ADDITIONS TO CUNNINGHAM'S HAND-BOOK OF LONDON.
St. Stephen's Church, Walbrook.
—Sir Robert Chicheley, alderman and twice Lord Mayor of London, is said, in Wm. Ravenhill's Short Account of the Company of Grocers from their Original (4to. Lond. 1689), to have purchased the ground whereon St. Stephen's church stands, and to have built, at his own charge, the church which was afterwards replaced by the edifice of Sir Christopher Wren. The founder was a member of that company, and to them he gave the advowson. He was the youngest of three brothers, of whom the eldest was Henry Chicheley, Archbishop of Canterbury temp. Henry VI. The second brother was Sir William, who, like Robert, was an alderman, and a member of the Grocers' Company. From the younger brother, Robert, descended Sir Thomas Chicheley, who was Master of the Ordnance and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in the reign of Charles II.
Grocers' Hall.
—In 1411 the custos or warden and brethren of the Grocers' Company purchased of Robert Lord Fitzwalter his mansion-house and lands, extending from near the Old Jewry to Walbrook in the centre of the city of London, for 320 marks, and soon afterwards laid the foundation of their new Common-hall. In 1429 they had license to acquire lands of the value of 500 marks. There was "a fair open garden behind, for air and diversion, and before the house, within the gate, a large court-yard." The company, after the fire of London, rebuilt and enlarged the old Hall, says Ravenhill in his Account of the Grocers' Company (Lond. 1689), "with offices and accommodations far beyond any other place, for the most commodious seat of the chief magistrate." (See Mr. Cunningham's quotation from Strype, as to its civic uses.) King Charles II. accepted the office of Master of the Company, and they set up his statue in the Royal Exchange. See Ravenhill's Short Account of the Company of Grocers, and Howel's Londinopolis, fol. Lond. 1657.
W. S. G.
Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Sept. 1851.