London City

by Walter Besant

ST. ANDREW UNDERSHAFT

The Church of St. Andrew Undershaft stands at the corner of St. Mary Axe, and on the north side is the churchyard, a little space where a few young trees grow. It derives its name from the May-day custom of setting up a pole higher than the steeple before the south door. This custom was discontinued after “Evil May Day” (see Tudor London, p. 24). The present building, occupying the site of the original one, of unknown date, was erected, according to Stow, in 1520, at the expense of a Sir Stephen Jennings, William Fitzwilliams, and others. The work of restoration has been carried on here during the last thirty years. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1361. The patronage has always been in the hands of the Bishop of London, in whose successors it continues; he presented to it in 1361.

The church is a late example of the Perpendicular style, consisting of a nave and two side aisles, and surmounted by a tower, rebuilt in 1830, which is about 91 feet in height, and contains six bells. The aisles are divided from the nave by clustered columns and obtusely pointed arches, and above this is the clerestory. The spandrels between the arches were embellished with scriptural paintings in 1726, but they are now much faded. In 1875 the series of full-length portraits of Edward VI., Elizabeth, James I., Charles I., and Charles II., were transferred from the east window to the west, and modern stained glass took their place. A chantry was founded here by Alan de Chepe in 1311.

The most interesting monument is that of the great antiquarian John Stow; it is made of terra-cotta and is placed near the eastern end of the north wall. There is another dedicated to Sir Hugh Hammersley, sheriff 1618, and Lord Mayor 1627, part of the sculpture of which is very fine. On the east wall of the north aisle is a brass to Nicholas Levin, sheriff in 1534, and a liberal contributor to the work of building the church; the brass is not large, but twenty well-defined figures have been introduced. Sir William Craven, Lord Mayor, 1640, a great benefactor to the parish, was interred here, but has no monument; also Peter Antony Motteux, who wrote comedies and masques, and died in 1718. Seven remarkable old books are preserved in the vestry, Foxe’s Acts and Monuments, Sir W. Raleigh’s History of the World, and others; a fragment of the chain which formerly fastened Foxe’s book to a desk is still retained.

This church and parish received many charitable gifts, some of the donors of which were: Robert Gayer, £50; Sir Thomas Rich, £400; the widow of Mr. Van Citters, £200, for the apprenticeship of two parish children, 1706; and Joseph Chamberlain, £121 : 1s. in 1706. There was a charity school for fifty boys and thirty girls who were clothed, taught, and put out as apprentices by contribution. Among the most notable rectors were: John Russell (died 1494), Bishop of Rochester; John Pricket, Bishop of Gloucester; Robert Grove (1631-1696), Bishop of Chichester; and William Walsham How (1823-1897), Bishop of Bedford and of Wakefield.

ST. ANDREW UNDERSHAFT

Stow died in this parish and, it is believed, in St. Mary Axe itself, his windows overlooking the grounds and ruins of St. Helen’s nunnery.

Another parish church stood in St. Mary Axe, at the north end against the wall. It was called St. Augustine’s-in-the-Wall. In the year 1430 the church was allotted to the Fraternity of the Papey, the house for poor priests.

The house was suppressed in the reign of Edward VI., and was afterwards occupied by Sir Francis Walsingham (see Mediæval London, vol. ii. p. 377).

The modern St. Mary Axe is not interesting. The old house at the corner of Great St. Helen’s is the first to be noticed. Next to it is another old one, stuccoed. A few doors northward is the Grapes public-house. Then follow a succession of more or less new warehouses, with narrow frontage, chiefly in red brick, not unpicturesquely designed. A very new red brick building with much ornamental detail is St. Anne’s Chambers, Nos. 37 to 41. This is succeeded by the ward school, which is of red brick and bears its name across its frontage. It is the ward school of Cornhill and Lime Street, and was established 1710. The present building was erected in 1846. A little model of St. George and the Dragon gives a touch of vivacity to its appearance. Beyond this are large brick business houses and warehouses. Bishopsgate Avenue is occupied chiefly by stationers and printers.

