Mediæval London, Volume 1: Historical & SocialBesant, Walter
History
Mediæval London, Volume 1: Historical & Social
Besant, Walter
London (England) -- History -- To 1500; London (England) -- Social life and customs -- To 1500
The Fitz Alans, Earls of Arundel, had their town house in Botolph
Lane, Billingsgate, down to the end of the sixteenth century. The
street is, and always has been, narrow, and, from its proximity to
the fish-market, is, and always has been, unsavoury. The Earls of
Northumberland had town houses successively in Crutched Friars,
Fenchurch Street, and Aldersgate Street. The Earls of Worcester lived
in Worcester Lane, on the river-bank; the Duke of Buckingham on College
Hill—observe how the nobles, like the merchants, built their houses
in the most busy part of the town. The Beaumonts and the Huntingdons
lived beside Paul’s Wharf; the Lords of Berkeley had a house near
Blackfriars; Doctors’ Commons was the town house of the Blounts, Lords
Mountjoy. Close to Paul’s Wharf stood the mansion once occupied by the
widow of Richard, Duke of York, mother of Edward IV., Clarence, and
Richard III. Edward the Black Prince lived on Fish Street Hill, and the
house was afterwards turned into an inn. The De la Poles had a house in
Lombard Street. The De Veres, Earls of Oxford, lived first in St. Mary
Axe, and afterwards in Oxford Court, St. Swithin’s Lane; Cromwell, Earl
of Essex, had a house in Throgmorton Street. The Barons FitzWalter had
a house where now stands Grocers’ Hall, Poultry. In Aldersgate Street
were houses of the Earl of Westmoreland, the Earl of Northumberland,
and the Earl of Thanet, Lord Percy, and the Marquis of Dorchester.
Suffolk Lane marks the site of the “Manor of the Rose,” belonging
successively to the Suffolks and the Buckinghams; Lovell’s Court,
Paternoster Row, marks the site of the Lovells’ mansion; between Amen
Corner and Ludgate Street stood Abergavenny House, where lived in the
reign of Edward II. the Earl of Richmond and Duke of Brittany, grandson
of Henry III. Afterwards it became the house of John Hastings, Earl of
Pembroke, who married Lady Margaret, daughter of Edward III. It passed
to the Nevilles, Earls of Abergavenny, and from them to the Stationers’
Company. Warwick Lane runs over Warwick House. The Sidneys, Earls of
Leicester, lived in the Old Bailey. The Staffords, Dukes of Buckingham,
lived in Milk Street. (See Appendix V.)
We must add to this list the houses more or less connected with the
sovereigns. Such as the King’s Ward Mote, the Tower Royal, the Erber,
Cold Harbour, Baynard’s Castle, Crosby House, Bridewell, the Savoy,
the great nobles’ houses along the riverside, which came later; the
Halls of the City Companies; the town houses of Bishops and Abbots,
especially those on the south side; the town houses of the country
gentry, such as those of Pont de l’Arche in the reign of Henry I., or
of Sir John Fastolf in the fifteenth century; the houses in the City
used for trade and official business such as Blackwell and Guildhall;
and the houses of the great City merchants such as those of Philpot,
Whittington, and Picard, and we have a list not to be equalled by that
of any other area of the same size.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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