this condition. But some kinds of surgery are necessary:
bone-setting, for instance, which was understood and performed by
the common people; dentistry, which at first fell into the hands of
barbers but afterwards became a separate mystery practised by
itinerants; cupping, blood-letting, the dressing of wounds, and
amputations also fell into the hands of the barbers. But not of all
the barbers. Surgery advanced by degrees; it became a distinct
profession before it was recognised.

That the barbers practised blood-letting is proved by an ordinance
of 1307 forbidding them to put blood in their windows in view of
folks. In 1308, Richard le Barber is presented to the mayor and
admitted Master over the trade of Barbers. He swore to make scrutiny
among the craft, and if he found any keeping brothels or acting
unseemly he would distrain upon them. The oath indicates that
barbers were suspected of keeping disorderly houses; in fact they
looked after the bagnios, which were always regarded with
well-founded suspicion. Barbers were often appointed as gatekeepers.
The reason would seem difficult to find, until it is remembered that
it was strictly forbidden that lepers should enter the City, and
that barbers were better able than other men from their medical
knowledge to detect them.

The earliest admission of a surgeon is recorded in the year 1312.
John of Southwark is described as “cirurgicus.” Clearly he was that
and nothing else; not a shaving man at all.

Some of them were wealthy. For instance, Hamo the Barber in 1340 was
assessed at £10 as his contribution towards a forced loan of £5000
to the King.

In the year 1376, the fraternity was ruled by two masters
representing the two divisions of barbers—who could also let blood
and draw teeth—and surgeons.

In the year 1388, the King sent writs all over the kingdom to
inquire into the constitution of the guilds and fraternities then
existing in the country. The returns appear to have been lost. But
the return sent in by the barbers still exists in a copy preserved
at Barbers’ Hall. It is published _in extenso_ in Mr. Sidney Young’s
book. It is a long document, and it pours a flood of light upon the
guilds and their laws. The original is in Norman French.

Since the barbers were not yet incorporated, they had no authority
except over their own members. They could not, therefore, prevent
the formation of a Fraternity of Surgeons, who practised without any
reference to the barbers. In 1376, the barbers, no doubt because of
this rival guild, complained against incompetent persons practising
surgery, and prayed that two masters should rule the craft, and that
none should be admitted without examination. In 1390, the Surgeons’
Guild obtained powers to appoint five masters for the directing of
those practising surgery and of women as well as men. The surgeons
thereupon tried to exercise the right of scrutiny over the barbers,
who claimed and obtained the protection of the City.

In the year 1461, Edward IV. granted the barbers a Charter of
Incorporation.

The preamble to the Letters Patent, 1 Edward IV., by which the
Company were incorporated, recites that the Freemen of the Mystery
of Barbers of the City of London, using the Mystery or Faculty of
Surgery, had for a long time exercised and sustained and still
continued to exercise and sustain great application and labour, as
well about the curing and healing wounds, blows, and other
infirmities as in the letting of blood and drawing of teeth, and
that by the ignorance and unskilfulness of some of the said barbers,
as well freemen of the said City as of others being foreign
surgeons, many misfortunes had happened to divers people by the
unskilfulness of such barbers and surgeons in healing and curing
wounds, blows, hurts, and other infirmities, and that it was to be
feared that the like or worse evils might thereafter ensue unless a
suitable remedy was speedily provided in the premises.

And it was thereby granted to the freemen of the said mystery of
barbers in the said City of London, that the said mystery and all
the men of the said mystery, should be one body, and one perpetual
community, with power for electing two masters or governors, and
that the said masters or governors and commonalty and their
successors might make statutes and ordinances for the government of
the said mysteries. And that the masters or governors for the time
being, and their successors, should have the survey, search,
correction, and government of all the freemen of the said City being
surgeons, using the mystery of barbers in the said City, and other
surgeons being foreigners practising the mystery of surgery within
the said City and suburbs thereof, and the punishment of them for
offences in not perfectly executing, performing, and using the said
mystery, and should have the survey of all manner of instruments,
plaisters, and other medicines, and the receipts used by the said
barbers and surgeons for the curing and healing of sores, wounds,
hurts, and such like infirmities. And that no barber using the said
mystery of surgery within the said City or suburbs should be
thereafter admitted to exercise the same mystery unless he had first
been approved of as well instructed in that mystery by the said
masters or governors, or their successors sufficiently qualified in
that behalf.

