CANNON STREET.
London Stone and Jack Cade--Southwark Bridge--Old City Churches--The
Salters' Company's Hall, and the Salters' Company's History--Oxford
House--Salters' Banquets--Salters' Hall Chapel--A Mysterious Murder
in Cannon Street--St. Martin Orgar--King William's Statue--Cannon
Street Station.
Cannon Street was originally called Candlewick Street, from the
candle-makers who lived there. It afterwards became a resort of drapers.
London Stone, the old Roman _milliarium_, or milestone, is now a mere
rounded boulder, set in a stone case built into the outer southern wall
of the church of St. Swithin, Cannon Street. Camden, in his "Britannia,"
says--"The stone called London Stone, from its situation in the centre
of the longest diameter of the City, I take to have been a miliary, like
that in the Forum at Rome, from whence all the distances were measured."
Camden's opinion, that from this stone the Roman roads radiated, and
that by it the distances were reckoned, seems now generally received.
Stow, who thinks that there was some legend of the early Christians
connected with it, says:--"On the south side of this high street
(Candlewick or Cannon Street), near unto the channel, is pitched
upright a great stone, called London Stone, fixed in the ground very
deep, fastened with bars of iron, and otherwise so strongly set, that if
carts do run against it through negligence, the wheels be broken and the
stone itself unshaken. The cause why this stone was set there, the time
when, or other memory is none."
Strype describes it in his day as already set in its case. "This stone,
before the Fire of London, was much worn away, and, as it were, but a
stump remaining. But it is now, for the preservation of it, cased over
with a new stone, handsomely wrought, cut hollow underneath, so as the
old stone may be seen, the new one being over it, to shelter and defend
the old venerable one."
It stood formerly on the south side of Cannon Street, but was removed to
the north, December 13th, 1742. In 1798 it was again removed, as an
obstruction, and, but for the praiseworthy interposition of a local
antiquary, Mr. Thomas Malden, a printer in Sherborne Lane, it would have
been destroyed.
This most interesting relic of Roman London is that very stone which the
arch-rebel Jack Cade struck with his bloody sword when he had stormed
London Bridge, and "Now is Mortimer lord of this city" were the words he
uttered too confidently as he gave the blow. Shakespeare, who perhaps
wrote from tradition, makes him strike London Stone with his staff:--
"_Cade._ Now is Mortimer lord of this city. And here, sitting upon
London Stone, I charge and command that the conduit run nothing but
claret wine this first year of our reign. And now henceforward it
shall be treason for any that calls me Lord
Mortimer."--_Shakespeare, Second Part of Henry VI._, act iv., sc. 6.
Dryden, too, mentions this stone in a very fine passage of his Fable of
the "Cock and the Fox:"--
"The bees in arms
Drive headlong from the waxen cells in swarms.
Jack Straw at London Stone, with all his rout,
Struck not the city with so loud a shout."
Of the old denizens of this neighbourhood in Henry VIII.'s days, Stow
gives a very picturesque sketch in the following passage, where he
says:--"The late Earl of Oxford, father to him that now liveth, hath
been noted within these forty years to have ridden into this city, and
so to his house by London Stone, with eighty gentlemen in a livery of
Reading tawny, and chains of gold about their necks, before him, and one
hundred tall yeomen in the like livery to follow him, without chains,
but all having his cognizance of the blue boar embroidered on their left
shoulder."
A turning from Cannon Street leads us to Southwark Bridge. The cost of
this bridge was computed at L300,000, and the annual revenue was
estimated at L90,000. Blackfriars Bridge tolls amounted to a large
annual sum; and it was supposed Southwark might fairly claim about a
third of it. Great stress also was laid on the improvements that would
ensue in the miserable streets about Bankside and along the road to the
King's Bench. We need scarcely remind our readers that the bridge never
answered, and was almost disused till the tolls were removed and it was
thrown open to general traffic.
"Southwark Bridge," says Mr. Timbs, "designed by John Rennie, F.R.S.,
was built by a public company, and cost about L800,000. It consists of
three cast-iron arches; the centre 240 feet span, and the two side
arches 210 feet each, about forty-two feet above the highest
spring-tides; the ribs forming, as it were, a series of hollow masses,
or voussoirs, similar to those of stone, a principle new in the
construction of cast-iron bridges, and very successful. The whole of
the segmental pieces and the braces are kept in their places by
dovetailed sockets and long cast-iron wedges, so that bolts are
unnecessary, although they were used during the construction of the
bridge to keep the pieces in their places until the wedges had been
driven. The spandrels are similarly connected, and upon them rests the
roadway, of solid plates of cast-iron, joined by iron cement. The piers
and abutments are of stone, founded upon timber platforms resting upon
piles driven below the bed of the river. The masonry is tied throughout
by vertical and horizontal bond-stones, so that the whole rests as one
mass in the best position to resist the horizontal thrust. The first
stone was laid by Admiral Lord Keith, May 23rd, 1815, the bill for
erecting the bridge having been passed May 16th, 1811. The iron-work
(weight 5,700 tons) had been so well put together by the Walkers of
Rotherham, the founders, and the masonry by the contractors, Jolliffe
and Banks, that, when the work was finished, scarcely any sinking was
discernible in the arches. From experiments made to ascertain the
expansion and contraction between the extreme range of winter and summer
temperature, it was found that the arch rose in the summer about one
inch to one and a half inch. The works were commenced in 1813, and the
bridge was opened by lamp-light, March 24th, 1819, as the clock of St.
Paul's Cathedral tolled midnight. Towards the middle of the western side
of the bridge used to be a descent from the pavement to a steam-boat
pier."
