The first hall of the company was built in 1445, in the parish of All Saints' by the Wall, south of the present Finsbury Circus, where now stand Leathersellers Buildings. A century after it became too small, and a portion of the site and buildings of the dissolved priory of St. Helen was purchased in 1543, and the nuns' hall converted into that of the company, which, with alterations and embellishments, came to be for a long time the finest livery hall in London. The ceiling was enriched with beautiful pendants, and at the end was a splendid Elizabethan screen, elaborately decorated. In the courtyard was a pump with the figure of a mermaid, from whose breast issued wine on gala occasions. It was the work of Cibber, who gave it in 1679, in payment of his admission fee to the membership of the company. In 1799 the hall was sold along with other of the priory buildings, to clear the site for the building of St. Helen's Place. A new hall was built on the same site, but with new fittings, all the antique decorations of the old hall having been disposed of. This, the third hall, was destroyed by fire in 1819, the valuable collection of records being fortunately saved, and the present hall, occupying the north-east corner of St. Helen's Place, was built 1820-22. The first record book of the company commences November 12th, 1472, with the following as the earliest entry:— "Wyllyam J. Curtes gave to us this boke, For to regystre every wardenn's tyme in; Pray for hym when ye doe loke, That God will reward hym. Amen." There are almshouses of the company in Clarke's Court, St. Helen's; White's Alley, Coleman Street; and Hart Street, Cripplegate. Excepting the Borough High Street, perhaps no street in London had so many famous old inns, with galleried court-yards, cross-timbered walls, quaint gables, and latticed windows, as Bishopsgate Street, established for the accommodation of carriers and travellers from the north-eastern towns. Amongst them were the White Hart; formerly the Magpie, which stood by the gateway of Bethlem Priory, supposed to have been originally the hostelry of the priory, afterwards an inn for travellers who arrived after the gate was shut for the night. It seems, from a date on the wall, to have been rebuilt in 1480, and was standing in 1810, when a view was taken representing it with a double range of bay windows. It was again rebuilt in 1829, and stood at the corner of Liverpool Street. The Bull, where Burbage and his companions obtained a patent from Queen Elizabeth for the performance of theatricals in the quadrangle, the spectators occupying the surrounding galleries. This was the inn to which old Hobson, the Cambridge carrier, resorted, from whom came the saying of "Hobson's choice"—that or none. On a wall of the inn was his effigy, in fresco, clutching a money bag, with an inscription—"The fruitful mother of a hundred more."