ALLHALLOWS BARKING
The church of Allhallows Barking stands at the east end of Tower Street near Mark Lane Station. It was dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary and all Saints, whence its name. The date of its foundation is unknown, but it is to the convent of Barking that its foundation is probably due, which might carry it back to the end of the seventh century. It was endowed and enlarged by Richard I., Edward I., and Richard III. During the seventeenth century it was repaired five times; it narrowly escaped the Great Fire of 1666. There was extensive restoration during the last century. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1269.
The patronage of the church was in the hands of: The kings of England, while it was a rectory, 1269; the Abbess and Convent of Barking from 1387, when it became a vicarage; the Crown, at the suppression in 1540, who exchanged it with the Archbishop of Canterbury, who presented in 1584, and in whose successors it continues.
Houseling people in 1548 were 800.
The church consists of a nave and chancel together with north and south aisles. It is 108 feet in length, 67 feet in breadth, and in height 35 feet to the ceiling of the nave, but to that of the aisles considerably less. The western portion is older than the chancel, and probably the original building only occupied the site of the present nave. The massive pillars at the west end are of Norman character in contrast to the slender columns of the eastern arches, probably not erected before the fifteenth century. The large east window, in the Late Decorated style, seems to have been left untouched during the numerous alterations of the seventeenth century. The present tower, erected in 1659 after the original had been destroyed by an explosion, is of plain brick, with a turret and weather-vane, and rises above the west end of the nave. The original tower rose from the west end of the south aisle. The total height of it is 80 feet.
Chantries were founded here by: Adam de Blackeneye, citizen, for himself and Cecilia his wife, A.D. 1295 (his will, dated 1310); Thomas Crolys, and Thomas Pilke, before 1365; John Cade; Robert Tate, mayor of London, who died in 1488; Richard I., augmented by Edward I., who erected there an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary; Edward IV. granted a licence to found a fraternity here (Pat. 9 Edward IV. p. 2. m. 2). This chapel was newly built by Richard III., who founded a college here consisting of a dean and six canons.
Owing to the proximity of the Tower, Allhallows was frequently used for the temporary interment of the remains of those who perished on the scaffold on Tower Hill. Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, Bishop Fisher, and Archbishop Laud, found here a temporary grave. Humphrey Monmouth, sheriff in 1535, is one of the most notable persons buried here. Allhallows contains the best collection of monumental brasses to be found in any London church. Some of the most noteworthy are: A Flemish brass, in memory of Andrew Evyngar; that of William Thynne, one of the earliest editors of Chaucer’s works; William Armer, of the Clothworkers Company; and the Tonge brass, the oldest in the City. Under the east window of the south aisle is a monument by Peter Scheemakers, the sculptor of several monuments in Westminster Abbey; the name of the Quaker William Penn is associated with this church, where he was baptized in 1644.
Some of the donors of charitable gifts were: Margaret Martin, £1 : 6 : 8 per annum for the poor; William Armer; Alice Polstead, £6 : 13 : 4 per annum; William Haines, £5 per annum. The parish received a very large number of gifts.
A school was founded in this parish, 1692, by Alderman Hickson for twenty boys. There was also a hospital for the insane, in the time of Edward III.
The most notable vicar was Thomas Ravis (d. 1609), who became Bishop of London.
Jewry was formerly called Poor Jewry Street. This street originally consisted of mean tenements, and was greatly improved by the removal of the wall which admitted air into the street and gave space for building. Stow says that “in time of old” there were Jews living in this place, whence its name. In his time there were only a few poor tenements. The name “Poor Jewry” is found in the Records of 1438. As the Jews were banished in 1290, we may therefore conclude that the name was certainly older than that date.
Trinity Square, Tower Hill, is of an irregular shape, including an oval garden. It is named after Trinity House, which stands on the north side. In Ogilby’s map is a part of Great Tower Hill. Cooper’s Row was then called Woodruff Lane; George Street was then George Yard, where was the postern of the wall. North of George Street there is still a long piece of the wall standing within certain warehouses. Here are also other walls and fireplaces which are said to have belonged to a workhouse. I cannot, however, discover that there was any workhouse on this spot. This is apparently the same part of the wall that is figured in Wilkinson’s Londina Illustrata.
