Bread-street formerly contained a famous tavern and a prison. The Mermaid is mentioned by Ben Jonson. There seems to have been a celebrated tavern here long before the time of Stowe, for he mentions Gerrarde’s Hall in his days as a hostelry for travellers, and, in his gossiping way, gives us an old-world story about the old building, which stood above the ancient crypt, which we have here engraved (as one of the vestiges of the London of our forefathers, doomed to be sacrificed to modern improvement), and in it he gives us a giant, and a long pole, which this son of Anak is said to have wielded in the wars. We have heard that this Gerrarde the giant was buried under the ancient crypt, which to this day sounds hollow to the tread. But the good old historian, with his simple and child-like belief, and love for all undated traditions, shall “tell the tale.”
“On the north side of Basing-lane is one great house of old time, built upon arched vaults, and with arched gates of stone, brought from Caen in Normandy, the same is now [about 1600] a common hostelry [inn] for receipt of travellers, commonly and corruptly called Gerrarde’s Hall, of a giant said to have dwelt there. In the high-roofed hall of this house some time stood a large fir-pole, which reached to the roof thereof, and was said to be one of the staves that Gerrarde the giant used in the wars to run with [away?]. There stood also a ladder of the same length, which (as they say) served to ascend to the top of the staff. Of later years this hall is altered, and divers rooms are made in it. [Alas, then, as now, they would improve; and cared not for their home antiquities even in good old Stowe’s time!] Notwithstanding, the pole is removed to one corner of the hall, and the ladder hanged broken upon a wall in the yard. The hostelar of that house said to me, ‘The pole lacketh half a foot of forty in length.’ I measured the compass thereof, and found it fifteen inches. Reasons of the pole could the master of the hostelry give me none; but bade me read the ‘great’ Chronicles, for there he heard of it. [Our hosts were reading men we see in the time of Elizabeth; and we love the epithet ‘great’ before Chronicles, for we believe it was the host’s word and not Stowe’s.] I will now note what myself have observed concerning that house. I read that John Gisors, Mayor of London in the year 1245, was owner thereof [it might have been old then, for Stowe does not say that the mayor built it]; and that Sir John Gisors, constable of the Tower, 1311, and divers others of that name and family since that time owned it. [The Gisors must have been men of eminence for one to have become constable of the Tower in that jealous age, when the Normans ruled with an iron hand.] So it appeareth that this Gisors’ Hall of late time, by corruption, hath been called Gerrardes’ Hall for Gisors’ Hall. The pole in the hall might be used of old time [as then the custom was in every parish] to be set up in the summer, as a May-pole. The ladder served [serving?] for the decking of the May-pole and roof of the hall.”—Stowe.
Surely this crypt ought to be spared for the sake of Stowe, and Gerard the giant, and the May-pole—the compass of which the honest old historian measured. What a picture it would make—Stowe, the host, and the ostler, with the old building and the broken ladder! what rich material for a chapter in an historical romance! If we live, we will do it some day. Of course the old hall was swept away in the Great Fire, and Gerard the giant (which we have here engraved) grew up after the flames had died out; though they went roaring and reddening above the ancient crypt, over which the generations of six centuries have trampled. The vaults are of great antiquity—at least as old as the building mentioned by Stowe—the date of which he does not give, although he mentions John Gisors, Mayor of London, as a resident there in 1245, that is, more than 600 years ago.