By the Act of Parliament of 32 Henry VIII., after reciting that
within the said City of London there were then two several and
distinct companies of surgeons exercising the science and faculty of
surgery, the one company called the Barbers of London, and the other
called the Surgeons of London, and that the former were incorporated
by the Letters Patent of 1 Edward IV., but the latter had not any
manner of incorporation; it was enacted that the two several and
distinct companies, and their successors, should from thenceforth be
united and made one entire and whole body corporate, which should
thereafter be called by the name of Masters or Governors of the
Mystery or Commonalty of Barbers and Surgeons of London.

The Letters Patent of 1 James and 5 Chas. I., granted and confirmed
to the united companies: All and singular the manors, messuages,
lands, tenements, customs, liberties, franchises, immunities,
jurisdictions, and hereditaments of the united companies of barbers
and surgeons then held by them and enjoyed under any letters patent
of any former kings and queens or by colour of any lawful
prescription, with power to make byelaws, annual elections, appoint
examiners of surgeons, and that no person should exercise surgery
within the cities of London and Westminster or within the distance
of seven miles of the said cities, unless previously examined; and
by the public letters testimonial of the said company, under their
common seal, and admitted to exercise the said art or mystery of
surgery under the penalty therein mentioned; and that all persons so
examined and admitted as aforesaid might exercise the art in any
other places whatsoever of the kingdom of England, with power to
appoint lectures for instruction in the principles and rudiments in
the art of chirurgery.

By the Act of 18 Geo. 2, cap. 15, after reciting the
before-mentioned Acts, and that the barbers had for many years past
been engaged in a business foreign to and independent of the
practice of surgery, and the surgeons being then become a numerous
and considerable body, and finding their union with the barbers
inconvenient in many respects, and in no degree conducive to the
progress of the art of surgery, and that a separation of the
corporation of barbers and surgeons would contribute to the
improvement of surgery, it was enacted that the said union and
incorporation of barbers and surgeons should, after June 24, 1745,
be dissolved, and the surgeons were constituted a separate and
distinct body corporate by the name of the Master, Governors, and
Commonalty of the Art and Science of Surgeons of London; and the
barbers were thereby constituted a body corporate and commonalty
perpetual, which should be called by the name of the Master,
Governors, and Commonalty of the Mystery of Barbers of London.

The Barbers Company, since their separation from the surgeons, have
continued to conduct the affairs of the Company.

The Hall of the Company is mentioned by Stow with certain
particulars of their history:

“In this west side is the Barbers-Chirurgeons’ hall. This Company
was incorporated by means of Thomas Morestede, esquire, one of the
sheriffs of London 1436, chirurgeon to the kings of England, Henry
IV., V., and VI.: he deceased 1450. Then Jaques Fries, physician to
Edward IV., and William Hobbs, physician and chirurgeon for the same
king’s body, continuing the suit the full time of twenty years,
Edward IV., in the 2nd of his reign, and Richard, Duke of
Gloucester, became founders of the same corporation in the name of
St. Cosme and St. Damiane. The first assembly of that craft was
Roger Strippe, W. Hobbs, T. Goddard, and Richard Kent; since the
which time they built their hall in that street, etc.”

The number of the livery is about 120. There are no particulars as
to the Corporate Income of the Company. The Trust Income is about
£650 per annum.

GROUP III

The third group of streets is that which is bounded on the south by Cannon Street, on the east by Bishopsgate Street and Gracechurch Street, and on the west by Moorgate Street, Princes Street, and Walbrook, and northward by the City limits.

This, with Cheapside, includes the very heart and centre of the City. In it are the streets called Cornhill, Lombard Street, Threadneedle Street, Throgmorton Street, Lothbury, Princes Street, and Broad Street. Here were formerly the ecclesiastical foundations of the Austin Friars and St. Anthony’s. Here are the Royal Exchange, the Bank of England, the Mansion House, the offices of many Banks and of Companies; the site of such well-known houses as the Baltic, the South Sea House, Garraway’s, the Jerusalem, the London Tavern. In Lombard Street we have the first house of City Firemen and the first Post Office. In Broad Street is the site of Gresham House, afterwards Gresham College, founded with such a noble ambition, fallen now to so poor a place.

In this place it is proposed to take the principal streets and lanes and to set down whatever points of interest have not been touched upon in the large History of London.

=Cornhill= has been a crowded street from time immemorial. Stow says that there was here a corn market. It does not seem proved, however, that there ever was one here. Loftie points out that the London corn market was on the east side of St. Michael-le-Querne, opposite Bread Street. It has been suggested that the family of Coren Hell or Corn Hill gave their name to the ward. In 1125 there is Edward Heep Cornhill among those engaged in the conveyance of the Portsoken to the Holy Trinity Priory. But a market of some sort was most certainly held here, and it may have been originally a corn market.

