Guilds -- England -- London; London (England) -- Description and travel; London (England) -- History
The back of a famous old house now used as a ward school is in Love
Lane, but its front faces on to a cobble-stone yard connected with
Botolph Lane by a covered entry. Within the house everything points to
its having been the residence of some one of wealth and taste. The hall
is paved with alternate slabs of black and white marble. The staircase
is wide and beautifully proportioned and decorated. The date 1670 is on
the ceiling; on the first floor four doors with rich wood carving on the
pediments and lintels attract attention. Ceilings and fireplaces alike
bespeak careful work. One of the latter is inlaid in different coloured
marbles with a white marble plaque of a sleeping child. But downstairs,
in a small room on the ground floor, is the chief feature of interest.
The walls and panels are literally covered with oil-paintings with the
artist’s name and the date “R. Robinson, 1696.” The subject seems to be
life in different parts of the globe. The ceiling is of oak heavily
carved, though, alas! whitewashed.
The house is now a ward school, and though in repair shows inevitable
signs of wear and tear. The hall pavement is stained and broken, the
carved woodwork thickly covered with paint and varnish, yet in spite of
all this is a place well worth seeing, probably the oldest
dwelling-house in the City.
=St. Andrew Hubbard=, sometimes called St. Andrew, Eastcheap,
formerly stood in Love Lane. It was burnt down in the Great Fire and
not rebuilt. The parish was then annexed to St. Mary-at-Hill. The
earliest date of an incumbent is 1366.
The patronage of the church was in the hands of: The Earl of
Pembroke in 1323; John, Lord Talbot, cousin and heir of the above,
1427; Edward IV., who restored it, 1463, to the Earl of Shrewsbury,
who presented it in 1470; the Earl of Northumberland up to 1666,
when it was annexed to St. Mary-at-Hill, after which the alternate
patronage was shared with the Duke of Somerset.
Houseling people in 1548 were 282.
The charitable gifts recorded of this parish are very few; the
donors of them were: Margaret Dean, 3s. 4d. per annum; Mr. Jacobs,
£1 : 6 : 4; Mr. Green, £1. All were for the use of the poor.
The most notable rector was John Randall (1570-1622), Fellow of
Lincoln College, Oxford.
In =Little Eastcheap= was the weigh-house, built on the site of St.
Andrew Hubbard, and rebuilt after the Fire.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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