Some four houses west from this parish church of St. Mildred is a prison house pertaining to one of the sheriffs of London, and is called the Compter in the Poultrie. This hath been there kept and continued time out of mind, for I have not read of the original thereof. West from this compter was a proper chapel, called of Corpus Christi, and St. Mary, at Conyhope lane end, in the parish of St. Mildred, founded by one named Ion. Irunnes, a citizen of London, in the reign of Edward III., in which chapel was a guild or fraternity, that might dispend in lands better than twenty pounds by year: it was suppressed by Henry VIII., and purchased by one Thomas Hobson, haberdasher; he turned this chapel into a fair warehouse and shops towards the street, with lodgings over them. Then is Conyhope lane, of old time so called of such a sign of three conies hanging over a poulterer’s stall at the lane’s end. Within this lane standeth the Grocers’ hall, which company being of old time called Pepperers, were first incorporated by the name of Grocers in the year 1345, at which time they elected for custos, or guardian, of their fraternity, Richard Oswin and Laurence Haliwell, and twenty brethren were then taken in to be of their society. In the year 1411, the custos, or guardian, and the brethren of this company, purchased of the Lord Ro. Fitzwaters one plot of ground, with the building thereupon, in the said Conyhope lane, for three hundred and twenty marks, and then laid the foundation of their new common hall. About the year 1429, the Grocers had license to purchase five hundred marks land, since the which time, near adjoining unto the Grocers’ hall, the said company had built seven proper houses for seven aged poor alms people. Thomas Knowles, grocer, mayor, gave his tenement in St. Anthonie’s churchyard to the Grocers, towards the relief of the poor brethren in that company. Also H. Keeble, grocer, mayor, gave to the seven alms people six pence the piece weekly forever; which pension is now increased by the masters, to some of them two shillings the piece weekly, and to some of them less, etc. Henry Adie, grocer, 1563, gave one thousand marks to the Grocers to purchase lands. And Sir John Pechie, knight banneret, free of that company, gave them five hundred pounds to certain uses; he built alms houses at Ludingstone in Kent, and was there buried.