We must not suppose that the division of trades and markets was ever rigidly observed. If there were bakers in Bread Street, there may have been bakers elsewhere for the general convenience. Then in 1347 (Riley’s _Memorials_, p. 236) there was a corn market in Gracechurch Street and another in Newgate Street. The market was opposite the Franciscan House, so that perhaps we may accept Stow’s statement and conclude that the corn market of Cornhill gradually receded eastward into Gracechurch Street, where it was presently absorbed by Leadenhall Market, which is reckoned by Stow as in Cornhill.

In 1310 proclamation was made in the City as follows:

“It is ordered and commanded on the King’s behalf, that no man or woman shall be so daring or so bold as from henceforth to hold a common market for any manner of merchandise in the highway of Chepe after the hour of None, as heretofore they have done; nor yet in any other place within the City, save only upon Cornhulle; and that, from Matins until the hour of None, and not after: on pain of forfeiture of the goods so carried there to sell, by way of holding common market there” (Riley’s _Memorials_, p. 75).

The hour of “None” is from two to three. What was the meaning of this proclamation? Why must the markets of Chepe be closed at three while those of Cornhill remained open? But in 1369, because many cheats had been possible by selling things after dark, it was ordered that at the ringing of the bell upon the Tun at sunset (not the bell of St. Mary-le-Bow, which only belonged to West Chepe), all shops and stalls were to be closed.

The Tun, of which mention has often been made in other volumes of this book, was a small prison, something like a tun, built by Henry le Waleys in 1282. Beside it was a conduit built by the same citizen. And there was a standard for Thames water brought there by the contrivance of one Peter Morris, a Dutchman. Distances were reckoned from the standard of Cornhill.

Here were stocks for the sturdy beggar, the lazar, should he venture into the City, and fraudulent dealers. Here was a pillory for similar offenders; one William Felde stood in it in 1375 for cheating hucksters of ale. Here Gyleson also, in 1348, was so put to public shame for selling putrid pork, some of which was burned under his nose to his unspeakable discomfort.

The earliest occupants of Cornhill, according to Strype, were drapers. It is, however, certain that other trades were established there. Thus in 1302 there is a baker of Cornhill; in 1318 a bakehouse opposite the Pillory; in 1345 the City poulterers are ordered not to sell east of the Tun on Cornhill, while the “foreign” poulterers are sent to Leadenhall; in 1342, “false” blankets are burned in Cornhill; in 1347 there is a turner of Cornhill; in 1364 a tailor; in 1365 the pelterers are ordered to carry on their business in Cornhill, Walbrook, and Budge Row only; in 1372 the blacksmiths are confined for the exhibition of their wares to Gracechurch Street, St. Nicholas Fleshambles’ (Newgate), and the Tun of Cornhill.

The punishment of common clerks illustrated by Stow is noted elsewhere. As regards the Tun, he writes:

THE PUMP IN CORNHILL, 1800
]

“By the west side of the foresaid prison, then called the Tun, was a fair well of spring water curbed round with hard stone; but in the year 1401, the said prison house, called the Tun, was made a cistern for sweet water, conveyed by pipes of lead from Tiborne, and was from thenceforth called the Conduit upon Cornhill. Then was the well planked over, and a strong prison made of timber called a cage, with a pair of stocks therein set upon it, and this was for night walkers. On the top of which cage was placed a pillory, for the punishment of bakers offending in the assize of bread, for millers stealing of corn at the mill, for bawds, scolds, and other offenders. As in the year 1468, the 7th of Edward IV., divers persons being common jurors, such as at assizes were forsworn for rewards, or favour of parties, were judged to ride from Newgate to the pillory in Cornhill, with mitres of paper on their heads, there to stand, and from thence again to Newgate, and this judgment was given by the mayor of London. In the year 1509, the 1st of Henry VIII., Darby, Smith, and Simson, ringleaders of false inquests in London, rode about the city with their faces to the horse tails, and papers on their heads, and were set on the pillory in Cornhill, and after brought again to Newgate, where they died for very shame, saith Robert Fabian.

“The foresaid conduit upon Cornhill, was in the year 1475 enlarged by Robert Drope, draper, mayor, that then dwelt in that ward; he increased the cistern of this conduit with an east end of stone and castellated it in comely manner” (Stow’s _Survey_, p. 208).

