Pictorial Agency.
THE COLLEGE OF ARMS
Here is the school for St. Paul’s choir-boys, with a stencilled frieze. The playground is on the roof.
Creed Lane was formerly called Sporier Row. An inn in Sporier Row is assigned in the fifteenth century by the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul’s to their canons. After the Fire there were differences as to the sites and boundaries of houses destroyed in Creed Lane. The Lane was widened in 1750 as one of the improvements made at that time.
Dean’s Court has now warehouses erected on the north and east sides. The house over the archway was said to have been occupied by Sir Christopher Wren as his office during the building of St. Paul’s. Within this court were also the vicar general’s, the commissary and the consistory courts, and offices for procuring marriage licences.
St. Peter’s College adjoined Dean’s Court on the west side in St. Paul’s Churchyard (see under the Stationers Company, p. 199).
When Charles V. came to London in 1522, Doctors’ Commons among other places furnished for his suite a hall, a parlour, and three chambers with feather beds. Mention is made of the dining-hall of Doctors’ Commons and of the “entre going into the great canonicale House now naymed the Doctors’ Commons with a chamber over the said entre,” and of other parts of the building.
This ancient College or House of Doctors of Law was swept away in 1861-67 in consequence of alterations in legal procedure. The courts were removed, and the business of the proctors was merged in the ordinary work of the High Courts of Justice and the Bar.
The Deanery itself is on the west side standing back behind a high brick wall, painted yellow. It is attributed to Sir Christopher Wren, and was built soon after the Great Fire. The stone piers of the gates are surmounted by cones. The building itself is tiled with three dormer windows standing out from the roof and heavy projecting eaves. In the interior there is no carving or anything of antiquarian interest calling for remark, but the front door has some rich wood-carving in the style of Grinling Gibbons.
Paul’s Chain and the greater part of St. Bennet’s Hill are now Godliman Street. The origin of the name “Godliman” is unknown. Cunningham says that the earliest mention of the name is 1732. It is not found in Ogilby nor in Strype. It has been spelt “Godalmin.”