Trinity House.—Maitland’s account of the house and the corporation is as follows:
“In Water Lane is situated Trinity House which belongs to an ancient Corporation of Mariners, founded in King Henry VIII.’s time, for the Regulation of Seamen, and security and convenience of ships and mariners on our coasts. In the said King’s reign lived Sir Thos. Spert, Knight, Comptroller of the Navy to that King; who was the first founder and master of the said society of Trinity House; and died Anno 1541, and was buried in the chancel of Stepney church. To whose memory the said Corporation, Anno 1622, set up a monument there for him eighty years and one after the decease of the said Spert, their founder. And by an inscription antienter than that set up by the said corporation, lost long since in the church, but preserved by Norden; we learn, that this gentleman had three wives, Dame Margery, Dame Anne, and Dame Mary, all lying in the chancel there; and that his Coat of Arms was Two Launces in Saltier, between four Hearts, on a Chief, a ship with the sails furled. He was commander of the biggest ship then that the sea bore, namely, Henry Grace de Dieu, built by King Henry VIII. near the beginning of his reign.
“The house, where the corporation usually meets, belonged to them before the great Fire, but how long I know not. They took a long lease and rebuilt it. This house was burnt down about the year 1718 again, but is now by the said Brotherhood built up fairly a second time.
“This corporation one of the considerablest in the Kingdom, is governed by a master, four wardens, eight assistants, and the eldest brothers of the Company, as they are called, one and thirty in all. The rest of their Company are called Younger Brothers, without any fixed number: For any seafaring men that will, are admitted into the Society under that name: But they are not in the Government.
TRINITY HOUSE, TOWER HILL
“Their service and use is, that they appoint all pilots: They set and place the buoys and seamarks for the safe direction of ships in their sailing. For which they have certain duties payable by Merchant-men. They can licence poor seamen, antient and past going to sea, to exercise the calling of a waterman upon the Thames, and take in fares, tho’ they have not been bound to any one free of the Watermen’s Company. They do maintain in pensions at this time two thousand poor seamen, or their widows; every one of which have at least half-a-crown paid them every first Monday in the month, and some more, besides accidental distressed seamen.
“They have three fair Hospitals, built by themselves; two at Deptford, and one at Mile End, near London. That at Mile End is a very handsome structure with a fair chapel, and is peculiar for decayed Sea-Commanders, masters of vessels, or such as have been pilots, and their widows.
“And thus as they do a great deal of good, so they have large revenues to do it with: Which arise partly, from sums of money given and bequeathed unto them for charitable uses, partly from Houses and Lands also given them, and particularly and chiefly from ballast. For they only have, by Act of Parliament, the benefit of providing ballast for ships in the Thames; and all ships that take in ballast pay them 12d. a ton: For which it is brought to their ship’s side. They have also certain light-houses, as at Scilly and Dungeness in the West. To which Houses all ships pay one half-penny a tun.”
Drawn by Schnebbelie.
REMAINS OF LONDON WALL, TOWER HILL, 1818
The house that was burned down in 1718 was again rebuilt and pulled down in 1787, when the Corporation removed to Tower Hill.
Lastly, in this group of streets, we arrive at Tower Hill. The memories of this place are summed up by Stow and others.
“From and without the Tower ditch west and by north is the said Tower Hill, sometime a large plot of ground, nowe greatly strengthened [straitened] by means of incrochments (unlawfully made and suffered) for gardens and houses.... Upon this Hil is alwayes readily prepared, at the charges of the Citie, a large scaffold, and gallows of timber, for the execution of such traitors or other transgressors as are delivered out of the Tower, or otherwise to the sheriffes of London, by writ, there were to be executed.... On the north side of this hill is the said Lord Lumley’s house.”
The scaffold was removed about the middle of the 18th century.
Many were the disputes between the King and the City as to the setting up of scaffold and gallows, which the King claimed to do, as Tower Hill was in the Liberties of the City and not the City itself. Among notable persons executed there are the names of:
Bishop Fisher, June 22, 1535; Sir Thomas More, July 6, 1535:
Going up the scaffold, which was so weak that it was ready to fall, he said hurriedly to the Lieutenant, “I pray you, Master Lieutenant, see me safe up, and for my coming down let me shift for myself.”—Roper’s Life.