In the time of Stow there were still standing some of the old houses, built of stone in accordance with the regulations of Henry Fitz Aylwin and other mayors. The danger of fire was thus diminished. But those houses which in many cases were built round open courts, covering a large space and of no more than two stories in height, were gradually taken down and houses of four or five stories built in their place, a fact which must be remembered when we read of the Great Fire. All those broad courts and open spaces which might have checked the Fire at so many points were gone in 1666, and replaced by high houses standing together and by narrow courts.

The Royal Exchange, the Bank of England, and the Mansion House are so mixed up with the general history of London that they must be sought for in the volumes that have preceded this.

The Weigh-house was the place where all merchandise brought across the sea was taken to be weighed at the King’s beam. “This house hath a master, and under him four master porters, with porters under them: they have a strong cart, and four great horses, to draw and carry the wares from the merchants’ houses to the beam and back again” (Stow, p. 73). The house was built by Sir Thomas Lovell, “with a fair front of tenements towards the street.” The cart therefore was taken into an inner court through a gateway, as we might expect.

There were many taverns in and about Cornhill.

In the sixteenth century was still standing one of the old stone houses of which we have spoken. This was popularly known as “King John’s House.” Now at the granting of the commune to the City, John lodged at the house of Richard Fitz Richer, the sheriff. Possibly this was the house. Pope’s Head Alley marks the site of the Pope’s Head Tavern, which had the ancient arms of England, three leopards between two angels, engraved in stone on the front. Stow thinks it may have been a royal palace.

A perspective view of =Cornhill= at the present day gives a very fine effect. The sides are lined with large buildings on the erection of which no time or expense has been spared, and the protuberant stone decoration and the lines of enriched windows give on the whole an appearance of wealth and dignity. Yet, taken singly, there are few of these buildings that deserve any commendation. There is a sameness and want of originality. Everywhere are round-headed windows and stone foliage; everywhere the same shaped roof projections and pinnacles. The flagged space in front of the Royal Exchange is decorated by trees in tubs, and on it stands an equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington. This was executed by Sir Francis Chantrey in 1844. The Royal Exchange lines the side of the street for some distance and all round the ground-floor are shops, etc. Beyond it is a second open space. The statue here facing southward is of Rowland Hill. The figure is on a block of polished granite.

Beyond Finch Lane the Union Bank of Australia stands out as one of the exceptions to the general monotony of the street. It is of white stone, in a severe style without undue excrescences, and the chief ornament is a row of sculpturesque figures supporting the cornice.

On the south side of Cornhill an entrance to St. Peter’s Church first attracts attention.

ST. PETER, CORNHILL

This church is possibly the most ancient in the City. It was
practically rebuilt in the reign of Edward IV. and thoroughly
renovated in 1632, but so damaged by the Great Fire that after
attempts at restoration it had to be rebuilt. The present building
was erected by Wren in 1680-81. The earliest known date of an
incumbent is 1263—one John de Cabanicis. There is an unbroken
succession since John de Exeter, 1282.

The patronage of the church was in the hands of the family of Nevil
before 1263, one of whom, Lady Alice Nevil, conveyed it in 1362 to
Richard, Earl of Arundell, for a term of years; in 1380 to Thomas
Coggeshall and others; in 1402 to Hampweyde Bohern, Earl of
Hereford. It was again conveyed about, or shortly before, 1395 to
Robert and Margaret Rykedon and others, who presented to it in 1405;
it was confirmed to Richard Whittington and others in 1408, who in
turn confirmed it in 1411 to the Mayor and Commonalty of London, in
whose successors it continued.

Houseling people in 1548 were 500.

The church measures 80 feet in length, 47 feet in breadth, and 40
feet in height, and contains a nave and two aisles separated from
the central portion by Corinthian columns. There is a very fine
screen, one of the only two erected in the City of London, and the
only one remaining in its original position. The steeple, which
rises at the south-west, attains a height of 140 feet, and consists
of a tower and cornice surmounted by a cupola, an octagonal lantern,
and a spire, terminating in St. Peter’s emblem, the Key. The view of
the exterior is blocked on the north by intervening houses, but on
the south the church is open to the churchyard.

Chantries were founded here by Roger FitzRoger previous to 1284; by
Nicholas Pycot at the Altar of St. Nicholas in 1312; by Philip de
Ufford at the Altar of St. Katherine in 1321; by Robert de la Hyde
at the Altar of St. George in 1328; by William Elliot (William of
Kingston) at the Altar of the Holy Trinity, for himself, Sarah and
Alynor his wives, and for his father and mother in 1375; by John
Foxton at the Altar of St. George in 1382; by John Waleys at the
same altar in 1409; and by Dame Alice Brudenel in 1437 to the Altar
of St. Nicholas. There were also chantries founded by Richard
Morley, Peter Mason, and John Lane. The Guild or Fraternity of St.
Peter was established in this church by Henry IV. in 1403 at the
intercession of Queen Johanna, William Aghton being rector. The
valuation of the Rectory _temp_ Henry VIII. was £39 : 5 : 7½, to
which was added tenths from the chantries amounting to £14 : 14 : 4.

