In the year 1247, certain lands in Friday Street are held by the nuns of “Halliwelle.” In 1258, one William Eswy, mercer, bequeathed to the Earl of Gloucester all his tenements in Friday Street for 100 marks, wherein he was bound to the Earl, and for robes, capes, and other goods received from him. In 1278, Walter de Vaus left to Thomas, his uncle, shops in Friday Street. Therefore in the thirteenth century the street was already a lane of shops. The date shows that the former character of Chepe market as a broad open space set with booths and stalls had already undergone great modifications. Other early references to the street show that it was one of shops. Chaucer’s evidence shows that a hundred years later there were “hostelers” or “herbergeours” living there.
In 1363, certain citizens subscribed money as a present to the King. Among them is one Thomas, a scrivener of Friday Street, and in 1370 we find one Adam Lovekyn in possession of a seld which has been used for time out of mind by foreign tanners. He complains that they no longer come to him, but keep their wares in hostels and go about the streets selling them in secret.
In Friday Street at the corner in Watling Street is a railed-in space, all that remains of an old churchyard, the churchyard of St. John the Evangelist. This is a piece of ground containing very few square yards, separated from the street by high iron railings, and filled with stunted laurel bushes and other evergreens. A hard gravel walk runs round a circular bed of bushes, and on one side stands a raised tomb-like erection. On the wall are one or two slabs indicating the names of those who are buried in the vault below.
The Church of St. John the Evangelist was burnt down in the Great Fire and not rebuilt, its parish being annexed to Allhallows, Bread Street, and both of these to St. Mary-le-Bow, by Order in Council, 1876. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1354.
The patronage of the church was in the hands of: The Prior and Convent of Christ Church, Canterbury, before 1354; Henry VIII. seized it in 1540; the Dean and Chapter of Christ Church, Canterbury, 1546 up to 1666, when it was annexed to Allhallows, Bread Street.
Houseling people in 1548 were 100.
A chantry was founded here by William de Angre, before 1361, whose endowment fetched £8 : 13 : 4 in 1548, when John Taylor was chaplain. No monuments of any note are recorded by Stow.
In the north part of Friday Street is Blue Boar Court on the east side. This court was rebuilt in 1896, but previous to this was surrounded by old houses. One of these, No. 56, was interesting as having been the City home of Richard Cobden until 1845. It is said that this house was built on the site of a garden attached to Sir Hugh Myddelton’s house in Cheapside. The cellars beneath the building once covered the bullion belonging to the Bank of England. This was at the time when the Bank was in a room of the old Grocers’ Hall.
The Church of St. Matthew, Friday Street, was situated on the west side of the street near Cheapside. It was burnt down in the Great Fire, and rebuilt from the designs of Sir Christopher Wren in 1685; it was then made the parish church for this and St. Peter’s, Westcheap, which was annexed to it. About 1887 the building was pulled down. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1322.
The patronage of the church was in the hands of: The Abbot and Convent of St. Peter, Westminster, 1322, then Henry VIII., who seized it and gave it to the Bishop of Westminster, January 20, 1540-41; the Bishop of London, March 3, 1553-54; it continued in his successors up to 1666, when St. Peter’s, Cheapside, was annexed, and the patronage was shared alternately with the patron of that parish.