THE PAINTERS OR PAINTER STAINERS COMPANY
This Company was incorporated by Queen Elizabeth, 1582, for a master, 2 wardens, 19 assistants, and a livery of 124. The present livery is 130; their Corporate Income is £700; their Trust Income is £2300. Their hall is in Little Trinity Lane. The history of the Company has been written by Mr. John Gregory Grace, late master. It was an ancient Gild, but how ancient cannot be learned. In the fifteenth century the Painters sent unto the mayor and aldermen the usual petition that they might be allowed to choose two persons of their Mystery who should be authorised to make search for bad and “false” work. This Company originally included painters of portraits and other kinds, as well as decorators, sign painters, etc. It might, in fact, have become the City Academy of Arts, and it seems a great pity that its nobler side was lost sight of. The hall, formerly the residence of Sir John Brown, Sergeant Painter to Henry VIII., was destroyed by the Great Fire and rebuilt immediately afterwards. The Company can show many distinguished names on the roll of members, including those of Sir Peter Lely, Sir Godfrey Kneller, Antonio Verrio, Sir James Thornhill, and Richard Lovelace.
Holy Trinity the Less was situated in Knightrider Street. In 1607 and 1629 it was rebuilt and repaired, but it was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666, and its parish annexed to that of St. Michael, Queenhithe. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1323.
The patronage of the church was in the hands of: The Prior and Convent of St. Mary Overy, Southwark, before 1316; Henry VIII. seized it, when it soon came, either by exchange or grant, to the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury, with whose successors it continued till 1666, when the church was destroyed and the parish annexed to St. Michael, Queenhithe.
Houseling people in 1548 were 170.
Chantries were founded here by: Thomas Cosyn; John Bryan.
John Bryan was buried in this church—he was an alderman in the reign of Henry V. and a great benefactor; also John Mirsin, auditor of the Exchequer in 1471.
No legacies or gifts are recorded by Stow.
There was a school for forty-three boys and girls belonging to St. Michael, Queenhithe.
John Rogers, who was burnt as a heretic at Smithfield in 1555, was a rector here; also Francis Dee (d. 1638), Bishop of Peterborough.
Great Trinity Lane, together with Great St. Thomas Apostle and the west half of Cloak Lane, formerly counted as part of Knightrider Street, which joins the western end of Great Trinity Lane.
It was changed to the present style after the Fire. In 1888 the underground “Mansion House” station ousted all the houses on the south side of the lane; but Jack’s Alley was a right-of-way into Keen’s mustard factory—its loss had to be made good, and hence the iron bridge which crosses the station from the lane to the factory: really it is an alley suspended in mid-air.
Great St. Thomas Apostle was an important street in old days. It was so-called from the Church of St. Thomas the Apostle.
At St. Paul’s Cathedral is a document of 1170 relating to St. Thomas-the-Apostle; that is the earliest reference. In 1181 the book of Dean Ralph de Diceto describes it as “Ecclesia Sancti Thomae,” a church with burial-ground belonging. The Cathedral canons collated to it, and one Stephen was then priest. The name at that time is simply written “St. Thomas”; it was the only church of the name in the City. A few years later the church dedicated to St. Thomas à Becket was founded in Cheapside and styled St. Thomas of Acres: after that, necessity of distinction caused the earlier church to be known as “St. Thomas-ye-Apostle.” Of the building, scant information exists. Roesia de Burford erected upon the south side a new chapel shortly before 1329.[[4]] At about the same time a partial or complete rebuilding of the church took place: John Bernes, mercer, Lord Mayor 1371, was a substantial contributor to the new work, and a coat-of-arms existing in the stone work and the windows until Stow’s time (1598) was believed to attest his munificence. A Fraternity of St. Eligius, or Eloy, Bishop of Noyon, had quarters here, and there was an altar to their saint. In the years 1629-1630 the building was “well repaired and finely varnished” at a cost of nearly £300. Then in 1666 came the trial by fire, and the church succumbed. The parish was united to St. Mary Aldermary, and the Dean and Chapter, as patrons of St. Thomas, were allotted alternate presentation to the united living. The sites of the church and rectory were thrown into Queen Street, cut from Cheapside to Thames Street soon after the Fire. Some small portion of the churchyard remained, east and west of the new thoroughfare. Part of the western space was shortly built upon; the very houses still stand, with the tree-planted churchyard as a garden entrance: beneath the garden are the vaults, once used as a last resting-place for deceased parishioners, now as a wine store. The western space still contained some remains of the church until plastered over in 1828. The ground was curtailed by the widening of Queen Street and the allotment of a rectory site for St. Mary Aldermary in 1851. Thus it has been reduced to a tiny and flagged square. On the north wall a tablet bears this inscription: “Near this spot stood the church of St. Thomas the Apostle, destroyed in the Great Fire of London, September 1666: the burial ground belonging to which, extending 55 feet northward of Cloak Lane, and 20 feet on an average eastward of Queen Street, was circumscribed to the space here enclosed a.d. 1851, when by virtue of an Act of Parliament 10 and 11 Vict. cap. CCLXXX, the remnant of the ground was taken to widen Queen Street and Cloak Lane. All remains of mortality which could be discovered were carefully collected and deposited within the vault beneath this stone. H. B. Wilson DD, rector: Matthew T. Bishop: John Pollock: churchwardens.” The earliest date of an incumbent is 1365.
The patronage of the church has always been in the hands of the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul’s, and was given to them in the twelfth century by Wicelonis the priest and Gervasius his nephew.