Cromwell, Earl of Essex, July 28, 1540; Margaret, Countess of Shrewsbury, mother of Cardinal Pole, May 27, 1541; Earl of Surrey the poet, January 21, 1547; Thomas, Lord Seymour of Sudeley, the Lord Admiral, beheaded March 20, 1549, by order of his brother the Protector Somerset; the Protector Somerset January 22, 1552; Sir Thomas Wyatt, 1554; John Dudley, Earl of Warwick and Northumberland, 1553; Lord Guildford Dudley (husband of Lady Jane Grey), February 12, 1553-54; Sir Gervase Elways or Helwys, Lieutenant of the Tower, hanged for his share in the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury; Earl of Strafford, May 12, 1641; Archbishop Laud, January 10, 1644-45; Sir Harry Vane, the younger, June 14, 1662 (“The trumpets were brought under the scaffold that he might not be heard”); William Howard, Lord Viscount Stafford, December 29, 1680, beheaded on the perjured evidence of Titus Oates and others; Algernon Sidney, December 7, 1683:
Algernon Sidney was beheaded this day; died very resolutely, and like a true rebel, and republican.—Duke of York to Prince of Orange, December 7, 1683.
Duke of Monmouth, July 15, 1685; Sir John Fenwick, January 28, 1697; Earl of Derwentwater and Lord Kenmuir, implicated in the Rebellion of 1715; Lords Kilmarnock and Balmerino, August 18, 1746:
Kilmarnock was executed first and then the scaffold was immediately new strewn with sawdust, the block new covered, the executioner new dressed, and a new axe brought. Then old Balmerino appeared, treading the scaffold with the air of a general, and reading undisturbed the inscription on his coffin.—Walpole to Mann, August 21, 1746.
Simon, Lord Lovat, April 9, 1747. He was not only the last person beheaded on Tower Hill, but the last person beheaded in this country. The Tribulation on Tower Hill, mentioned by Shakespeare, has puzzled his commentators; the reference seems to be to a Puritan congregation, but it is hard to see why they should be ready to endure “the youths that thunder at a playhouse.”
“Porter. These are the youths that thunder at a playhouse, and fight for bitten apples; that no audience but the Tribulation of Tower Hill, or the limbs of Limehouse, their dear brothers, are able to endure.”—Shakespeare, Henry VIII., Act v. Scene 4.
In 1543 Marillac, the French Ambassador, lived on Tower Hill, and the Duke of Norfolk (son of the victor of Flodden) and his brother, Lord William Howard, frequently paid him “mysterious midnight visits.” Lady Raleigh lodged on Tower Hill while her husband was a prisoner in the Tower.
“The Lady Raleighe must understand his Mats Expresse Will and commandment that she resort to her house on Tower Hill or ellswhere wth her women and sonnes to remayne there, and not to lodge hereafter wthin the Tower.”—Orders concerning the Tower of London, to be observed by the Lieutenant (Sir Wade’s Reg., 1605, 1611; Addit. MSS. Brit. Mus., No. 14,044).
William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, was born on Tower Hill, October 14, 1644.
“Your late honoured father dwelt upon Great Tower Hill on the east side, within a court adjoining to London Wall.”—P. Gibson to William Penn, the Quaker (Sir W. Penn’s Life, 615).
At a public-house on Tower Hill, known by the sign of the Bull, whither he had withdrawn to avoid his creditors, it is said Otway, the poet, died of want, April 14, 1685; but the precise locality and manner of his death are disputed. In a cutler’s shop on Tower Hill Felton bought the knife with which he stabbed the first Duke of Buckingham of the Villiers family; it was a broad, sharp hunting knife, and cost one shilling. The second duke often repaired in disguise to the lodging of a poor person, “about Tower Hill,” who professed skill in horoscopes. Smith has engraved a view of a curious old house on Tower Hill, enriched with medallions, evidently of the age of Henry VIII., and similar to those at old Whitehall and at Hampton Court.
Hatton, writing in 1708, describes Tower Hill as a place where there are “many good new buildings mostly inhabited by gentry and merchants.”