Chantries were founded here by: Reginald de Canterbury, citizen, at the Altar of St. Thomas the Archbishop in 1329, when John de Lacelbrigge was admitted chaplain; William Ivorye, whose endowment yielded £8 : 6 : 8 in 1548; John Bromesburye and John Wasselbye, whose endowments fetched £10 in 1548; Margery Bedyn, whose endowment yielded £10 : 8s. in 1548; Hugo Browne, whose endowment fetched £18 : 11s. in 1548; John Doggett, whose endowment yielded £10 in 1548; Robert Boydon.
A considerable number of monuments were recorded by Stow to have been well preserved. That of the greatest antiquity was one in memory of John Johnson, who died 1280. Several were erected to various members of the Doggett family, of whom Walter Doggett was sheriff in 1380, John Doggett, a citizen of eminence in his day, buried 1456 (circa); Robert Fitzhugh (d. 1436), Bishop of London, was rector here.
Pudding Lane was formerly Rother Lane, or Red Rose Lane. It was called, according to Stow, “Pudding Lane, because the butchers of Eastcheap have their scalding houses for hogs there, and their puddings with other filth of beasts are voided down that way to their dung boats on the Thames. This lane stretcheth from Thames Street to Little East Cheap, chiefly inhabited by basket makers, turners and butchers, and is all of Billingsgate Ward” (Cunningham). But the lane has its chief claim to remembrance in the fact that here originated the Great Fire.
In Stow’s time it was occupied by basket-makers, turners, and butchers. On the north-east of the lane stood Butchers’ Hall, destroyed by the Fire, and rebuilt; burned again in 1829; rebuilt in 1831; removed to Bartholomew Close in 1884.
ST. GEORGE’S CHURCH
St. George’s Church was burnt down in the Great Fire, rebuilt by Wren in 1674, and became the parish church for St. Botolph’s, Billingsgate, which had been also destroyed but not re-erected. In 1895 the building was closed on account of its dilapidated state. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1321. [Since pulled down.]
The patronage of the church was in the hands of: The Prior and Convent of St. Saviour, Bermondsey, in 1321; then the Crown, since 1541 up to 1666, when it was annexed to St. Botolph, Billingsgate, and with it to St. Mary-at-Hill.
Houseling people in 1548 were 123.
The present church measures 54 feet in length, 36 feet in breadth, and 36 feet in height. It has two side-aisles, each separated from the nave by two composite columns, placed far apart. The tower, which rises at the north-west, consists of three stories, concluded by a cornice and parapet, the angles of which are adorned with vases. The total height is about 84 feet.
Stow records a chantry founded by Roger Delakere.