The first distinct mention of a guildhall in Leicester is in a small charter, executed in the mayoralty of Peter Rogerson. From this it appears that in 1250 William Ordriz, the son of Stephen, conveyed to the mayor and burgesses a building which became the guildhall. The deed is endorsed _Charta de la Gild Salle_. It contained three bays of buildings, was twenty yards in length, and about eight yards from front to back. It had solars, cellars, and dungeons. There was _then_ an older fabric, known as the guildhall, which was conveyed to a private townsman in the year 1275. The hall, of which the corporation became the possessors in 1250, remained in use until the reign of Elizabeth, and even at intervals until the date of the Commonwealth, being sometimes called the old Moot Hall, and at others the "Old Shop." Anterior to the Reformation two religious guilds had halls, known as St. George's and Corpus Christi Halls. When these fraternities were dissolved, the buildings remained; one near the east of St. Martin's church, the other near its western extremity. The first of these fell into entire disuse and decay; while the latter, Corpus Christi Hall, gradually superseded as a civic edifice the old Moot Hall. I have found in the hall books of the borough of Leicester entries as early as the 10th of Henry VIII., in which the hall of Corpus Christi Guild is referred to as the occasional place of meeting of the municipal body. A deed, bearing date the 5th of Elizabeth, states that the queen had conveyed the hall to Cecily Pickerell of Norwich, widow, who reconveyed it to the recorder of Leicester, Braham, evidently as the representative of the mayor and burgesses, not then formally incorporated. Meanwhile, the old hall seems to have served as a lock-up or gaol, and was finally sold in 1653 to a maltster, who would undoubtedly convert the roomy old structure into a malt-house. The Corpus Christi Hall would appear to have been enlarged when it was fairly in the hands of the civic authorities, not only in the reign of Elizabeth (about the year 1586), but in that of Charles I. Many particulars about the building will be found in the _Handbook of Leicester_.