thereof”; the north-western retained the name of Dowgate Hill. They had between them at the fork a block of buildings. When the station was built, Turnwheele Lane was covered and Dowgate Hill was widened by absorbing the block. Towards “the upper end of the hill, stood the fair Conduit-upon-Dowgate,” mentioned by Stow as “castellated, and made in the year 1568, at charges of the citizens.” In Ryther’s map, 1604 (British Museum), it is shown to stand in the middle of Dowgate Hill opposite the end of Cloak Lane. It was destroyed in the Great Fire and not rebuilt. Allen, in his _History of London_, places it at the south-east corner of Walbrook, in Walbrook ward; evidently he is mistaken. On the west side the ward begins at the corner of Cloak Lane, of which only a part of the southern side is in Dowgate. Thence proceeding southwards is Tallow Chandlers’ Hall (see p. 243). At 8 Dowgate Hill is THE SKINNERS COMPANY It is probable that, like other traders who came to London in early times, men following the trade of Skinners were assigned some separate locality in the town and associated together for the purposes of a guild. In course of time, as the guild grew in importance, the Skinners seem to have absorbed or affiliated unto themselves two other trades, the Upholders and the Tawyers. It is clear that as long ago as the reign of Henry VI. the guild included among its members other than those who exercised the trades of Skinner, Tawyer, and Upholder, for in one of the Company’s books, dated 25th July, 23 Henry VI., there is a list of names of the brethren and sistren of the guild at that time. They amount to twenty in all, and include one doctor, three gentlemen, nine of no trade or description, two butchers, one dyer, one joiner, one skinner, one grocer, as brethren, and one sister as silkwife. The Company has a copy of the charter of Henry VI., but none of that of Philip and Mary. They are Inspeximus charters, as also is that of 22nd March, 2 Elizabeth. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth differences arose between the working “artesans” of the guild and the rest of the fraternity, especially the governing body, which continued for many years and culminated in a surreptitious application in 1606 by the Artisan Skinners for new Letters Patent from the Crown without the consent or privity of the master and wardens of the guild, and in December 1606 (4 James I.) a charter was issued. Full inquiry was made. The Lord Mayor and aldermen made their report to the lords of the Privy Council, who thereupon ordered (March 22, 1606) that the privy seal that had been procured by the Artisan Skinners for this new charter appertaining to the Company of Skinners should be cancelled. The charters and title deeds of the Skinners Company were surrendered in 1625 like those of the other City Companies, but in 1641 their privileges were restored.