Houseling people in 1548 were 298.
Chantries were founded here: By Thomas Romayn, whose will was dated December 21, 1312, for himself and Juliana his wife, to which John Wariner, priest, was admitted chaplain, April 20, 1368; by Roger atte Wine, whose endowment fetched £2 : 13 : 4 in 1548; by William Champneys, to which Walter Badewynde de Canterbury dio was admitted chaplain, June 12, 1368—the endowment fetched £5 : 6 : 7 in 1548 (the above three were consolidated and united in January 9, 1400-1401, when Thomas Jordan was admitted chaplain); by Richard Chawry, who gave to the Salters Company certain lands, etc., to find a priest, which were valued at £6 : 13 : 4 in 1548, when Sir George Walpole was chaplain; by William Brampton, who endowed it with lands, etc., which fetched £6 : 13 : 4 in 1548, when Sir John Barnes was chaplain.
Very few monuments of special interest are recorded by Stow. John Foy, citizen and Merchant Taylor, was buried here in 1625; he was a benefactor of the parish.
The charitable gifts belonging to this parish were few and small: £13 : 0 : 4 the gift of Mr. Hinman; £2 : 12s. the gift of Mr. Beeston; and others to the amount of £5.
Two almshouses for the poor of the Salters Company belonging to St. Mary Aldermary.
John Walker (d. 1741), Archdeacon of Hereford, was rector here; also Thomas Cartwright (1634-1689), Bishop of Chester.
Just beyond its eastern end, across the present College Hill, stood the Tower Royal. The wine merchants of La Reole, near Bordeaux, settled in and round the present College Hill during or before the reign of Edward I. The hill and the immediate neighbourhood became termed “the Reole”: the word “Royal” is a corrupted form, and has nothing to do with kings. The tower, tenement, or inn situated in “the Reole” stood on the north of Cloak Lane, at College Hill corner; it extended eastwards nearly to the Walbrook, northwards perhaps to Budge Row. It had a south gate, and probably also a courtyard opening into the lane; and a west gate standing on the hill. Perhaps Henry I. was the founder: Stow wishes us to believe that Stephen lodged here, “as in the heart of the City for his more safety,” which is very likely true.
The theory that the tower, or main building, was reserved to the King finds support in 1331, when Edward III. granted “La Real” to Queen Phillippa for life, to serve as her wardrobe. A few years later Phillippa repaired, perhaps rebuilt, it; particulars of the work done still survive (Cottonian MS.). In 1369, a few months after Phillippa’s death, the King gave this “inn (hospitum) with its appurtenances, called le Reole” to the canons of his college of St. Stephen’s, Westminster, the annual value being then £20. By some means the place still continued at the royal disposal, both to dwell in and to grant away. When the Wat Tyler rebellion in 1381 drove Johanna, the King’s mother, from the Tower of London, she took refuge here, the place being then called the Queen’s Wardrobe: thither came Richard II. when he returned from Smithfield, after the death of Tyler. Richard was still here in 1386, “lying in the Royal,” as Stow has it, when he granted a charter of £1000 per annum to the refugee Leon VI., King of Armenia. The place was granted by Richard III. to John Howard, Duke of Norfolk. In later times the Tower became neglected, and converted into stabling for the King’s horses. When Stow wrote (1598), it was divided into tenements let out to divers persons. All perished in the Great Fire; but at the rebuilding the south entrance and courtyard in Cloak Lane were plainly marked by Balding’s Yard; the west gateway by Tower Royal Court in what was then Tower Royal Street, but is now the upper end of College Hill. Neither survived; but a small lane called Tower Royal, in Cordwainer Ward, marks the western boundary.
West of the Church of St. Thomas Apostle, reaching to Bow Lane, was the great house called Ypres Inn, first built by William of Ypres, who came over from Flanders with other Flemings to aid Stephen against Matilda.
In the year 1377 John of Ypres lived there: on a certain day came John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, and Lord Henry Percy the marshal to dine with him. Both the Duke and Percy had been defending Wyclyf before the Bishop of London: the citizens, enraged, sought the life of both, going in pursuit of them to the Savoy. A knight of the Duke’s hastened to Ypres Inn with the news: the frightened Duke “leapt so hastily from his oysters that he hurt both his legs against a form,” refused the consolation of wine, left the Inn with Percy by a back gate, and taking a boat at the Thames “never stayed rowing” until he came to Kennington, where he was safe. Thus the hunters missed the fox at his hole, whilst the fox, lying in hiding at the hunter’s back door, conveyed himself to a place of security. What eventually happened to the Inn is not recorded.
Garlick Hill, or Garlick Hithe, where, one supposes, garlick was formerly sold, has at present in it nothing remarkable except the Church of St. James. “Garleckhithe” occurs in a record of 1281. Of old time, Stow relates, garlic was sold upon the Thames bank near this hill: as a strong flavouring it was much in vogue for the dressing of food among the common folk: and an ordinance of 1310 relating to Queenhithe, close by, makes reference to ships with cargoes of garlic and onions. Here, no doubt, the garlic market was held, hence this particular hithe, hive, harbour, or quay was the Garlickhithe, and the church on the hill just above was called St. James-at-Garlickhithe. At the north-east corner of the hill stood Ormond Place, a great stone house, sometimes the residence of the Earls of Ormond. It had just been demolished when Stow wrote his Survey, and tenements and a tavern built on the site. The hill was “well built and inhabited” after the Great Fire, says Strype. Sir John Coke was living here in 1625.