London (England) -- History; London (England) -- Social life and customs
Half a dozen great houses do not make a city of palaces. That is true.
Let us find others. Here, then, is a list, by no means exhaustive, drawn
up from the pages of Stow. The Fitz Alans, Earls of Arundel, had their
town house in Botolph Lane, Billingsgate, down to the end of the
sixteenth century. The street is and always has been narrow, and, from
its proximity to the fish-market, is and always has been unsavory. The
Earls of Northumberland had town houses successively in Crutched Friars,
Fenchurch Street, and Aldersgate Street. The Earls of Worcester lived in
Worcester Lane, on the river-bank; the Duke of Buckingham on College
Hill: observe how the nobles, like the merchants, built their houses in
the most busy part of the town. The Beaumonts and the Huntingdons lived
beside Paul's Wharf; the Lords of Berkeley had a house near Blackfriars;
Doctor's Commons was the town house of the Blounts, Lords Mountjoy.
Close to Paul's Wharf stood the mansion once occupied by the widow of
Richard, Duke of York, mother of Edward IV., Clarence, and Richard III.
Edward the Black Prince lived on Fish Street Hill; the house was
afterwards turned into an inn. The De la Poles had a house in Lombard
Street. The De Veres, Earls of Oxford, lived first in St. Mary Axe, and
afterwards in Oxford Court, St. Swithin's Lane; Cromwell, Earl of Essex,
had a house in Throgmorton Street. The Barons Fitzwalter had a house
where now stands Grocers' Hall, Poultry. In Aldersgate Street were
houses of the Earl of Westmoreland, the Earl of Northumberland, and the
Earl of Thanet, Lord Percie, and the Marquis of Dorchester. Suffolk Lane
marks the site of the "Manor of the Rose," belonging successively to the
Suffolks and the Buckinghams; Lovell's Court, Paternoster Row, marks the
site of the Lovells' mansion; between Amen Corner and Ludgate Street
stood Abergavenny House, where lived in the reign of Edward II. the Earl
of Richmond and Duke of Brittany, grandson of Henry III. Afterwards it
became the house of John Hastings, Earl of Pembroke, who married Lady
Margaret, daughter of Edward III. It passed to the Nevilles, Earls of
Abergavenny, and from them to the Stationers' Company. Warwick Lane runs
over Warwick House. The Sidneys, Earls of Leicester, lived in the Old
Bailey. The Staffords, Dukes of Buckingham, lived in Milk Street.
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF PART OF CROSBY HALL, CALLED THE COUNCIL ROOM,
LOOKING EAST]
Such a list, numbering no fewer than thirty-five palaces--which is not
exhaustive and does not include the town houses of the Bishops and great
Abbots, nor the halls of the companies, many of them very noble, nor the
houses used for the business of the City, as Blackwell Hall and
Guildhall--is, I think, sufficient to prove my statement that London
was a city of palaces.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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