As early as the year 1180 the fraternity or guild of Butchers of the City, then and long after called “bochers,” was in existence.
This Company was incorporated in the year 1606, having existed without a charter from time immemorial. I venture to advance the theory that one reason why the Butchers did not seek corporation before this date was the authority which the City claimed and exercised in all matters connected with food, and especially with meat, fish, and bread; and that which every alderman exercised in his own ward. Thus it was the duty of the alderman to be notified as to the names of every person in the ward exercising any trade connected with food; and the mayor’s regulations as to the trade of butcher (see Liber Albus, passim) seem to leave little need for the scrutiny of a Master.
The principal seat of the butchers was in Newgate Street, then called St. Nicholas Shambles. The spot was chosen as a place near the principal communications of the City with the north and west respectively. Animals brought in to be slaughtered had not far to go within the City. Moreover, it was not a crowded part of London, and was removed from the principal place of trade and from the port. The butchers had also a market at the “Stocks,” and another at East Chepe. There was, however, a very great dislike to living near the Shambles or to keeping shops and stalls near those of the butchers.
Thus Riley (Memorials) quotes a complaint against the butchers that they carried their offal through the streets to a jetty called Butchers’ Bridge. The way, I suppose, was down Warwick Lane, Creed Lane, and St. Andrew’s Hill to Puddle Dock or near it. The carriage of this stuff, often stinking and always dripping blood along the street, caused great complaints. Thus orders were issued one after the other in 1368, 1369, and 1371, commanding the butchers to find a place outside the City for a slaughter-house. The law was never obeyed: probably the butchers made some kind of compromise or were more careful in the carriage of the offal. They had already a place on the banks of the Fleet to which they were allowed to cart their refuse, on condition that it was thrown in at the turn of the tide.
The livery of the Company is 159; their trust and charitable Income amounts to £831 a year.
Daniel Defoe, son of James Foe, citizen and butcher, was a member of this Company by patrimony; admitted January 12, 1687.
CLOTH FAIR
The first glimpse of Cloth Fair from the Smithfield end is full of interest and attraction. It abounds in very old houses with projecting stories and gable ends. Many of these have the bowed curve of old age resembling the curving back of an old man. In others door-lintels and window-frames have slipped out of their horizontal lines. Barley Mow Passage is dull; it contains only plain warehouse-like buildings. In Cloth Fair, Nos. 6 to 4 are covered with rough stucco and have bayed windows and gable ends. These are the fronts of those seen over the churchyard. In New Court are buildings of a similar nature. There are interspersed with these quaint remnants of old domestic architecture business houses of no particular style. No. 13 on the north side, and the next one or two following it, are really old, and then we come to the corner of Kinghorn Street, where one of the oldest taverns remaining in London stands. This is the Dick Whittington. The corner is rounded off, and each story projects a little farther than the lower one. There is an ornamental cornice and gable end; the whole is covered with rough stucco.
