THE DYERS COMPANY
The Dyers Company was in existence in 1381, and probably even earlier.
The first charter was that granted by Henry VI. in 1471; this was renewed by Edward IV. in 1472. The charter was confirmed or renewed by Henry VIII., Edward VI., Elizabeth, and Mary. An Inspeximus charter was granted, 2 Elizabeth 1559 and by 4 James I. 1606; James II. gave the Company a charter 1688, and they were re-incorporated by Anne 1704.
The number of the livery is now 61; the Corporate Income is £5000; the Trust Income £1000.
The Company has the right to keep swans on the river Thames. This privilege they share with the vintners, and the “Barge masters” of both Companies have the care of the swans.
Dyers’ Hall extends from Skinners’ Hall to the corner of College Street, and occupies the site of Jesus’ Commons, which was, says Stow (1598), “a college of priests, a house well furnished with brass, pewter, napery, plate, etc., besides a fair library well stored with books, all which of old time was given to a number of priests that should keep commons there, and as one left his place, by death or otherwise, another should be admitted into his room, but this order within this thirty years being discontinued, the said house was dissolved, and turned to tenements.”
The Dyers’ Hall consists of a plain four-storied building, the basement being of stone, the upper part of white brick with stone facings. Part of the lower story is let out as business premises, the corner at College Street being allotted to the Bunch of Grapes Inn. The great hall is a large and lofty room, but comparatively plain. It is relieved by rather handsome frieze and cornice and is lighted by two windows, one at either end.
The Company’s Hall in use prior to 1666 stood at the south end of what is now Dyers’ Hall Wharf, Upper Thames Street. It was destroyed in the Great Fire and apparently rebuilt in a stately manner, but again destroyed by fire in 1681. (Malcolm, 1802.) For several years the Company met in Salters’ Hall. Maitland (1739) says “the Company has converted one of their houses in little Elbow Lane into a hall to transact their business in.” This fell down in 1768. The next hall was erected about 1770. It was a tolerably spacious unassuming building, the exterior distinguished by a double flight of steps, but was not of any architectural merit. The present hall was built 1839-40 (Charles Dyer, architect). Some additions and alterations were made to it 1865-67 by D. A. Corbett, architect. (See Lond. and Mid. Arch. Trans. vol. v. p. 452.)
The Dyers’ Wharf estate is now covered with warehouses. Those on the riverside are known as the Monument Bonded Warehouses. The archives of the Company were destroyed in the Great Fire.
The slope of Dowgate Hill is now a gradual one, but Stow speaks of it as of rapid descent, and relates that in 1574 the channels became so swollen and swift in a heavy storm of rain, that a lad of eighteen, endeavouring to leap over near the conduit, was taken with the stream and carried thence against a cartwheel that stood in the watergate, “before which time he was drowned and stark dead.” Strype (1720) mentions that the hill was still so steep that in great rains floods arose in the lower parts. Ben Jonson speaks of “Dowgate torrents falling into Thames.”
Dowgate Wharf or Dock is supposed to have gained its name from its steep descent to the river, as it was sometimes called Downgate, but this derivation sounds highly improbable. One of the most ancient ferries over the Thames was at Dowgate. On the east side of the dock is Walbrook Wharf, showing the spot where the ancient stream, the Walbrook, reached the Thames.
Robert Green the dramatist, from whom Shakespeare borrowed the plot of his Winter’s Tale, died (1592) in an obscure lodging at the house of a shoemaker in Dowgate, indebted to his landlord for the bare necessaries of life.
At the north end of Dowgate Hill near Cloak Lane stood St. John the Baptist’s Church.
St. John the Baptist was situated on the west side of Dowgate Hill in the ward of Walbrook. Ecclesia Sancti Johannis super Walbroc, occurs about 1181; ecclesia Sancti Johis de Walbrook is set down in the “Taxatio Ecclesiasticus” of Pope Nicholas IV. (1291). The first mention of the church is contained in a book at the Cathedral (Newcourt, i. p. 371) compiled in the time of Ralph de Diceto made dean 1181. The entry is as follows:—“Ecclesia Sancti Johannis super Walbroc est Canonicorum, & reddit eis ii sol. per manum Vitalis clerici, solvit Synodalia ivd, Archidiacono xiid. & habet in domino suo quondam terram, quae reddit ii sol. & est de feodo Willimi de la Mare, & etiam terrulam, quae est inter ecclesiam & Walbroc & reddit iii sol. non habet coemiterium.”
Thus the earliest church stood upon the east side of the stream, a little tract of land intervening between its west wall and the bank. When the watercourse was diverted to flow more eastwards, the chancel bordered on the brook. It was rebuilt about 1412, and again in 1621, but destroyed by the Great Fire in 1666, when its parish was annexed to that of St. Antholin. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1150.