Bevis Marks.—“Then next is one great House, large of Rooms, fair Courts and Garden Plots, sometime pertaining to the Bassets, since that, to the Abbots of Bury in Suffolk, and therefore called Buries Marks, corruptly Bevis Marks. And since the Dissolution of the Abbey of Bury, to Thomas Heneage the Father, and Sir Thomas Heneage the Son.

“This House and Ground is now encreased into many Tenements: And among the rest, the Jews of London have of late built themselves a large Synagogue here, wainscotted round. It stands East and West like one of our Churches. The great Door is on the West: Near to which West End is a long Desk upon an Ascent, somewhat raised from the rest of the Floor; where I suppose the Law is read. The East wall is in part railed in; and before the Wall is a Door, which is to open with a Key, where their Law seems to be laid up. Aloft on this Wall are the Ten Commandments, or some part of them, inscribed in Golden Hebrew Letters without Points. There be seven great Branched Candlesticks of Brass hanging down from the Top; and many other Places for Candles and Lamps. The Seats are Benches, with Backs to them that run along from West to East” (Strype, vol. i. bk. ii. p. 73).

The modern Bevis Marks is lined on the west by substantial red-brick buildings chiefly occupied by merchants.

Heneage Lane, leading out of Bevis Marks, a narrow and dark thoroughfare, contains the synagogue of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews. It is a plain structure externally, built in the year 1700. Standing in the midst of its courts and almshouses the place has somewhat the appearance of a Spanish convent. The interior is spacious and fitted with two galleries, one for women. The children attend service under one of the galleries.

The derivation of Houndsditch as given by Stow is as unsavoury as the reputation the street later earned. “Called Hounds-ditch for that in old time when the same lay open much filth (conveyed forth of the Citie) especially dead dogges was there laid or cast.” 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.”

At present looking down Houndsditch from Bishopsgate Within the street presents a not unpicturesque appearance. On the south, indeed, it is one continuous row of dull brick box-like houses, but on the north one or two old projecting houses break the line. No. 96 is an old stuccoed house which projects in a broad bay above the first floor. Besides these old houses several high plain warehouses break up the monotony of the street line. Houndsditch is the centre of the old-clothes trade. To the north lie huge warehouses and industrial dwellings.

Bishopsgate.—There were two northern gates to the Roman wall: one of them corresponding with Newgate and the other with Bishopsgate. But the Saxon and mediæval Bishopsgate was not built on the site of the Roman gate, but a little to the west. The foundations of the Roman gate have been found in Camomile Street; they were built with carved stones taken from some Roman building, perhaps a villa, an illustration of my theory that the wall was built in great haste and that all the stone buildings of the City were used in its construction.

The massive masonry of the ancient “Newgate” has also been found close by the later gate in Giltspur Street.

The traffic along Bishopsgate Street, which led into the Roman Fort, and to the Bridge from the north and eastern parts of the island, caused a settlement and a street to be established here long before the wall was built. For the same reason, when the City began to fill up after its long period of desolation, the line was one of the first to be settled again, while on either side there were vacant spaces, orchards, fields, and gardens. Houses and shops sprang up both within and without the wall; the latter only when the Norman power had removed the fear of another siege. It is impossible to say with any certainty when the street was actually recognised as such. Thus, to quote such facts as are accessible in Riley’s Memorials, in the Calendar of Wills, etc., we find that in 1259, 1272, 1285, and 1288 there are mentioned “houses near, or within, Bishopsgate,” and in 1309 and 1311 there are “houses without” Bishopsgate. In 1329 we find a brew-house in Bishopsgate Street. Again, in 1314 the shops of one Roger Poyntel are in danger by reason of an overhanging elm-tree, thanks to which we learn that there were at that time residents close by the gate; in 1305 a tourelle in the wall near the gate is given to William Coeur de Lyon, chaplain, on condition that he keeps it in repair; in 1314 another tourelle near the gate is given to John de Elyngham, chaplain in charity, on the same condition; in 1318 the upper chamber of the gate, together with a tourelle on the east, and a garden against the wall, is granted to John de Long, an Easterling, or member of the Hanseatic League, on the same condition. In 1324 he renounced his lease and, apparently, went home. (Here we have an instance of a Hanseatic merchant living outside the Domus, or Aula Teutonicorum, where they were all supposed to live. But no absolute rule about anything can be laid down in these centuries.) The Almaines or Easterlings who were responsible for the repair and maintenance of the gate, were exempt from toll. On the other hand (another illustration of the conflicting “rights” of the time), the Bishop of London claimed one stock out of every cart-load of wood that passed through the gate. Let the Bishop, then, keep the hinges in repair!

