Walter Besant

“ The houses here are either brick or stucco; some old, some modern.
At the north end, on the Fortune of War public-house, at the corner of Hosier Lane, is a quaint little stucco figure of a fat child about a couple of feet high. This is Pie Corner, the spot where the Great Fire ended.
Cock Lane is a filthy, narrow little street, and looks almost deserted, as many of the buildings are untenanted. Bits of paper and refuse bestrew the pavement, grimy old warehouses stand in melancholy disorder with dirty little yards between. ”

“ The back of a famous old house now used as a ward school is in Love Lane, but its front faces on to a cobble-stone yard connected with Botolph Lane by a covered entry. Within the house everything points to its having been the residence of some one of wealth and taste. The hall is paved with alternate slabs of black and white marble. The staircase is wide and beautifully proportioned and decorated. The date 1670 is on the ceiling; on the first floor four doors with rich wood carving on the pediments and lintels attract attention. Ceilings and fireplaces alike bespeak careful work. ”

“ No exact definition of a university has yet been given, nor is capable of being given, and it may be doubted whether there is any university now in existence which really corresponds to the mediæval university. But one salient mark of a university, a number of teachers and a number of adult students in the higher faculties, in theology and law, or philosophy, certainly existed at Paris in the days of Abelard, and to some extent in Oxford, but did not seemingly exist in London, or if it did exist was quenched by Henry of Blois’ mandate. ”

“ The only old house in the Lane is No. 2, which possesses a very interesting interior. The building is now used for offices, but was originally a merchant’s residence. The old dining-room is a fine chamber, having panelled walls profusely decorated with florid designs in raised composition. The panel over the chimney-piece is particularly good. The entablature of the handsome mantel is supported by fluted Ionic pilasters, the frieze filled with flowers and fruit, and the keystone embellished with a curious rural scene. ”

“ Paris, though the political capital, was not also the commercial capital of France, where Rouen, the independent capital of a rival power, occupied, to it, the position which the Port of London bore to London. The King’s Court and the King’s Chancery were the main avenues to success for clerks, and even so late as the reign of Henry III. the Castle of Winchester and Beaumont House at Oxford, or the Manor of Windsor, rather than the Tower of London, or even Westminster Hall, were the favourite resorts of the King’s Court, and the residence of the royal treasury and the royal chancery. ”

“ We see the crowd—all the butchers in the Poultry collected together: on the ground lies the wounded valet, bleeding, beside him is the sword, the assailant blusters and swears that he will not surrender, the Mayor’s sergeant remonstrates, the crowd increases, then the Mayor himself appears followed by other sergeants, a lane is made, and at sight of that authority the man gives in. ”

“ On the west side was an equally famous inn, the Oxford Arms.
At the Oxford Arms Inn lived John Roberts, from whose shop issued the majority of the squibs and libels on Pope. The inn was south of Warwick House.
Views of this picturesque old inn have been preserved in the Crace collection.
The Cutlers’ Hall adds vivid colour to Warwick Lane farther north by its 324brilliant red brick, and its handsome frieze in relief. It is faced with red sandstone. The next few houses look doubly grimy by contrast with their neighbour. ”

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

“ Off the wharves of Thames Street lay the shops of all the nations of Western Europe. In the narrow lanes leading down to the stairs between the quays lived the seafaring folk and those who worked for them, and those who worked for the merchants.
London at one time was roughly divided into belts of population. The first belt is that of the Service. It consists of the foreshore between Thames Street and the river, with the lanes and houses upon it. The second is that of the Merchants, between Thames Street and the Markets of West and East Chepe. The third is that of the Markets. ”

“ For the protection of the trade the right of search was vested in the guild, such search being a guarantee to the public that the honest usages of trade were observed, and to the fraternity that their monopoly was not infringed. Before a tailor’s shop was opened a licence had to be obtained from the master and wardens of the Company, and they granted the licence only when satisfied of the competency of the freeman. ”

“ The weavers touched on one side the trade in linen, on the other that in wool. The woollen drapers were naturally very much divided in their interests from the linen-armourers, and the tailors who constructed garments, as well from the vegetable as from the animal production, were distinct from those who wove the cloth. We find, therefore, not only great dissension at times among the weavers, but a strong tendency to establish separate interests. The drapers, under their Latin designation of panarii, very soon divided themselves from the tailors, cissores ”

“ Peter’s School there, of which he was himself master in the third quarter of the eighth century, is the earliest account we have of any English school. The picture, drawn in poetic Latin prose of the twelfth century by “the son of Stephen,” of London schools and scholars, as they were during the boyhood of Becket, is not less full or vivid. One almost suspects from the way in which quotations from Latin poets are lugged in “by the hairs” that Fitzstephen was himself at one time a schoolmaster, before he became Becket’s chancellor and ended as a judge. ”

“ The Company is incorporated as the “Master, Wardens, and Commonalty of the Freemen of the Mystery of Plumbing of the City of London,” for the better ordering, rule, and government of the men of the mystery and Company aforesaid, and of all those who then exercised and used or thereafter should exercise and use the art and mystery of plumbing, or the materials, works, merchandises, or things whatsoever to the said mystery relating, and for the utility, advantage, and relief of the good and honest, and for the terror and correction of the evil, deceitful, and dishonest. ”

