ST. KATHERINE COLEMAN
St. Katherine Coleman stands on the south side of Fenchurch Street, farther east. Its second name is derived from its proximity to a garden, anciently called “Coleman’s Haw.” In 1489 Sir William White, Draper and Lord Mayor, enlarged the church; it was further enlarged in 1620 and a vestry built in 1624. It escaped the Great Fire of 1666, but by the subsequent elevation of Fenchurch Street its foundations were buried. In 1734 the building was pulled down and the present one erected from the designs of an architect named Horne. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1346.
The patronage of the church was in the hands of: The Dean and Canons of St. Martin’s-le-Grand since 1346, then the Abbot and Convent of Westminster, 1509; Thomas, Bishop of Westminster, by grant of Henry VIII., January 20, 1540-41; Bishop of London by grant of Edward VI. in 1550, confirmed by Queen Mary, March 3, 1553-54, in whose successors it continued. The present building is of brick, with stone dressings. The tower rises at the west.
Sir Henry Billingsley, Lord Mayor of London, was buried here in 1606. A few monuments are recorded by Strype, but the individuals commemorated are of little note. The finest monument still preserved is that to Lady Heigham (d. 1634), wife of Richard Heigham, gentleman pensioner to King Charles I.
Sir H. Billingsley left £200 for the poor at his death, but his heirs did not carry out his instructions. Jacob Lucy was donor of £100; Thomas Papillon of £61. Other names also were recorded on the Table of Benefactors erected in 1681. There was a workhouse belonging to the parish.
St. Gabriel, Fenchurch, was situated in the middle of Fenchurch Street between Rood Lane and Mincing Lane. It was burnt down by the Great Fire and not rebuilt, its parish being annexed to St. Margaret Pattens by Act of Parliament. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1321.
The patronage of this church was in the hands of: The Prior and Convent of Holy Trinity, 1321-1519; the Crown from 1540 up to 1666, when the church was burnt down and the parish annexed to St. Margaret Pattens.
Houseling people in 1548 were 200.
For Rood Lane, Mincing Lane, and the other streets south of Fenchurch Street leading to Thames Street, see Group V.
Billiter Street, not, as Stow says, from its first owner Belzetter, but from being the quarter in which stood the Bell Founders. Agnes, sister of Thomas à Becket, had land in Bellzetter Lane, parish of St. Michael, Aldgate. The lane is mentioned in the Calendar of Wills in 1298, and on many occasions afterwards. Strype, in 1720, calls it a lane of very ordinary account, the houses being very old and of timber (the place escaped the Fire), the inhabitants being “inconsiderable, as small brokers, chandlers, and the like.” But the chief “ornament” of this place was Billiter Square, which was then newly built with good brick houses “well inhabited.”
Lime Street runs between Fenchurch and Leadenhall Streets.
In 1576 a passage was constructed at the north-east corner of this street; in the necessary excavation was discovered what Stow calls a “hearth” made of Roman tiles, every tile half a yard square and two inches thick. It was six feet under ground, corresponding in depth with Roman remains found on Cornhill. The passage was duly set up and was standing.
The name of the street occurs in the Calendar of Wills for the year 1298. We are now approaching that imaginary belt of the City lying between the markets and Thames Street, in which the merchants and the nobles mostly had their houses. Stow enumerates a long list of the great houses in Lime Street:
“In Lime Street are divers fair houses for merchants and others; there was sometimes a mansion-house of the kings, called the King’s Artirce, whereof I find record in the 14th of Edward I., but now grown out of knowledge. I read also of another great house in the west side of Lime Street, having a chapel on the south and a garden on the west, then belonging to the Lord Nevill, which garden is now called the Green yard of the Leaden hall. This house, in the 9th of Richard II., pertained to Sir Simon Burley, and Sir John Burley his brother; and of late the said house was taken down, and the forefront thereof new built of timber by Hugh Offley, alderman. At the north-west corner of Lime Street was of old time one great messuage called Benbrige’s inn; Ralph Holland, draper, about the year 1452 gave it to John Gill, master, and to the wardens and fraternity of tailors and linen-armourers of St. John Baptist in London, and to their successors for ever. They did set up in place thereof a fair large frame of timber, containing in the high street one great house, and before it to the corner of Lime Street three other tenements, the corner house being the largest, and then down Lime Street divers proper tenements; all which the merchant-tailors, in the reign of Edward VI., sold to Stephen Kirton, merchant-tailor and alderman: he gave, with his daughter Grisild, to Nicholas Woodroffe the said great house, with two tenements before it, in lieu of a hundred pounds, and made it up in money £366 : 13 : 4. This worshipful man, and the gentlewoman his widow after him, kept those houses down Lime Street in good reparations, never put out but one tenant, took no fines, nor raised rents of them, which was ten shillings the piece yearly: but whether that favour did overlive her funeral, the tenants now can best declare the contrary.
“Next unto this, on the high street, was the Lord Sowche’s messuage or tenement, and other; in place whereof, Richard Wethell, merchant-tailor, built a fair house, with a high tower, the second in number, and first of timber, that ever I learnt to have been built to overlook neighbours in this city.
“This Richard, then a young man, became in a short time so tormented with gouts in his joints, of the hands and legs, that he could neither feed himself nor go further than he was led; much less was he able to climb and take the pleasure of the height of his tower. Then is there another fair house, built by Stephen Kirton, alderman; Alderman Lee did then possess it, and again new buildeth it; but now it is in the custody of Sir William Craven.
“Then is there a fair house of old time called the Green gate; by which name one Michael Pistoy, a Lumbard held it, with a tenement and nine shops in the reign of Richard II., who in the 15th of his reign gave it to Roger Corphull, and Thomas Bromester, esquires, by the name of the Green Gate, in the parish of St. Andrew upon Cornhill, in Lime Street ward; since the which time Philip Malpas, sometime alderman, and one of the sheriffs, dwelt therein, and was there robbed and spoiled of his goods to a great value by Jack Cade, and other rebels, in the year 1449.
“Afterwards, in the reign of Henry VII., it was seised into the King’s hands, and then granted, first, unto John Alston, after that unto William de la Rivers, and since by Henry VIII. to John Mutas, a Picarde or Frenchman, who dwelt there, and harboured in his house many Frenchmen, that kalendred wolsteds, and did other things contrary to the franchises of the citizens; wherefore on evil May-day, which was in the year 1517, the apprentices and others spoiled his house; and if they could have found Mutas, they would have stricken off his head. Sir Peter Mutas, son to the said John Mutas, sold this house to David Woodroffe, alderman, whose son, Sir Nicholas Woodroffe, alderman, sold it over to John Moore, alderman, that then possessed it.
“Next is a house called the Leaden porch, lately divided into two tenements; whereof one is a tavern, and then one other house for a merchant, likewise called the leaden Porch, but now turned to a cook’s house. Next is a fair house and a large, wherein divers mayoralties have been kept, whereof twain in my remembrance; to wit, Sir William Bowyer and Sir Henry Huberthorne” (Stow’s Survey, pp. 162-163).
In modern Lime Street the first thing that attracts attention is an old iron gateway leading to a little paved yard where once stood St. Dionis Backchurch. Laid in a horizontal row are nine tombstones, on which one can look down. A steep flight of stone steps leads up to the parish offices, and the backs of business houses surround the court. At No. 15 is the Pewterers’ Hall.