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.