From St. Peter’s, across St. Giles’ Street, by the back of the Guildhall, to Charing Cross is the most interesting way. This Charing Cross does not in the least resemble the place of the same name in London, and obtains its title from quite a different source. No “_chère reine_” gave this name, which is a corruption of “Sherers’ Cross,” a wayside cross so styled from the sheermen or cloth-cutters who once inhabited this quarter. It was demolished in 1732. [Illustration: GATEWAY, STRANGERS’ HALL.] Here, fronting on the narrow street, is the so-called “Strangers’ Hall,” one of the most deeply interesting places in Norwich; what, in fact, is nothing less than a well-preserved specimen of a mediæval merchant’s house. We do not, in this England of ours, lack churches and cathedrals, palaces, castles, and mansions of the great, to show us how we worshipped, and how kings and nobles housed, in days of old; but we are very sadly lacking in remains of the houses built for, and occupied by, the wealthy traders of anything from five to two centuries ago. We know comparatively little of the way in which the Mayors of our great towns lived, and thus the accidental preservation of this house, built by a mayor of Norwich, and inhabited by and added to by a long succession of such worthies, is particularly instructive. The oldest portion is the crypt, used anciently as cellarage and store-room, built probably by Roger Herdegrey, who was a Member of Parliament in 1358, and Bailiff of Norwich two years later. After passing through many hands, the property came, about 1490, to Thomas Cawse, mercer, twice Mayor, and twice the chosen representative of the City in the Council of the State. From him it came to Nicholas Sotherton, mercer, who seems to have rebuilt the greater portion. In 1610 his family sold it. Already the house had acquired the name of the “Strangers’ Hall,” for Sotherton, under the patronage of the Duke of Norfolk, had warmly welcomed the Flemings, refugees from Holland under the Spanish domination, and had given those strangers the use of his house. Although they did not reside here, and probably did not use it for any great length of time as the central meeting-place of their community, it has, singularly enough, retained the name under many changes. Francis Cock, grocer, and Mayor in 1627, resided here, and built the great staircase in the Hall, together with the large oak-framed oriel window; and another Mayor, Sir Joseph Paine, followed him, and made alterations for his own comfort and dignity in 1659. He was the last of that long line, and when he died, in 1668, the history of the old place becomes obscure. Early in the nineteenth century, however, we obtain a glimpse of it as the Judges’ Lodgings, but thenceforward the old relic fell upon neglect, and would have been recklessly destroyed for rebuilding had not an enthusiastic and public-spirited citizen purchased it in 1899. It still bears the