The gate was built, it is said, by Bishop Erkenwald in 685. One supposes, since he did not rebuild on the Roman foundations, that a way had been made through the wall on the west side, and that traffic had, for convenience, chosen that way. The gate was considered, in some sense, to be under the special care of the Bishop. But the burden of its maintenance was laid upon the Hanseatic merchants. The case was tried and decided in 1282, when the merchants were ordered to keep the gate, and to find men and money if necessary in its defence for one-third of the cost. On the antiquities of the gate, hear also Stow:

“The eldest note that I read of this Bishopsgate, is that William Blund, one of the sheriffs of London, in the year 1210, sold to Serle Mercer, and William Almaine, procurators or wardens of London Bridge, all his land, with the garden, in the parish of St. Buttolph without Bishopsgate.

“Next I read in a charter, dated the year 1235, that Walter Brune, citizen of London, and Rosia his wife, having founded the priory or new hospital of our blessed Lady, since called St. Mary Spittle without Bishopsgate, confirmed the same to the honour of God and our blessed Lady, for canons regular.

“Also in the year 1247, Simon Fitzmary, one of the sheriffs of London, the 29th of Henry III., founded the hospital of St. Mary, called Bethlem without Bishopsgate.

“This gate was again beautifully built in the year 1479, in the reign of Edward IV., by the Haunce merchants.

“Moreover, about the year 1551, these Haunce merchants, having prepared stone for that purpose, caused a new gate to be framed, there to have been set up, but then their liberties, through suit of our English merchants, were seized into the king’s hand; and so that work was stayed, and the old gate yet remaineth.”

BISHOPSGATE STREET, SHOWING CHURCH OF ST. MARTIN, OUTWICH, AND THE PUMP, 1814

In 1731 the old gate was taken down and another erected. This, with the other City gates, was removed in 1760.

If we walk down Bishopsgate Street Within, we cannot do better than take Stow with us, remembering that he is writing in the year 1598:

“And first to begin on the left hand of Bishopsgate street, from the gate you have certain tenements of old time pertaining to a brotherhood of St. Nicholas, granted to the parish clerks of London, for two chaplains, to be kept in the chapel of St. Mary Magdalen, near unto the Guildhall of London, in the 27th of Henry VI. The first of these houses towards the north, and against the wall of the city, was sometime a large inn or court called the Wrestlers, of such a sign, and the last in the high street towards the south was sometime also a fair inn called the Angel, of such a sign. Among these said tenements was on the same street side a fair entry, or court, to the common hall of the said parish clerks, with proper almshouses, seven in number, adjoining, for poor parish clerks, and their wives and their widows, such as were in great years not able to labour. This brotherhood, amongst other, being suppressed, in the reign of Edward VI. the said hall, with the other buildings there, was given to Sir Robert Chester, a knight of Cambridgeshire; against whom the parish clerks commencing suit, in the reign of Queen Mary, and being like to have prevailed, the said Sir Robert Chester pulled down the hall, sold the timber, stone, and lead, and thereupon the suit was ended. The almshouses remain in the queen’s hands, and people are there placed, such as can make best friends; some of them, taking the pension appointed, have let forth their houses for great rent, giving occasion to the parson of the parish to challenge tithes of the poor, etc.”

