“These received the old stamps, or coining-irons, from time to time, as the same were worn, and delivered new to all the mints in England, as more at large in another place I have noted.
“This street beginneth by West Chepe in the north, and runneth down south to Knightrider Street; that part thereof which is called Old Fish Street, but the very housing and office of the Exchange and coinage was about the midst thereof, south from the east gate that entereth Pauls churchyard, and on the west side in Baynard’s castle ward.
“On the east side of this lane, betwixt West Cheape and the church of St. Augustine, Henry Walles, mayor (by license of Edward I.), built one row of houses, the profits rising of them to be employed on London Bridge” (Stow’s Survey, p. 35).
Lord Herbert of Cherbury lived in a “house among gardens near the Old Exchange.”
St. Paul’s School was founded by Dean Colet in 1509, and the schoolhouse stood at the east end of the Churchyard, facing the Cathedral. It was destroyed by the Great Fire and rebuilt by Wren, and then again taken down and rebuilt in 1824, and subsequently removed to Hammersmith to the new building designed by Alfred Waterhouse, R.A., in 1884. For further, see “Hammersmith” in succeeding volume. The old site in St. Paul’s Churchyard is now covered by business houses.
ST. AUGUSTINE
At the corner of Old Change and Watling Street stands St. Augustine’s Church.
It was burnt down by the Great Fire and rebuilt by Wren in 1682, and the parish of St. Faith’s annexed to it. The steeple, however, was not completed till 1695. As it possessed no proper burying-ground of its own, a portion of the crypt of St. Paul’s was used for the interment of parishioners. The earliest date of an incumbent was 1148.
The patronage of the church was always in the hands of the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul’s, who granted it to Edward, the priest, in 1148.
Houseling people in 1548 were 360.