The building was a quadrangle, enclosing an open space. The sides formed a cloister or sheltered walk; above this was a corridor, or walk, called "the pawn," with stalls or shops, like the Burlington Arcade of the present day; above this again was a tier of rooms. The great bell-tower stood on the Cornhill front; the bell was rung at noon and at six in the evening. On the north side, looking towards St. Margaret's, Lothbury, was a tall Corinthian column. Both tower and column were surmounted by a grasshopper—the Gresham crest. The inscription on the façade of the building was in French, German, and Italian. The motley scene of Lombard Street had been transferred to the Royal Exchange. The merchants of Amsterdam, of Antwerp, of Hamburg, of Paris, of Bordeaux, of Venice and Vienna, distinguishable to the eye by the dress of the nations they represented, and to the ear by the differences of language, conducted their exchanges with English merchants, and with each other, in this replica of the Bourse of Antwerp, the rialto of Elizabethan London.[1]
Cheapside was called West Cheap in Elizabethan London, in contradistinction to East Cheap, famous for ever as the scene of the humours of "Dame Quickly" and "Falstaff." The change in West Cheap since the mediæval period was chiefly at the eastern end, on the north side. Here a large space opposite the church of St. Mary-le-Bow was formerly kept clear of building, although booths and stalls for market purposes occupied the ground temporarily. The space was otherwise reserved for the mediæval jousts, tournaments, and other civic pageantry. The site of Mercers' Hall was occupied by the Militia Hospitalis, called, after Thomas à Becket, St. Thomas of Acon. After the Dissolution this establishment was granted by Henry to the Mercers' Company, who adapted the existing buildings to the purposes of their hall, one of the principal features of Cheap in Elizabethan times. The district eastward of Mercers' Hall had become filled up with building, and the making of Cheap as a thoroughfare was now complete. The original road westward was from the top of New Fish Street, by East Cheap, Candlewick or Cannon Street, past London Stone (probably the Roman Milliarium), along Budge Row and Watling Street, to the site of St. Paul's, where it is conjectured a temple of Diana stood in Roman times. But Cheap, or West Cheap, was the chief traffic way westward in Elizabethan London; it was filled with shops and warehouses, a thriving business centre, the pride of the city. The name of "Cheap" was derived from the market, and several of the streets leading into it yet bear names which in Elizabethan times were descriptive of the trades there carried on. Thus the Poultry was the poulterers' market; ironmongers had their shops in Ironmonger Lane, as formerly they had their stalls in the same area; in Milk Street were the dairies; and towards the west end of Cheap was Bread Street, the market of the bakers, and Friday Street, where fishmongers predominated. Lying between these two streets, with frontages in both, was the Mermaid Tavern, the chief resort of "the breed of excellent and choice wits," included by Camden among the glories of Elizabethan London. Stow does not refer to the Mermaid by name, but possibly he had it in mind when he wrote the following passage: "Bread Street, so called of bread sold there, as I said, is now wholly inhabited by rich merchants; and divers fair inns be there, for good receipt of carriers and other travellers to the city." The trades kept themselves in their special localities, although they did not always give the name to the street they occupied. Thus, to return to the eastern end of Cheap, there was Bucklersbury, where the pepperers or grocers were located, having given up their former quarters in Sopars' Lane to the cordwainers and curriers. With the grocers were mingled apothecaries and herbalists; and hence the protest of Falstaff, in the Merry Wives of Windsor, that he was not "like a many of these lisping hawthorn-buds, that come like women in men's apparel, and smell like Bucklesbury in simple time." In the midst of Cheap, at a point between Mercers' Hall and Old Jewry, opposite the end of Bucklersbury, was the water conduit—in the words of Stow, "The great conduit of sweet water, conveyed by pipes of lead underground from Paddington for the service of this city, castellated with stone, and cisterned in lead." Around the conduit stood the great jars used by the water-carriers to convey the water to the houses. The water-carrier, as a type of Elizabethan London, is preserved by Ben Jonson in the character of Cob in Every Man in his Humour. Going westward from the Conduit, another object stood out in the roadway—the Standard, a tall pillar at which the public executions of the city jurisdiction took place. Still further west, in the midst of Cheap, stood the Eleanor Cross, one of the most beautiful monuments in London at this time.