After mentioning St. Ethelburga, St. Helen’s, and St. Andrew Undershaft, he goes on:

“Then have you one great house called Crosby place, because the same was built by Sir John Crosby, grocer and woolman, in place of certain tenements, with their appurtenances, letten to him by Alice Ashfeld, prioress of St. Helen’s, and the convent, for ninety-nine years, from the year 1466 unto the year 1565, for the annual rent of £11 : 6 : 8.

“Richard, Duke of Gloucester, and lord protector, afterwards king, by the name of Richard III., was lodged in this house; since the which time, among other, Anthonie Bonvice, a rich merchant of Italy, dwelt there; after him, Garmain Cioll, then William Bond, alderman, increased this house in height, with building of a turret on the top thereof: he deceased in the year 1576, and was buried in St. Helen’s church. Divers ambassadors have been lodged there; namely, in the year 1586, Henry Ramelius, chancellor of Denmark, ambassador unto the queen’s majesty of England from Frederick II., the king of Denmark; an ambassador of France, etc. Sir John Spencer, Alderman, lately purchased this house, made great reparations, kept his mayoralty there, and since built a most large warehouse near thereunto.

“From this Crosbie place up to Leaden Hall corner, and so down Grass Street, amongst other tenements, are divers fair and large built houses for merchants and such like.

Drawn by Schnebbelie.
ST. HELEN, BISHOPSGATE, 1817

“Now for the other side of this ward, namely, the right hand, hard by within the gate, is one fair water conduit, which Thomas Knesworth, mayor, in the year 1505, founded: he gave £60, the rest was furnished at the common charges of the city. This conduit hath since been taken down and new built. David Woodroffe, alderman, gave £20 towards the conveyance of more water thereunto. From this conduit have you, amongst many fair tenements, divers fair inns, large for receipt of travellers, and some houses for men of worship; namely, one most spacious of all other thereabout, built of brick and timber by Sir Thomas Gresham, knight, who deceased in the year 1579, and was buried in St. Helen’s church, under a fair monument, by him prepared in his life: he appointed by his testament this house to be made a college of readers, as before is said in the chapter of schools and houses of learning.

“Somewhat west from this house is one other very fair house, wherein Sir William Hollis kept his mayoralty, and was buried in the parish church of St. Helen. Sir Andrew Jud also kept his mayoralty there, and was buried at St. Helen’s: he built almshouses for six poor alms people near to the said parish church, and gave lands to the Skinners, out of the which they are to give 4s. every week to the six poor alms people, 8d. the piece, and 25s. 4d. the year, in coals amongst them for ever” (Stow’s Survey, p. 181).

Shakespeare, who lived for a time in St. Helen’s, and therefore knew Crosby Hall well, has introduced it in Richard III. Sir Thomas More lived here for a time, the guest of Bonvici, to whom from the Tower he wrote, and in whose gown, of silk camlet, he went to his execution. In 1547 Bonvici let the house on lease to William Roper, More’s son-in-law, and to his nephew William Rastell, a printer. Under Edward VI., Bonvici, Rastell, and Roper went abroad, but came home under Mary. Meantime Edward VI. had conferred the house upon Sir Thomas D’Arcy, afterwards Lord D’Arcy, who seems to have sold it to William Bond, alderman and sheriff. Sir John Spencer next became the owner of the house. He received the Duc de Sully, Grand Treasurer of France, with all his retinue.

The way in which the inheritance of this great merchant came to the Comptons is told by Hare:

“Sir John Spencer, having but a poor opinion of the Compton family in that day, positively forbade the first Earl of Northampton to pay his addresses to his daughter, who was the greatest heiress in England. One day, at the foot of the staircase, Sir John met the baker’s boy with his covered barrow, and, being pleased at his having come punctually when he was ordered, he gave him sixpence; but the baker’s boy was Lord Northampton in disguise, and in the covered barrow he was carrying off the beautiful Elizabeth Spencer. When he found how he had been duped, Sir John swore that Lord Northampton had seen the only sixpence of his money he should ever receive, and refused to be reconciled to his daughter. But the next year Queen Elizabeth, having expressed to Sir John Spencer the sympathy which she felt with his sentiments upon the ingratitude of his child, invited him to come and be “gossip” with her to a newly-born baby in which she was much interested, and he could not refuse; and it is easy to imagine whose that baby was. So the Spencer property came to the Comptons after all” (Hare, vol. i. pp. 284-85).

