=Queen Street= was cut shortly after the Great Fire of 1666 in common with King Street, Cheapside, to connect the Guildhall with the Thames; thus the Lord Mayor now had a straight course for his procession when he “took water” at the Three Cranes Stairs on his way to be sworn at Westminster Hall. The new thoroughfare included the present Queen Street Place, and was named New Queen Street in honour of the wife of Charles II. The prefix “New” subsequently vanished. Close to Queen Street in Upper Thames Street is the Vintners’ Hall (see p. 229). The rectory house of the parish stands on a portion of St. Thomas the Apostle Churchyard; the remainder of the churchyard on this side of the street consists of a small flagged square enclosed by a railing. The portion of the churchyard on the west side of the road, opposite, contains two houses; they are the only houses remaining of the post-Fire rebuilding. In front, the churchyard serves them for a garden; its two fine plane-trees set off their quaint red brick walls and pillared and pedimented doorways. The southern house has a delightful room on the first floor, now used as the board room of the Tredegar Iron Company. The mantel is exquisite, carved with all the beauty of the Grinling Gibbons school; the walls are wainscotted; the doors all solid mahogany, over each a carved panel; the medallion cornice, of minutely beautiful detail, once carried a panelled ceiling now removed. An ante-room has a second delicately carved mantel, and a panelled ceiling. =St. Martin Vintry= stood at the south corner of Royal or Queen Street, Upper Thames Street. Authentic history dates back to the Conqueror’s reign, when Ralph Peverell gave the Church of St. Martin, London, to the Abbey Church of St. Peter, Gloucester. In a document at St. Paul’s (_Hist. MSS. Comm. Rep._ IX.) of the year 1257 “St. Martin de Beremanes churche” is met with. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries “St. Martin de Barmannes-cherche” and St. Martin Vintry are both used. The church was rebuilt in the beginning of the fifteenth century, several bequests having been left for the purpose. It was burnt down in the Great Fire and not rebuilt, its parish being annexed to that of the church, St. Michael Royal. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1250. The patronage of the church was in the hands of: The Bishop of Winchester; Ralph Peverell; Abbot and Convent of St. Peter’s, Gloucester, from 1388; Henry VIII.; Bishop of Worcester by grant of Edward VI., in whose successors it continued up to 1666, when the parish was annexed to St. Michael Royal. Houseling people in 1548 were 460. A chantry was founded here by John Gisors or Jesores, for himself and Isabel his wife, to which Geoffrey Stowe was admitted chaplain, September 5, 1368.