Middlesex row, St. Giles’s Broadway.
Midley’s wharf, Ratcliff.†
Milborne’s Almshouse, on the west side of Woodrof lane, Crutched Friars, was erected by Sir John Milborne in the year 1535, for the reception of thirteen poor members of the Drapers company, whom he allowed 7d. per week, which was at that time a sufficient support. In the front of the building is the following inscription:
Ad laudem Dei, & gloriosæ Virginis Mariæ, hoc opus erexit Dominus Johannes Milborne, Miles & Alderman. bujus civitatis, A. D. 1535.
That is,
‘To the praise of God, and the glory of the Virgin, this edifice was erected by John Milborne, Mayor of this city in the year 1535.’
The Drapers company, to whom the management of this almshouse was intrusted, have not only increased the number of the pensioners to fifteen; but have doubled their pensions, with a load of coals, and twenty or more shillings annually, out of the money left to be distributed by that company at discretion.
St. Mildred’s Bread Street, a church situated on the east side of Bread street, and in the ward of that name, is thus denominated from its being dedicated to St. Mildred, a Saxon lady, the daughter of Merwaldus, brother to Penda King of the Mercians. This Princess despising the gaieties of a court, retired to a convent at Hale in France, whence returning to England, accompanied by seventy virgins, she was consecrated Abbess of a new monastery in the isle of Thanet, where she died in the year 676.
A church under the same tutelary name stood in that spot in the year 1333: but the last structure being destroyed by the fire of London, the present edifice was created in its room in 1670.
It consists of a spacious body, and a light tower divided into four stages, whence rises a tall spire.