CORNHILL MILITARY ASSOCIATION, WITH A VIEW OF THE CHURCH OF ST. HELEN’S AND LEATHERSELLERS’ HALL

In 1642 the Earl of Northampton was killed at Hopton Heath, beside the King. Here lived the Countess of Pembroke, Sidney’s sister, immortalised by Ben Jonson’s epitaph. In 1640 Sir John Langham, sheriff in 1642, leased the house; it is said to have been used as a prison for Royalists. His son, Sir Stephen Langham, succeeded, and in his time a great part of the house was destroyed by fire. In 1672, its great hall became a Presbyterian meeting-house; it was then turned into a packers’ warehouse. In 1831 it was converted into an institute for lectures and is now a restaurant.[^[3]]

COUNCIL ROOM, CROSBY HALL, 1816

The streets and courts leading out of Bishopsgate Street Within are neither important nor numerous. On the west side going south from the gate were inns called the Vine, the Four Swans, the Green Dragon, the Black Bull, and the Cross Keys (in Gracechurch Street).

Beginning at the south end of the modern Bishopsgate we see on the west the Bank of Scotland, the National Bank of Australasia, and the Delhi and London Bank, housed under one roof in a large stone building with the lower windows enclosed in exceptionally high and bold arches. Baring Bros. Bank is opposite. It is a plain, well-proportioned brick building, symmetrical and without tawdry ornament; it was designed by R. Norman Shaw. It is flanked on either side by a public-house, The Black Lion and the City of London Tavern. Just opposite the entrance of Threadneedle Street the Wesleyan Centenary Hall attracts attention by its size and solidity. Four immense fluted columns run up the facade to a frieze and triangular pediment. It was erected in 1839. Close by is the Bank of Scotland. It looks out on the really fine National Provincial Bank of England at the north corner of Threadneedle Street. This has fluted stone columns running up to the frieze along the whole frontage. They enclose very tall, round-headed windows, and above the windows are deep panels of great size executed in basso-relievo. It was erected in 1833 and the architect was J. Gibson. Along the parapet of the roof at intervals are placed statues which break the hard line.

Immediately opposite the entry, on the east side of the square we see a dreary block of brick houses; these are Crosby Buildings, and are fully occupied by representatives of trade and commerce. On the south side there is an old stuccoed house with a square pillared porch. The next house is of red brick with decorative brick panels let in on the face. This is an old house which has been recased. Its fine stuccoed doorway is still preserved. On the west a large red brick building bearing date 1876 fills up the space, and on the north is an old brick house with a plain projecting pediment over the door, and brackets similar to those on the south side. No. 7 in the north-east corner is a new stone house of plain but rather original design. A couple of little plane-trees grow up at either end of the quiet square.

A covered entry leads from Crosby Square to Great St. Helen’s. The first part of this tortuous thoroughfare is lined by the side of Crosby Buildings, modern brick, on the one side, and the end of the stuccoed synagogue, which stands back from the frontage of the street, on the other. About this part, and the narrow lane which succeeds it running north and south, there is little to say; the substantial business spirit pervades even the bricks and mortar. But in the open space beyond, facing the church, are some features of interest. Nos. 8, 9, and 10 have all been rebuilt in the large-windowed flat modern style. No. 7 is a fine old red brick house. No. 2 is a delightful one and has an ornamental doorway with fluted columns and pilasters supporting the lintel, beneath which on either side are cherubs’ heads. Across the wide space before the quaint and interesting church are other red brick houses, some old and some of more modern date. Close by the entry the builder is at work on the site of some charming old gabled houses demolished within the last five years.