“ When we consider that twenty-five churches stood in or about the great market, and that they were all presumably more ancient than the Conquest, we may deduce the fact that the stalls very early became closed shops, and in many cases permanent houses of residence, and that the market contained a large resident population by which industries were carried on as well as shops. With certain wares, such as milk, honey, wood, spices, mercery, salt-fish, poultry, meat, and herbs, there was no other industry than that of receiving, packing, and distributing. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The ward school is reached through a rounded tunnel-like entry and proves a pleasant surprise. In itself it is only a square old brick house without an atom of style or ornament, but before it is a garden plot where lilac bushes grow, and over the blackened bricks of the house and adjoining wall climb big trees, hiding the dinginess. From here we get a view 171of the old red-tiled roofs of the houses in Duke Street. In the school there is free education, and 110 children are clothed at the expense of the charity. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Christ’s Hospital is alone among the great public schools in that it has entirely departed from the class and the objects for which it was originally intended. Winchester and Eton, Westminster and St. Paul’s were intended always for the same class or classes which now frequent them. The scholars were meant to be, and were, taken from the poorer members of the upper middle class, squires, parsons, barristers, merchants, and the like, “who could not, without help, send their sons to the University”; the commoners or paying boys from the richer members of the same class. ”

“ In its modern aspect Bow Lane is not uninteresting.
A covered entry, inappropriately named New Court, leads into a fascinating corner. There is a gateway really and ruinously old; it is said to have survived the Fire. The ironwork pattern is lost now in meaningless and broken twists, though there is a semblance of what might have been a monogram over the centre gate. The houses all round the court evidently date from the period directly after the Fire. That facing the street is of red brick toned by age, and is said to have been the residence of a Lord Mayor. ”

“ Each panel is a picture, and the scheme is worked out in the stained glass of the windows, while the harmony of colour, form, and proportion produces an effect upon the mind comparable only with that of the best music. Unfortunately, the designs for the figures of prophets and evangelists, under the dome, seem to have been made in ignorance or defiance of the conditions by which Sir William Richmond has been guided; while they are dull, heavy, and dark in colour. ”

“ This was the “one Johnson,” of Stow’s account of “the spoil of the Hospital,” which is nothing more than a baseless libel. Edmund Johnson, or Jonson, was admitted a scholar of Winchester, at the age of eleven, in 1514, and became a Fellow of New College in 1522, remaining such for two years, and is described in the New College Register as having become “a schoolmaster.” Whether he was appointed to St. Anthony’s then, there are no means of knowing. Edmund Johnson was a “clerk” in the Hospital in 1522, and perhaps acted as usher, as no usher’s name is given. He can hardly be the same man. ”

“ The Master of the Woolmen’s Company has the right to nominate to the Court of Assistants of the Merchant Taylors Company two poor members of the Company as pensioners under Vernon’s Charity.
The Company lost its charter and most of its documents in the Fire of London, when the Company’s Hall was burnt down.
Their members number 20. Their Corporate Income is £376; they have no Trust Income, and no Hall. Considering that the staple trade of England for many centuries was that of wool, there can be little doubt of the extreme antiquity of this Company. ”

“ 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 said Master and Wardens and brotherhood were to be a body corporate, with perpetual succession and a common seal, and they were empowered to purchase and enjoy in fee and perpetuity lands and other possessions in the City, suburbs, and elsewhere. And the charter empowered the said Master and Wardens to sue and be sued as “The master and wardens of the Guild or Fraternity of the Blessed Mary of Pargettors, commonly called Plaisterers, London.” ”

“ The last of the honourable family of the Scroopes to possess it was William de Scroope, Knt., who lived in the reign of Henry IV. He gave it for life to his brother Ralph Nevil, Earl of Westmoreland, who married, as his second wife, Joan, daughter of the Duke of Lancaster. Ralph Nevil died, seised of the Erber, in 1426, and his wife in 1441. Their son Richard Nevil, Earl of Salisbury, was lodged here in 1547. He died in 1460, and the Erber passed to his son Richard, Earl of Warwick and Salisbury, “the king-maker,” who was slain at the battle of Barnet Field in 1471. ”

“ In 1827 the Baptists reopened the place, and remained there for some years, but, shortly before 1870, removed to Islington, where to this day the “Salters’ Hall” Chapel in the Baxter Road preserves the memory of the struggles, quarrels, and triumphs of the old City 115meeting-house. In Tom Brown’s Laconics (1709) is this allusion: “A man that keeps steady to one party, though he happens to be in the wrong, is still an honest man. He that goes to a Cathedral in the morning, and Salters’ Hall in the afternoon, is a rascal by his own confession.” ”

“ As regards the fourth object prescribed by the charter, the Society, doubtless from its want of means, has never itself until the present time bought, sold, or made drugs, but owing to the great difficulty of its members obtaining pure drugs it allowed them to raise money themselves and create stock or shares for that purpose, and to carry on such trade in the name of the Society for their own personal profit as a private Company or partnership under various titles. ”