The earliest occupants of Cornhill, according to Strype, were drapers. It is, however, certain that other trades were established there. Thus in 1302 there is a baker of Cornhill; in 1318 a bakehouse opposite the Pillory; in 1345 the City poulterers are ordered not to sell east of the Tun on Cornhill, while the “foreign” poulterers are sent to Leadenhall; in 1342, “false” blankets are burned in Cornhill; in 1347 there is a turner of Cornhill; in 1364 a tailor; in 1365 the pelterers are ordered to carry on their business in Cornhill, Walbrook, and Budge Row only; in 1372 the blacksmiths are confined for the exhibition of their wares to Gracechurch Street, St. Nicholas Fleshambles’ (Newgate), and the Tun of Cornhill.
The punishment of common clerks illustrated by Stow is noted elsewhere. As regards the Tun, he writes:
THE PUMP IN CORNHILL, 1800
“By the west side of the foresaid prison, then called the Tun, was a fair well of spring water curbed round with hard stone; but in the year 1401, the said prison house, called the Tun, was made a cistern for sweet water, conveyed by pipes of lead from Tiborne, and was from thenceforth called the Conduit upon Cornhill. Then was the well planked over, and a strong prison made of timber called a cage, with a pair of stocks therein set upon it, and this was for night walkers. On the top of which cage was placed a pillory, for the punishment of bakers offending in the assize of bread, for millers stealing of corn at the mill, for bawds, scolds, and other offenders. As in the year 1468, the 7th of Edward IV., divers persons being common jurors, such as at assizes were forsworn for rewards, or favour of parties, were judged to ride from Newgate to the pillory in Cornhill, with mitres of paper on their heads, there to stand, and from thence again to Newgate, and this judgment was given by the mayor of London. In the year 1509, the 1st of Henry VIII., Darby, Smith, and Simson, ringleaders of false inquests in London, rode about the city with their faces to the horse tails, and papers on their heads, and were set on the pillory in Cornhill, and after brought again to Newgate, where they died for very shame, saith Robert Fabian.
“The foresaid conduit upon Cornhill, was in the year 1475 enlarged by Robert Drope, draper, mayor, that then dwelt in that ward; he increased the cistern of this conduit with an east end of stone and castellated it in comely manner” (Stow’s Survey, p. 208).
In the time of Stow there were still standing some of the old houses, built of stone in accordance with the regulations of Henry Fitz Aylwin and other mayors. The danger of fire was thus diminished. But those houses which in many cases were built round open courts, covering a large space and of no more than two stories in height, were gradually taken down and houses of four or five stories built in their place, a fact which must be remembered when we read of the Great Fire. All those broad courts and open spaces which might have checked the Fire at so many points were gone in 1666, and replaced by high houses standing together and by narrow courts.
The Royal Exchange, the Bank of England, and the Mansion House are so mixed up with the general history of London that they must be sought for in the volumes that have preceded this.
The Weigh-house was the place where all merchandise brought across the sea was taken to be weighed at the King’s beam. “This house hath a master, and under him four master porters, with porters under them: they have a strong cart, and four great horses, to draw and carry the wares from the merchants’ houses to the beam and back again” (Stow, p. 73). The house was built by Sir Thomas Lovell, “with a fair front of tenements towards the street.” The cart therefore was taken into an inner court through a gateway, as we might expect.
There were many taverns in and about Cornhill.