A large number of monuments are recorded by Stow, some of the most
notable of which were in memory of: William of Kingston; Margery
Clopton, widow of Robert Clopton; Sir Christopher Morice, Master
Gunner of England to Henry VIII.; Sir Henry Huberthorne, Merchant
Taylor, and Lord Mayor of the City; Francis Breerewood, Treasurer of
Christ’s Hospital; Sir William Bowyer. John Carpenter, the famous
Town Clerk of London and compiler of the _Liber Albus_, was also
buried here. In the vestry is an interesting tablet copy of one
hanging in St. Paul’s Cathedral from A.D. 1300, and preserved from
the Great Fire, to the effect that this church was the first founded
in London, and that it was erected by King Lucius in 179—a legend
which Stow himself appears not to have believed. There is here,
also, the old key-board and organ-stops used by Mendelssohn when he
played in St. Peter’s in 1840 and 1842. The portraits of Bishop
Beveridge and Bishop Waugh, both of whom were rectors here for some
years, hang on the walls. A fine manuscript Vulgate, with
illuminations, written for the Altar of the Holy Trinity in St.
Peter’s, is also preserved in the vestry.

_Drawn by G. Shepherd._

ST. PETER’S, CORNHILL
]

Among the most important charities were those of: Laurence Thompson,
1601, who left £100 in trust for tea, coal, and bread for the poor
of the parish. William Walthal, 1606, who left £246 : 13 : 4, £200
of which was to be lent to the struggling shopkeepers of the parish,
the interest to be distributed in bread and coal. The Robert Warden
(1609) bequest for Ash Wednesday sermons and Sunday bread to be
administered through the Poulterers Company. The Lucy Edge (1630)
bequest for the weekly lecture. Sir Benjamin Thorowgood’s (1682)
bequest of three shops at the west end of the church for the
maintenance of the organ and organist; and the Gibbs’ bequest
(1864). Of these, all, with the exception of the Lucy Edge and
Gibbs’ bequests, which provide for the Thursday lecturer, and part
of the Robert Warden bequest, which provides for the Ash Wednesday
sermon before the Poulterers Company, have been appropriated, with
other endowments, by the City Parochial Charities, out of which
common fund a yearly allowance is made for the upkeep of the Church.

John Hodgkin, Bishop of Bedford, 1537, was rector here; also John
Taylor (d. 1554), Bishop of Lincoln; Francis White (d. 1638), Bishop
of Ely; William Beveridge (1637-1708), Bishop of St. Asaph; John
Waugh, Bishop of Carlisle, 1723—he is buried in front of the present
altar.

Next door to the church is another of the exceptions in the street, a well-designed terra-cotta building. The building is in a late Perpendicular or Tudor style, and is appropriately named Tudor Chambers. St. Peter’s Alley leads to the graveyard at the back of the church, which is cut in two by an abnormally broad sweeping way up to the centre door. Plainly built chambers of many stories look down on the dusty evergreens of the churchyard. The next object of interest is the deeply recessed and beautifully ornamented porch of St. Michael, which stands back a little from the line of the street. By the side of the church is St. Michael’s Alley, which leads us to the graveyard. In this a small cloister or entry with vaulted roof leads through to the churchyard, a space of newly turned soil with a fringe of the inevitable evergreen bushes.

The great London coffee-house was set up in St. Michael’s Alley in 1652 by one Pasqua Rosee.

ST. MICHAEL, CORNHILL

The body of St. Michael’s Church was destroyed in the Great Fire and
rebuilt by Wren in 1672; the tower was injured and pulled down in
1722, when the present tower, also the work of Wren, was erected. In
1858 it was greatly altered by Sir Gilbert Scott. The earliest date
of an incumbent is 1287.

The patronage of the church was in the hands of: Alnoth the priest,
before 1133, who granted it to the Abbot and Convent of Evesham, who
gave it in 1133 to Sparling the priest; the Abbot and Convent of
Evesham, who granted it in 1505 to Simon Hogan, who bequeathed it to
the Drapers’ Company, who presented to it in 1515, and in whose
successors it continued.