The Guildhall stood where it stands to-day, accessible from Cheap by Ironmonger Lane and St. Lawrence Lane. Only the walls and the crypt of the original building remain; but the features of this great civic establishment, as well as its sumptuous character and beautiful adornments, were practically the same in the days of Gresham as at the present time. Stow describes the stately porch entering the great hall, the paving of Purbeck marble, the coloured glass windows, and, alas! the library which had been "borrowed" by the Protector Somerset in the preceding reign. Near the Guildhall was the church of St. Mary Aldermanbury, the predecessor of the existing edifice. In this parish dwelt Hemmings and Condell, "fellows" of Shakespeare—that is to say, players of his company, whom he remembered in his will. These men conferred a benefit on all future ages by collecting the poet's plays, seven years after his death, and publishing them in that folio edition which is one of the most treasured volumes in the world. In the churchyard a monument to their memory was erected in 1896. It is surmounted by a bust of the poet, who looks forth serenely greeting the passer-by from beneath the shade of trees in this quiet old churchyard in modern London.
To return to Cheap, it remains to speak of a feature which attracted Queen Elizabeth, and was, indeed, one of the marvels of London. Here are the ipsissima verba of Stow's contemporary description:
"Next to be noted, the most beautiful frame of fair houses and shops that be within the walls of London, or elsewhere in England, commonly called Goldsmiths' Row, betwixt Bread Street end and the cross in Cheap ... the same was built by Thomas Wood, goldsmith, one of the sheriffs of London, in the year 1491. It containeth in number ten fair dwelling-houses and fourteen shops, all in one frame, uniformly built four stories high, beautified towards the street with the Goldsmiths' arms and the likeness of woodmen, in memory of his name, riding on monstrous beasts, all which is cast in lead, richly painted over and gilt. These he gave to the goldsmiths, with stocks of money, to be lent to young men having those shops. This said front was again new painted and gilt over in the year 1594; Sir Richard Martin being then mayor, and keeping his mayoralty in one of them."
Beyond Goldsmiths' Row was the old Change; the name and the street both still exist. Beyond old Change were seven shops; then St. Augustine's Gate, leading into St. Paul's Churchyard; and then came Paternoster Row. Between Paternoster Row and Newgate Street stood the Church of St. Michael-le-Querne, stretching out into the middle of Cheap, where the statue of Sir Robert Peel now stands. Stretching out from the east end of the church, still further into the street, was a water conduit, which supplied all the neighbourhood hereabout, called "The Little Conduit," not because it was little, but to distinguish it from the great conduit at the other end of Cheap.
We are concerned in this place not with the history of old St. Paul's, nor with the technique of its architecture, but with the great cathedral as a religious and social institution, the centre of Elizabethan London. Here the streams of life were gathered, and hence they radiated. It was the official place of worship of the Corporation; the merchants of the city followed. The monarch on special occasions attended the services; the nobility followed the royal example. The typical Elizabethan made the middle aisle his promenade, where he displayed the finery of his attire and the elegance of his deportment. The satirists found a grand opportunity in the humours of Paul's Walk; but the effect of the cathedral is not to be derived from such allusions in the literature of the time. All classes were attracted by the beautiful organ and the anthems so exquisitely sung by the choir. The impressive size and noble proportions of the building, the soaring height of the nave, the mystery of the open tower, where the ascending vision became lost in gathering obscurity, and where the chords from the organ died away; these spiritual associations, these appeals to the imagination, were uplifting influences so powerful that the vanities of Paul's Walk were negligible by comparison. As with the gargoyle on the outer walls, the prevailing effect was so sublime, that it was merely heightened by this element of the grotesque.[2]
The cathedral stood in the midst of a churchyard. In the mediæval period this was enclosed by a wall. In the reign of Elizabeth the wall still existed, but, as Stow observes, "Now on both sides, to wit, within and without, it be hidden with dwelling-houses." In 1561 the great steeple was struck by lightning and destroyed by fire, but the tower from which the spire arose remained. The tower was 260 feet high, and the height of the spire was the same, so that the pinnacle was 520 feet from the base.[3] Surmounting the pinnacle, in this earlier portion of Elizabeth's reign, was a weathercock, an object of curiosity to which Stow devotes a minute description. In the midst of the churchyard stood Paul's Cross—"a pulpit cross of timber, mounted upon steps of stone and covered with lead, in which are sermons preached every Sunday in the forenoon." Many of the monastic features of the establishment had disappeared; others were transformed and adapted to other uses. The great central fabric remained, and the school flourished—"Paul's School," in the east part of the churchyard, endowed by Dean Colet in 1512, and rebuilt in the later years of Elizabeth, where one hundred and fifty-three poor men's children were given a free education under a master, an usher, and a chaplain.