The patronage of the church was in the hands of: the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul’s in 1150, who granted it to the Prioress and Convent of St. Helen about 1373, till it was seized by Henry VIII. and so continued in the Crown up to 1671, when it was annexed to St. Antholin.
Houseling people in 1548 were 375.
Only two monuments are recorded by Stow as being of note—W. Combarton, Skinner, who gave lands to the church, buried 1410; and John Stone, Taylor, Sheriff 1464.
The site of the building was converted into a churchyard, and upon the wall is a stone with this inscription:
“‘Before the dreadfull Fire, anno domini 1666, here stood the parish church St. John Baptist, upon Walbrook—William Wilkins, James Whitchurch, churchwardens this present year anno domini 1674.’ The above stone was refaced, and the letters fresh cut anno domini 1836—Rev. John Gordon M.A. rector, Edward Jones, Lewis Williams, churchwardens.”
The parsonage was not rebuilt, and Strype notes (1754, vol. i. p. 516) that neither its site nor that of its garden was given in the 1693 visitation. Newcourt (Repertorium, i. p. 371) further notes that the same visitation records great encroachments having been made on the churchyard since the Fire “to some of which the parish had consented, and others have been done by the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen, without the consent of the Archbishop and Bishop of London (as ’tis said) and the Chamberlain of London receives the rent for them.”
It was reserved for the commercial civilisation of this century to “encroach” the churchyard out of existence. The Act of the Metropolitan Railway gave the Company power to construct their Cannon Street Station (1883) under the burial-ground, and to remove the human remains. The churchyard is no more; the greater part of its site is enclosed by a brick wall which screens the opening in the roof of the station below. At the extreme west end an asphalted square has been railed in and reserved as a home for gravestones, and a large ornament bearing this melancholy and curious inscription:
Sacred to the memory of the dead interred in the ancient church and churchyard of St. John the Baptist upon Walbrook during four centuries. The formation of the District Railway having necessitated the destruction of the greater part of the churchyard, all the human remains contained therein were carefully collected and re-interred in a vault beneath this monument A.D. 1884.—Rev. Lewis Borrett White, D.D., rector; John R. W. Luck, Edward White, churchwardens.
But why sacred to the memory of the dead during “four centuries” only? Had not those buried previously to 1484 any right to commemoration? The churchyard existed in 1378 and the church in 1181. Truly inscription writers are marvellous in their discriminating powers. The vault containing the remains is situated alongside the railway line beneath.
Very interesting discoveries were made when excavating for the station. Mr. E. P. Seaton, the resident engineer, has preserved some careful notes, from which the following is an extract: “At the west end of the churchyard was found a subway running north and south. The arch was formed of stone blocks (Kentish rag) placed 3 feet apart, the space between being filled up with brickwork. The sides were of worked red ragstones, 8 by 11 inches, and 3 feet long (some 1 foot 4 inches long), surrounded with rough rubble masonry, set in mortar of a brown colour. The flat bottom varied from 2 to 4 feet in thickness and was formed of random rubble masonry. The brick invert was of much later date, about 6 inches thick and almost a semicircle. The space between the underside of that and the bottom was filled with made earth. A portion of the arch had been broken in, and was filled with human bones. The other parts of the subway or sewer were filled with hand-packed stones. This is supposed to be the centre of the ancient Walbrook (this supposition is quite correct) and made earth was found to a distance of 35 feet from the surface. Clay of a light grey colour was then found, impregnated with the decayed roots of water-plants. The foundations (it is a matter of regret that no plan of the foundations was taken; the opportunity is now lost for ever) of the old church of St. John the Baptist, destroyed 1666, and pulled down about 1677, were discovered about 10 to 12 feet from the surface and composed of chalk and Kentish ragstones. They ran about north-north-east to south-south-west. Piles of oak were found which seem to denote that the church was built on the edge of the brook, which must have been filled up during the Roman occupation, as numerous pieces of Roman pottery were found.” The bottom of the Walbrook valley was reached at 32 feet below the present street level, and is now 11 feet below the level of the lines in the station. During the excavations the piles and sill of the Horseshoe bridge which crossed the Walbrook hereabouts were also found near the churchyard, together with the remains of an ancient boat. These were unfortunately too rotten to preserve, but a block of Roman herring-bone pavement, formerly constituting part of a causeway or landing-place on the brook, is now at the Guildhall Museum. It was found beneath the churchyard 21 feet below the present level of the street, and was presented by the rector and churchwardens. Most of the Samian pottery and Roman coins found at this time were also presented to the Guildhall.