The church measures 87 feet in length, 60 feet in breadth, and 35
feet in height, and contains two aisles divided from the nave by
Doric columns. The church was originally in the Italian style, but
the alterations in 1858-60 by Sir Gilbert Scott give the appearance
of a nineteenth-century imitation of mediævalism. The tower is
Gothic in architecture, and contains three stories crowned by a
parapet from the angles of which four pinnacles rise up. The total
height is 130 feet. The church has always been famous for its bells,
of which it possesses 12.

Chantries were founded here by: Walter de Bullingham, to which John
de Bourge was admitted chaplain, August 22, 1390; Thomas Baker
augmented the endowment by £2 : 18 : 8; Ralph More was chaplain in
1548, “a man of 50 yrs. who hath lyen bedridden this 18 years”;
Simon Smith; William Comerton at the Altar of Blessed Virgin Mary;
Hamo Box, for which the King granted his licence, July 28, 1321;
William Rus, whose endowment for this and other purposes fetched
£27 : 13 : 4 in 1548, when William Penne was priest “of the age of
38 years, and of indifferent learning and hath none other living but
this his yearly stipend of £8”; Andrew Smythe, who endowed it with
lands, etc., which fetched £12 in 1548, when John Paddye was priest
“of the age of 26 years, indifferently learned, having no other
living or promotion over and above his stipend of £7 : 6 : 7”; Simon
Mordonne, mayor, 1368, who left tenements valued at £9 in 1548, when
John Campyon was priest, “of the age of 66 years, a good singer and
indifferently well learned, having none other living besides this
his stipend of £6 : 18 : 4”; John Langhorne, who endowed it with
tenements which yielded £10 : 8s. in 1548, when Abail Mortcock was
priest, “of the age of 36 years, whose qualities, conversation, and
learning is as the other and hath none other living but this his
stipend of £6 : 13 : 4.” The King granted his licence to Peter Smart
and others to found a guild in honour of St. Anne and Our Lady,
September 27, 1397, which was valued at £17 : 13 : 4 in 1548, when
Sir William Bryck was chaplain “of the age of 33 years, moderately
well learned.” John Shopman and others have licence to found a guild
in honour of Blessed Virgin Mary with special devotion to St.
Michael the Archangel, October 4, 1442.

CONFECTIONER’S SHOP, CORNHILL
]

Alderman Robert Fabian (d. 1513) was buried here in 1513; he
compiled an elaborate chronicle, _The Concordance of Histories_,
dealing with France as well as England. This church is specially
connected with the antiquary John Stow, and both his father and
grandfather were buried here. Against the north walk there is a
monument in memory of John Vernon, erected in place of one consumed
by the Fire, by the Merchant Taylors in 1609; he was a donor of
several large legacies. In 1609 John Cowper was buried here—founder
of a family whose memory is still preserved in connection with
Cowper’s Court, Cornhill. To this family the poet Cowper belonged.

The parish was extremely rich in charitable gifts. Brass tablets are
affixed to the sides of the tower recording the dates, etc., of
repairs, and the benefactors in connection, amongst whom are the
following: Sir John Langham, £500; Sir Edward Riccard, £100; James
Clotheroe, £50. Other benefactors were Robert Drope, donor of £30,
and his wife Jane, afterwards Viscountess Lisle, of £90.

William Brough (d. 1671), Dean of Gloucester, and author of several
religious works, was rector here; also Robert Poole-Finch
(1724-1803), chaplain of Guy’s Hospital and a preacher of some
eminence.

No. 15 Cornhill is the oldest shop of its class in the Metropolis. The window is set in a carved wooden framework, painted green, which encloses the small glass panes in three arches. It was established as a confectioner’s shop in the time of George I., and it is a confectioner’s still. Within, the low roof and thick woodwork testify its age. It might easily be overlooked, as the brick house rising above it presents no noticeable feature.

Of =Change Alley= one has to note that Jonathan’s Coffee-house was the resort of those who dealt and dabbled in stocks.

GARRAWAY’S COFFEE-HOUSE
]

Why did ‘Change Alley waste thy precious hours,
Among the fools who gap’d for golden show’rs?
No wonder if we found some poets there,
Who live on fancy and can feed on air;
No wonder they were caught by South-Sea schemes,
Who ne’er enjoyed a guinea but in dreams.

Here also were Garraway’s and Robins’ Coffee-houses. In 1722 “the better sort,” according to Defoe, who carried on business as a hosier in Freemason’s Court, met at these coffee-houses before going to the Exchange.

The present Stock Exchange was not erected till the year 1801.

