CHAPTER IX.
TWO OLD CITY MANSIONS.
‘The crowning city, whose merchants are princes, whose traffickers are the honourable of the earth.’
Isaiah xxiii. 8.
BEFORE the summer of 1892 a large and interesting old mansion was destroyed in the City. This, known as Nos. 8 and 9, Great St. Helen’s, Bishopsgate Street, was situated on the south side of the churchyard. It was of brick, having engaged pilasters, which were furnished with stone bases and capitals; they also had bands, on two of which, composed, however, of cement, appeared in relief the initials ali and the date 1646. The projecting sills or cornices, and the deep keystones of the first-floor windows, gave a striking character to the house. It was also memorable as an early specimen of brickwork in London, and as dating from a period before the formal conclusion of the Civil War, when building operations were almost at a standstill. No. 9 had, in a room on the first-floor, a wooden seventeenth-century mantelpiece,[92] behind which, on its removal, were found traces of an older mantelpiece of marble, and evidence of the former existence of a large open fireplace.
NOS. 8 AND 9, GREAT ST. HELEN’S.
There was a beautiful staircase, quite Elizabethan in style; a blocked-up window with wooden transoms for casements was also discovered; so it seems likely that some years after the building of the house considerable alterations took place. The façade has often been attributed to Inigo Jones,[93] but it had not his classic symmetry, and looked like the work of a less-instructed native genius. Besides, Inigo Jones, a Royalist and Roman Catholic, was taken prisoner in October, 1645, at the storming of Basing House, having been there during the siege, which had lasted since August, 1643. He was apparently not free to return to his profession until July 2, 1646, when, after payment of a heavy fine, his estate, which had been sequestrated, was restored to him, and he received pardon by an ordinance of the House of Commons, to which the Lords gave their assent. It is difficult to believe that, whilst he was passing through such a crisis, or in the few months succeeding it, he should have been superintending a work in the Puritan City. At the time of his release the great architect was seventy-four years of age, and, as far as we know, he hardly practised his profession afterwards. Aubrey tells us that in 1648, the south side of Wilton House having been destroyed, it was restored by his advice, ‘but he being then very old could not be there in person, but left it to Mr. Webb,’ his pupil and executor.
The division of Nos. 8 and 9, Great St. Helen’s into two took place in the course of last century, probably about 1750, to judge from the style of the fanlights and projecting hoods to the front-doors, and from the staircase of No. 8, the upper part of which, however, was much more archaic, and may have served as part of the back-staircase to the original house. At the time of these later alterations a new brick front was put to the top story, the windows being protected by high iron railings, which showed that these upper rooms were used as nurseries. Before this there was, I should imagine, a high-pitched roof, perhaps hipped, with dormer windows. There must also have been an appropriate cornice and frieze, which would have balanced the heavy projecting window-sills below. That the house always had a fourth story is proved by the fact that both the old staircases extended to the top. The accompanying illustration of part of the front is from a beautiful measured drawing by Mr. H. O. Tarbolton, who studied the house very carefully just before its demolition.