Guilds -- England -- London; London (England) -- Description and travel; London (England) -- History
The _Calendar of Wills_ proves that we are in the most populous and
ancient part of London. Between 1259 and 1350 there are more than fifty
references to Candlewyke Street. The place is famous for its weavers,
and especially for the coarse cloth they made here called “burel.” There
was a fraternity of the “Burellers” working here. In 1334 one hundred
foot-soldiers were provided with “gowns” of cloth made in Candlewyke
Street. There was also a petition drawn up by the “good-folk” of this
street and Clement’s Lane against the melting of lead in their midst.
From Eastcheap to Walbrook, the title was for many centuries Candlewick,
Candlewright, or Canewyke Street. “Candelwykestrete” is mentioned in the
City Records as early as 1308; “Canewykestrete” appears 1376-99, and
again as “Cainwicke St.” in the map of Ralph Agas c. 1560. Stow gives
three possible derivations: (1) From Candlewright, a maker of candles;
(2) from the yarn or cotton candle-wick; (3) from candle-wike, a “wike”
being a place where things are made. The proximity of Tallow Chandlers’
Hall in Dowgate Hill points to this as the candlemakers’ quarter of the
City, and favours the first and third theories rather than the second.
In Ryther’s map of London, 1604, it is styled “Conning Streete,”
(probably a misprint for Canning Street), and Newcourt in his 1658 map
of London calls it “Cannon Street,” so that the change from Candlewick
to Canwyke, Conning, and Cannon appears to have taken place within a
comparatively short space of time.
The weavers of woollen cloths, brought from Flanders by Edward III.,
probably dwelt here: “cloth of Candelwykestrete” is mentioned in City
records in 1334; and Stow says that these weavers obtained permission in
1371 to meet in the churchyard of St. Lawrence Pountney close by. They
appear not to have remained long in the neighbourhood, but their advent
led to a settlement of many drapers in this part of the City and
ultimately to the founding of the Drapers’ Hall in St. Swithin’s Lane.
In Stow’s time the street was “possessed by rich drapers, sellers of
woollen cloth, etc.” After the Great Fire the street, Strype says, was
“well built and inhabited by good tradesmen.”
There are two churches in the street, which is now extended to the
south-east corner of St. Paul’s, sweeping away Distaff Lane, Basing
Lane, Little St. Thomas Apostle, and a bit of Budge Row. London Stone is
in this street. Beside London Stone Henry Fitz Ailwyn or Alwyne, first
mayor of London, had his residence. Here lived the Earl of Oxford, who,
about the year 1540, according to Stow, rode to his house with eighty
gentlemen in “livery of Reading tawny,” and chains of gold about their
necks and “one hundred tall yeomen in the like livery to follow him
without chains, but all having his cognizance of the blue boar
introduced on their left shoulders.” This retinue was discountenanced by
the Tudors and fell into disuse. Perhaps this earl was the last to
maintain so great a following.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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