Strype thus speaks of the Alley as it was after improvements:

“Exchange Alley, that lies next eastward, hath two passages out of Cornhill; one into Lombard Street, and another bending east into Birchin Lane. It is a large Place vastly improved, chiefly out of an house of Alderman Backwall’s, a Goldsmith, before the Great Fire, well built, inhabited by tradesmen; especially that passage into Lombard Street against the Exchange, and is a place of a very considerable concourse of Merchants, seafaring men and other traders, occasioned by the great Coffee houses, Jonathan’s and Garraway’s, that stand there. Chiefly now brokers, and such as deal in buying and selling of Stocks, frequent it. The Alley is broad and well paved with free-stones, neatly kept. The Fleece Tavern, seated in Cornhill, hath a passage into this Alley, being a very large house and of great resort.” At No. 41 Thomas Gray the poet was born on December 24, 1716.

Change Alley is at present a winding and tortuous thoroughfare. It bears the date 1886 over the western entry, and contains many red and glazed white brick houses. Close by this entry is the Bakers’ Chop House, a curious little old building with projecting windows of dark wood.

In the next portion of Change Alley is a well-built red brick building by R. Norman Shaw, with a slab on the north-east corner bearing the inscription:

The site of Garraway’s Coffee House, rebuilt 1874;

and beneath is a large stone grasshopper.

=Gracechurch Street=, called also Grass church, Garscherche, and Gracious Street, was formerly a market for hay, corn, malt, cheese, etc. There was uncertainty about the name, for in 1329 we find it written Grescherche Street, in 1333 Grascherche Street, a form of the name which is afterwards repeated.

In 1275 there is a will by one Martin de Garscherche bequeathing property to his sons and daughters; in 1294, 1311, and 1324, we hear of tenements in Garscherche, which seems as if the place was then an open market, not yet settled down to a street; perhaps, however, the dignity of a street was sometimes conferred upon it, for in 1296 there is mention of Leadenhall in Garscherch Street, and in 1342 it is also named as a street.

In 1320 one of the supervisors of shoes was Richard le Cordewaner of “Gras cherche”; in 1347 a jury of “Graschirche,” consisting of a butcher and eleven others, accused John de Burstalle of selling corn at more than the legal price, and he was sent to prison for forty days; in 1372 it was ordained that the blacksmiths should send their work either to “Graschirche” or to the “Pavement” by St. Nicholas Fleshambles, or by the Tun on Cornhill, and should stand by their work openly. Therefore the market here was not confined to hay and corn. In 1386 one Thomas Stokes was in trouble for pretending to be an officer and taker of ale for the household of the King, under which pretence he marked with an arrowhead several barrels in the brewery of William Roke of Graschirche. There was therefore a brewery in the market. One finds so many breweries scattered about the City that one asks how they got the water; it must certainly have been drawn up from a local well. Another case of personating an officer of the King was that of William Redhede in 1417, who tried to carry off certain bushels of wheat at Graschirche pretending that they were for the King. He was clapped into prison and then put in pillory. “Upon the three market days ensuing he was to be taken each day from the Prison of Newgate to the Market called ‘le Cornmarket’ opposite to the Friars Minors and there the cause of the judgment aforesaid was to be proclaimed: and after that he was to be taken through the middle of the high street of Chepe to the Pillory on Cornhille; and upon that he was to be placed on each of those three days there to stand for one hour each day, the reason of his sentence being then and there proclaimed, and after that he was to be taken from thence through the middle of the high street of Cornhill to the Market of Graschirche aforesaid, where like proclamation was to be made: and from thence back to prison.”

Roman remains, such as vases, bronzes, coffins, have been found in this street.

In 1654 Brethmer, citizen of London, gave to the Church at Canterbury his messuage at “Gerscherche” as also the Church of Allhallows, Lombard Street.

The street is continually mentioned in connection with tenements, messuages, houses, and rents.

In more modern times Richard Tarleton the actor lived in Gracechurch Street, at the sign of the Saber. Probably he acted in the courtyard of the Cross Keys in the same street, licensed in 1570, but only for that year. Many pageants and processions were conducted through Gracechurch Street.

In Gracechurch Street at the corner of Fenchurch Street was St. Benet’s Church.

=St. Benet, Grasschurch=, was so called after St. Benedict. The date
of its foundation is unknown. It was burnt down in the Great Fire,
rebuilt and finished in 1685. In 1868 the building was pulled down,
and in 1869 and 1870 the site was occupied by offices. The earliest
date of an incumbent is 1170.

The patronage of the church was in the hands of the Dean and Chapter
of St. Paul’s, who granted it about 1142 to Algarus the priest, for
his life.

Houseling people in 1548 were 223.

