history, may have trampled on the spot where the author of Paradise Lost was born?
Bread-street formerly contained a famous tavern and a prison. The Mermaid is mentioned by Ben Jonson. There seems to have been a celebrated tavern here long before the time of Stowe, for he mentions Gerrarde’s Hall in his days as a hostelry for travellers, and, in his gossiping way, gives us an old-world story about the old building, which stood above the ancient crypt, which we have here engraved (as one of the vestiges of the London of our forefathers, doomed to be sacrificed to modern improvement), and in it he gives us a giant, and a long pole, which this son of Anak is said to have wielded in the wars. We have heard that this Gerrarde the giant was buried under the ancient crypt, which to this day sounds hollow to the tread. But the good old historian, with his simple and child-like belief, and love for all undated traditions, shall “tell the tale.”
“On the north side of Basing-lane is one great house of old time, built upon arched vaults, and with arched gates of stone, brought from Caen in Normandy, the same is now [about 1600] a common hostelry [inn] for receipt of travellers, commonly and corruptly called Gerrarde’s Hall, of a giant said to have dwelt there. In the high-roofed hall of this house some time stood a large fir-pole, which reached to the roof thereof, and was said to be one of the staves that Gerrarde the giant used in the wars to run with [away?]. There stood also a ladder of the same length, which (as they say) served to ascend to the top of the staff. Of later years this hall is altered, and divers rooms are made in it. [Alas, then, as now, they would improve; and cared not for their home antiquities even in good old Stowe’s time!] Notwithstanding, the pole is removed to one corner of the hall, and the ladder hanged broken upon a wall in the yard. The hostelar of that house said to me, ‘The pole lacketh half a foot of forty in length.’ I measured the compass thereof, and found it fifteen inches. Reasons of the pole could the master of the hostelry give me none; but bade me read the ‘great’ Chronicles, for there he heard of it. [Our hosts were reading men we see in the time of Elizabeth; and we love the epithet ‘great’ before Chronicles, for we believe it was the host’s word and not Stowe’s.] I will now note what myself have observed concerning that house. I read that John Gisors, Mayor of London in the year 1245, was owner thereof [it might have been old then, for Stowe does not say that the mayor built it]; and that Sir John Gisors, constable of the Tower, 1311, and divers others of that name and family since that time owned it. [The Gisors must have been men of eminence for one to have become constable of the Tower in that jealous age, when the Normans ruled with an iron hand.] So it appeareth that this Gisors’ Hall of late time, by corruption, hath been called Gerrardes’ Hall for Gisors’ Hall. The pole in the hall might be used of old time [as then the custom was in every parish] to be set up in the summer, as a May-pole. The ladder served [serving?] for the decking of the May-pole and roof of the hall.”—Stowe.
Surely this crypt ought to be spared for the sake of Stowe, and Gerard the giant, and the May-pole—the compass of which the honest old historian measured. What a picture it would make—Stowe, the host, and the ostler, with the old building and the broken ladder! what rich material for a chapter in an historical romance! If we live, we will do it some day. Of course the old hall was swept away in the Great Fire, and Gerard the giant (which we have here engraved) grew up after the flames had died out; though they went roaring and reddening above the ancient crypt, over which the generations of six centuries have trampled. The vaults are of great antiquity—at least as old as the building mentioned by Stowe—the date of which he does not give, although he mentions John Gisors, Mayor of London, as a resident there in 1245, that is, more than 600 years ago.
In Little Trinity-street we have Painter-Stainers’ Hall, well worth a visit, although it is so badly lighted, that it is difficult to see the portraits. The principal pictures it contains are, Camden, Charles II. and his queen, William of Orange, by Kneller, and Queen Anne. The company also possesses a curious cup left by the celebrated antiquary Camden, and which is still used at their anniversary dinners. The church of the Holy Trinity was destroyed in the Great Fire, and not rebuilt: a small chapel, of which we know nothing, stands on the site of the old church.
The church of St. Michael, Queenhithe, is remarkable for nothing except some carving at the east end, and the vane, which resembles a ship, and is said to be large enough to hold a bushel of corn.
The dues derived from the quay of Queenhithe belonged to the queens of England from a very early period, probably ever since the Norman conquest. Mention is made of Eleanor, so famous in our old ballad lore as the rival and poisoner of Fair Rosamond, as possessing all the dues obtained from this royal landing-place. Raising the old drawbridge of London Bridge every time a ship went under, with all the trouble and stoppage of vehicles, when this was the only bridge leading into London, did, no doubt, as much for increasing the traffic of Billingsgate as if a law had been passed to make it a royal quay.
At the foot of Southwark Bridge stands Vintners’ Hall. We can readily imagine that the old company of Vintners have ever been “right royal,” and great advocates for processions; that, when the City conduits ran wine, a great portion of the cost found its way into their coffers. Pepys tells us that, when Charles II. rode through the City the day before his coronation, “Wadlow the vintner, at the sign of the Devil, in Fleet-street, did lead a fine company of soldiers, all young comely men, in white doublets;” and we now find in the hall portraits of Charles II., James II., and others. That prince of rough wits, Tom Brown, in a bantering letter “from a vintner in the City to a young vintner in Covent Garden,” says, “You desire to know whether a vintner may take an advantage of people when they are in their cups, and reckon more than they have had? To which I answer in the affirmative, that you may, provided it be done in the way of trade, and not for any sinister end. This case has been so adjudged, many years ago, in Vintners’ Hall, and you may depend upon it.”
Bow-lane is the only place to obtain a good view of the beautiful tower of St. Mary, Aldermanbury, one of the finest, in our opinion, in the City. This is another of Wren’s edifices, erected after the Fire. It is said to be a model of the former building, and that the great architect was compelled to adopt the style through the conditions of a bequest, according to Malcolm’s statement, of “Henry Rogers, Esq., who, influenced by sincere motives of piety, and affected with the almost irreparable loss of religious buildings, left the sum of 5000l. to rebuild a church in the City of London.” He died before the building was commenced, and left his lady executrix of his will; and so the present church was erected after the model of the one built by Henry Kebles, it is said, who died at the commencement of the fifteenth century. Stowe says it was called Aldermary, because it was the oldest church in the City dedicated to St. Mary. It is said that the crypt of the old church still remains under two of the houses now standing in Bow-lane. The tower, as seen from Bow-lane, is splendid, but little of the church is visible from Watling-street; nor have we any thing further to notice in this old Roman highway, for such, no doubt, it formerly was, saving the church of St. Anthony, or Antholin, rebuilt by Wren, the dome of which is supported by columns. The early prayers at St. Antholin’s are alluded to by our old dramatists. Here we have only to turn up a court, a little farther on, and we are at once in Bow Churchyard, and under the very shadow of the tower in which swing the far-famed bells. Our engraving is a view of Bow Church as seen from Cheapside, one of the busiest thoroughfares in the whole City of London. Old Bow Church would of itself form a history, but, as we have not even described old St. Paul’s, and as we wish to make our readers acquainted with the London of to-day as well as the old City, which never arose again from its ruins, we shall glance