Adjoining to the church on the south side stood a house called “The Commons”: it had been given by one Thomas Kente for keeping his anniversary in the church. Here dwelt the chantry priests, who held the tenure. When the chantries were suppressed by Edward VI. “The Commons” was valued at 53s. 4d. a year: no fewer than nine “incumbents,” who had life interests in the chantry property of the parish, received pensions under Mary in 1555-1556. The total chantry property fetched £2551 : 3s. In the church was founded a Guild or Fraternity of St. James in 1375: it was practically a religious Benefit Society: the members, men and women, were sworn together for the amendment of their lives: on one Sunday in the year they held an annual feast: they paid entrance fees and periodical subscriptions. A member of seven years’ standing was eligible for a sickness or old age allowance of fourteen-pence a week, and in case of false imprisonment a needy member would be granted a sum of thirteen-pence a week. In the year 1566 the church was repaired. The parish bought the rood-loft which had been taken in Protestant propriety from St. Martin Vintry; the woodwork was utilised for their new fittings. Edmund Chapman, the Queen’s joiner, carried out the work. He was afterwards buried in the church, and his monument narrated that: Fine pews within this church he made, And with his Arms support The table and the seats in choir He set in comely sort. Here it was that Sir Richard Steele heard the Common Prayer read so distinctly, emphatically and fervently that inattention was impossible.[7] The reader who drew forth his praise was the then rector, Philip Stubbs, afterwards Archdeacon of St. Albans. There is kept in the church a shrouded corpse in a remarkable state of preservation; formerly it was one of the show things for the benefit of the churchkeeper, but though still above ground it is not now publicly exposed. The parish registers date back to 1536, two years before Thomas Cromwell made a general order for the keeping of such records. They are amongst the oldest in the City. Before the Great Fire there stood south of the church, nearly opposite to Vintners’ Hall, a parsonage. In 1670 it was rebuilt and leased to one Richard Corbet for forty-one years. Opposite, at the corner of Garlick Hill, was Ormond Place, residence of the Earls of Ormond. Farther east, on the same side, stood =Ringed Hall=. At the west end of the Church of St. Thomas was a lane called by Stow Wringwren Lane, a most interesting survival. Of old not only were wines imported into Vintry ward, but grapes were grown here. The Anglo-Saxon name for wine-press was “winwringa”; that word reversed into “wringa-win” is undoubtedly contained in the corrupted form of “Wringwren.” Perhaps a wine-press stood in the lane; the proximity of “Ringed” Hall seems to strengthen the probability.