The tame statue of that honest but commonplace monarch, William IV., at the end of King William Street, is of granite, and the work of a Mr. Nixon. It cost upwards of £2,000, of which £1,600 was voted by the Common Council of London. It is fifteen feet three inches in height, weighs twenty tons, and is chiefly memorable as marking the site of the famous "Boar's Head" tavern.
The opening of the Cannon Street Extension Railway, September, 1866, provided a communication with Charing Cross and London Bridge, and through it with the whole of the South-Eastern system. The bridge across the Thames approaching the station has five lines of rails; the curves branching east and west to Charing Cross and London Bridge have three lines, and in the station there are nine lines of rails and five spacious platforms, one of them having a double carriage road for exit and entrance. The signal-box at the entrance to the Cannon Street station extends from one side of the bridge to the other, and has a range of over eighty levers, coloured red for danger-signals, and green for safety and going out. The hotel at Cannon Street Station, a handsome building, is after the design by Mr. Barry. Arrangements were made for the reception of about 20,000,000 passengers yearly.
CHAPTER XLIX
CANNON STREET TRIBUTARIES AND EASTCHEAP
Budge Row—Cordwainers' Hall—St. Swithin's Church—Founders' Hall—The Oldest Street in London—Tower Royal and the Wat Tyler Mob—The Queen's Wardrobe—St. Antholin's Church—"St. Antlin's Bell"—The London Fire Brigade—Captain Shaw's Statistics—St. Mary Aldermary—A Quaint Epitaph—Crooked Lane—An Early "Gun Accident"—St. Michael's and Sir William Walworth's Epitaph—Gerard's Hall and its History—The Early Closing Movement—St. Mary Woolchurch—Roman Remains in Nicholas Lane—St. Stephen's, Walbrook—Eastcheap and the Cooks' Shops—The "Boar's Head"—Prince Hal and his Companions—A Giant Plum-pudding—Goldsmith at the "Boar's Head"—The Weigh-house Chapel and its Famous Preachers—Reynolds, Clayton, Binney.
Budge Row derived its name from the sellers of budge (lamb-skin) fur that dwelt there. The word is used by Milton in his "Lycidas," where he sneers at the "budge-skin" doctors.
Cordwainers' Hall, No. 7, Cannon Street, is the third of the same Company's halls on this site, and was built in 1788 by Sylvanus Hall. The stone front, by Adam, has a sculptured medallion of a country girl spinning with a distaff, emblematic of the name of the lane, and of the thread used by cordwainers or shoemakers. In the pediment are their arms. In the hall are portraits of King William and Queen Mary; and here is a sepulchral urn and tablet, by Nollekens, to John Came, a munificent benefactor to the Company.
The Cordwainers were originally incorporated by Henry IV., in 1410, as the "Cordwainers and Cobblers," the latter term signifying dealers in shoes and shoemakers. In the reign of Richard II., "every cordwainer that shod any man or woman on Sunday was to pay thirty shillings." Among the Company's plate is a piece for which Camden, the antiquary, left £16. Their charities include Came's bequest for blind, deaf, and dumb persons, and clergymen's widows, £1,000 yearly; and in 1662 the "Bell Inn," at Edmonton, was bequeathed for poor freemen of the Company.
The church in Cannon Street dedicated to St. Swithin, and in which London Stone is now encased, is of a very early date, as the name of the rector in 1331 is still recorded. Sir John Hind, Lord Mayor in 1391 and 1404, rebuilt both church and steeple. After the Fire of London, the parish of St. Mary Bothaw was united to that of St. Swithin. St. Swithin's was rebuilt by Wren after the Great Fire. The Salters' Company formerly had the right of presentation to this church, but sold it. The form of the interior is irregular and awkward, in consequence of the tower intruding on the north-west corner. The ceiling, an octagonal cupola, is decorated with wreaths and ribbons. In 1839 Mr. Godwin describes an immense sounding-board over the pulpit, and an altar-piece of carved oak, guarded by two wooden figures of Moses and Aaron. There is a slab to Mr. Stephen Winmill, twenty-four years parish clerk; and a tablet commemorative of Mr. Francis Kemble and his two wives, with the following distich:—