The first turning to the east going down Bread Street was, until recently, called the Spread Eagle Court. One of the corner houses of this court is supposed to have been the work-place of John Milton, whose father traded under the sign of the “Spread Eagle.” He was baptized in the church of Allhallows. House and church were destroyed in the Fire, but the register remains.
On the corner house between Watling and Bread Streets is a stone slab fixed to the wall; this bears a bust of the poet in alto relievo. The rest of the building, which runs along Watling Street as far as Red Lion Court, is in new red brick, dated 1878. It has ornamental brickwork and festoons here and there, and the roof terminates in curiously shaped gables, some of which follow the old shell pattern. The doorways and windows are carried out in stone. The penthouse pediment over Milton’s bust is also in brick. Beneath, two little red cherubs hold a laurel wreath. Below the head is the one word—Milton; and lower follows the inscription:
Born in Bread Street, 1608.
Baptized in the Church of Allhallows, which stood here ante 1678.
The Mermaid, like many other London inns, stood in a court with an entrance from Friday Street and from Bread Street.
On the west side of Bread Street, on a site which, when Stow wrote, was occupied by “large houses for merchants and fair inns for passengers,” stood the Bread Street Compter, one of the two sheriffs’ prisons. As we have seen, it was later removed to Wood Street.
Behind St. Mildred’s Church stood Gerard’s Hall, the entrance from Basing Lane. Of this place Stow speaks at length:
“On the south side of this 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 a common hostrey for receipt of travellers, commonly and corruptly called Gerards hall, of a giant said to have dwelt there. In the high-roofed hall of this house sometime stood a large fir pole, which reached to the roof thereof, and was said to be one of the staves that Gerard the giant used in the wars to run withal. 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 in building, and divers rooms are made in it. Notwithstanding, the pole is removed to one corner of the hall, and the ladder hanged broken upon a wall in the yard. The hosteler 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.
“I read that John Gisors, mayor of London in the year 1245, was owner thereof, and that Sir John Gisors, knight, mayor of London, and constable of the Tower 1311, and divers others of that name and family, since that time owned it. William Gisors was one of the sheriffs 1329. More, John Gisors had issue, Henry and John; which John had issue, Thomas; which Thomas deceasing in the year 1350, left unto his son Thomas his messuage called Gisor’s Hall, in the parish of St. Mildred in Bread Street: John Gisors made a feoffment thereof, 1386, etc. So it appeareth that this Gisor’s Hall, of late time by corruption hath been called Gerard’s Hall for Gisor’s Hall; as Bosom’s inn for Blossom’s inn, Bevis Marks for Buries Marks, Marke Lane, for Marte Lane, Belliter Lane for Belsetter’s Lane, Gutter Lane for Guthuruns Lane, Cry Church for Christ’s Church, St. Michel in the Querne for St. Michel at corne, and sundry such others. Out of this Gisor’s Hall, at the first building thereof, were made divers arched doors, yet to be seen, which seem not sufficient for any great monster, or other man of common stature to pass through, 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 May-pole, before the principal house in the parish or street, and to stand in the hall before the screen, decked with holme and ivy, at the feast of Christmas. The ladder served for the decking of the may-pole and roof of the hall. Thus much for Gisor’s hall, and for that side of Bread street, may suffice” (Stow’s Survey, 393-394).
