Guilds -- England -- London; London (England) -- Description and travel; London (England) -- History
“Some other ancient architectural remains, perhaps originally connected
with the former, were also found under the houses extending up the
eastern site of Bishopsgate Street. The description of their situation,
given by Maitland, fixes their locality to the side of the very house at
which the fire of 1765 commenced; and which appears to have continued
until that time in the same kind of occupation as it was when the
ensuing account of these ruins was written. ‘At the distance of 12 feet
from this church,’—namely the remains already noticed at the north-east
corner of Leadenhall Street—‘is to be seen, under the house at the late
Mr. Macadam’s, a peruke-maker in Bishopsgate Street, a stone building of
the length of 30 feet, breadth of 14, and altitude of 8 feet 6 inches
above the present floor; with a door in the north-side, and a window at
the east end, as there probably was one in the west. It is covered with
a semi-circular arch, built with small piers of chalk in the form of
bricks, and ribbed with stone, resembling those of the arches of a
bridge. What this edifice at first was appropriated to is very
uncertain; though, by the manner of its construction, it seems to have
been a chapel; but the ground having been since raised on all sides, it
was probably converted into a subterraneous repository for merchandise;
for a pair of stone stairs, with a descending arch over them, seems to
have been erected since the fabric was built’” (Wilkinson, _Londina
Illustrata_).
The most important house in the street next to the Leadenhall itself was
the East India House, which stood near to the Hall. The Company first
met, according to tradition, at the Nag’s Head Tavern, Bishopsgate; they
then had a house in Leadenhall Street; they took on lease in
1701—perhaps it was their first house—Sir William Craven’s large house
in Leadenhall Street, with a tenement in Lime Street. This is probably
the house pictured in a print in the British Museum.
In 1726 the “Old” East India House was built, of which several parts
were retained in the new buildings of 1799.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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