A chantry was founded here in the chapel of St. Mary and St.
Katherine for Lady Joan Rose; the endowment fetched £14 : 3 : 4 in
1548.

Few notable monuments in this church are recorded by Stow. It
originally contained Queen Elizabeth’s monument. The parish was rich
in charitable gifts, some of the donors of which were: Mrs. Doxie of
£50, for the better maintenance of the parson; Lady Elizabeth Newton
£40, and many others whose names are not recorded.

In modern Gracechurch Street, at the corner of Eastcheap, is a fine new building of the National Provident Institution for Mutual Life Assurance. The courts opening out of the street are lined with countless window reflectors and are very monotonous. The Russian Bank is fine and of great height; on the west there is a long line of brick and stucco buildings which can boast no style at all. The street is given over to merchants, solicitors, bankers, agents, etc. The great building at the corner of Lombard Street is the City Linen Company Bank, and is conspicuous by reason of its stone ornamentation.

The northern portion of the street is not remarkable for architectural beauty. The street consists chiefly of great square blocks of buildings interspersed with dull early nineteenth-century brick boxes. In Bell Yard there is an almost unbroken line of old houses on the south side, and at the end the half-embedded gilt bell over a public-house points to the name-derivation. On the east of Gracechurch Street a high arch of rusticated stone leads to Leadenhall market (see p. 160). Gracechurch Buildings follow, and Bull’s Head Passage, leading to Skinner’s Place, is lined by open stalls. The flat end of St. Peter’s, Cornhill, faces Leadenhall Buildings.

=Lombard Street.=—Shops and tenements are mentioned belonging to Lombard Street in the fourteenth century. The _Calendar of Wills_ has a reference in the year 1327. Riley’s earliest reference is 1382.

When the street first received its name is not known. Stow ventures back no further than Edward II., but there were Italian merchants before that time:

“Then have ye Lombard Street, so called of the Longobards, and other merchants, strangers of divers nations assembling there twice every day, of what original or continuance I have not read of record, more than that Edward II., in the 12th of his reign, confirmed a messuage, sometime belonging to Robert Turke, abutting on Lombard Street, toward the south, and toward Cornehill on the north, for the merchants of Florence, which proveth that street to have had the name of Lombard Street before the reign of Edward II. The meeting of which merchants and others there continued until the 22nd of December, in the year 1568; on the which day the said merchants began to make their meetings at the burse, a place then new built for that purpose in the ward of Cornhill, and was since by her majesty, Queen Elizabeth, named the Royal Exchange.”

The Lombards came over at first as collectors of the papal revenue; but they did much more than this: they opened up trade between the Italian towns and London—every year the fleets of Genoa and Venice brought goods from the East and from the Mediterranean. Moreover, the Italians in England sent wool from England instead of precious metals by way of Florence, if not other cities. Their wealth enabled them to take the place of the Jews in their expulsion; if the City was suddenly and heavily taxed they made advances to the merchant who could not immediately realise. Of course they charged heavy interest—as heavy as the necessities of the case permitted—and they became unpopular. The lending of money, forbidden and held in abhorrence, was absolutely necessary for the conduct of business: those who carried on this trade naturally lived together, if only to be kept in knowledge of what was going on. And as the progress of trade went on, their power increased year by year. Lombard Street, where they lived, was the daily mart of the London merchants before the erection of the Exchange.

POPE’S HOUSE IN PLOUGH COURT
]

“Jane Shore’s husband was a goldsmith in this street; so at least the old ballad, printed in Percy’s _Reliques_, would lead us to believe. No. 68, now Messrs. Martin, Stones and Martin’s (bankers), occupies the site of the house of business of Sir Thomas Gresham, founder of the Royal Exchange. When Pennant wrote, the Messrs. Martin still possessed the original grasshopper that distinguished his house. ‘How the Exchange passeth in Lombard Street’ is a phrase of frequent occurrence in Sir Thomas Gresham’s early letters. No. 67, now in the occupation of Messrs. Glyn and Co. (bankers), belongs to the Goldsmiths’ Company, to whom it was left by Sir Martin Bowes, an eminent goldsmith in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Guy, the founder of Guy’s Hospital, was a bookseller in this street. The father of Pope, the poet, was a linendraper in Lombard Street; and here, in 1688, his celebrated son was born. Opposite the old-fashioned gate of the Church of St. Edmund the Martyr is a narrow court, leading to a Quakers’ Meeting-house where Penn and Fox frequently preached” (Cunningham’s _Handbook_).

The house in which Pope is said to have been born is that at the end of Plough Court.