Mr. Charles Dickens, in one of the chapters of his "Uncommercial
Traveller," has sketched, in his most exquisite manner, just such old
City churches as we have in Cannon Street and its turnings. The dusty
oblivion into which they are sinking, their past glory, their mouldy old
tombs--everything he paints with the correctness of Teniers and the
finish of Gerard Dow.
"There is," he says, "a pale heap of books in the corner of my pew, and
while the organ, which is hoarse and sleepy, plays in such fashion that
I can hear more of the rusty working of the stops than of any music, I
look at the books, which are mostly bound in faded baize and stuff. They
belonged, in 1754, to the Dowgate family. And who were they? Jane
Comfort must have married young Dowgate, and come into the family that
way. Young Dowgate was courting Jane Comfort when he gave her her
prayer-book, and recorded the presentation in the fly-leaf. If Jane were
fond of young Dowgate, why did she die and leave the book here? Perhaps
at the rickety altar, and before the damp Commandments, she, Comfort,
had taken him, Dowgate, in a flush of youthful hope and joy; and perhaps
it had not turned out in the long run as great a success as was
expected.
[Illustration: THE FOURTH SALTERS' HALL. (_See page 548._)]
"The opening of the service recalls my wandering thoughts. I then find
to my astonishment that I have been, and still am, taking a strong kind
of invisible snuff up my nose, into my eyes, and down my throat. I wink,
sneeze, and cough. The clerk sneezes: the clergyman winks; the unseen
organist sneezes and coughs (and probably winks); all our little party
wink, sneeze, and cough. The snuff seems to be made of the decay of
matting, wood, cloth, stone, iron, earth, and something else. Is the
something else the decay of dead citizens in the vaults below? As sure
as death it is! Not only in the cold, damp February day, do we cough
and sneeze dead citizens, all through the service, but dead citizens
have got into the very bellows of the organ, and half-choked the same.
We stamp our feet to warm them, and dead citizens arise in heavy clouds.
Dead citizens stick upon the walls, and lie pulverised on the
sounding-board over the clergyman's head, and when a gust of air comes,
tumble down upon him.
* * * * *
"In the churches about Mark Lane there was a dry whiff of wheat; and I
accidentally struck an airy sample of barley out of an aged hassock in
one of them. From Rood Lane to Tower Street, and thereabouts, there was
sometimes a subtle flavour of wine; sometimes of tea. One church, near
Mincing Lane, smelt like a druggist's drawer. Behind the Monument, the
service had a flavour of damaged oranges, which, a little further down
the river, tempered into herrings, and gradually toned into a
cosmopolitan blast of fish. In one church, the exact counterpart of the
church in the 'Rake's Progress,' where the hero is being married to the
horrible old lady, there was no speciality of atmosphere, until the
organ shook a perfume of hides all over us from some adjacent warehouse.
[Illustration: CORDWAINERS' HALL. (_See page 550._)]
"The dark vestries and registries into which I have peeped, and the
little hemmed-in churchyards that have echoed to my feet, have left
impressions on my memory as distinct and quaint as any it has that way
received. In all those dusty registers that the worms are eating, there
is not a line but made some hearts leap, or some tears flow, in their
day. Still and dry now, still and dry! And the old tree at the window,
with no room for its branches, has seen them all out. So with the tomb
of the old master of the old company, on which it drips. His son
restored it and died, his daughter restored it and died, and then he had
been remembered long enough, and the tree took possession of him, and
his name cracked out."
The Salters, who have anchored in Cannon Street, have had at least four
halls before the present one. The first was in Bread Street, to be near
their kinsmen, the Fishmongers, in the old fish market of London,
Knightrider Street. It is noticed, apparently, as a new building, in the
will of Thomas Beamond, Salter, 1451, who devised to "Henry Bell and
Robert Bassett, wardens of the fraternity and gild of the Salters, of
the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Church of All Saints,
of Bread Street, London, and to the brothers and sisters of the same
fraternity and gild, and their successors for ever, the land and ground
where there was then lately erected a hall called Salters' Hall, and six
mansions by him then newly erected upon the same ground, in Bread
Street, in the parish of All Saints." The last named were the Company's
almshouses.
This hall was destroyed by fire in 1533. The second hall, in Bread
Street, had an almshouse adjoining, as Stow tells us, "for poore decayed
brethren." It was destroyed by fire in 1598. This hall was afterwards
used by Parliamentary committees. There the means of raising new
regiments was discussed, and there, in 1654, the judges for a time sat.
The third hall (and these records furnish interesting facts to the
London topographer) was a mansion of the prior of Tortington (Sussex),
near the east end of St. Swithin's Church, London Stone. The Salters
purchased it, in 1641, of Captain George Smith, and it was then called
Oxford House, or Oxford Place. It had been the residence of Maister
Stapylton, a wealthy alderman. The house is a marked one in history, as
at the back of it, according to Stow, resided those bad guiding
ministers of the miser king Henry VII., Empson and Dudley, who, having
cut a door into Oxford House garden, used to meet there, like the two
usurers in Quintin Matsys' picture, and suggest war taxes to each other
under the leafy limes of the old garden. Sir Ambrose Nicholas and Sir
John Hart, both Salters, kept their mayoralties here.
The fourth hall, built after the Great Fire had made clear work of
Oxford House, was a small brick building, the entrance opening within an
arcade of three arches springing from square fluted pillars. A large
garden adjoined it, and next that was the Salters' Hall Meeting House.
The parlour was handsome, and there were a few original portraits. This
hall, the clerk's house, with another at the gate of St. Swithin's Lane,
were pulled down and sold in 1821. The present hall was designed by Mr.
Henry Carr, and completed in 1827.
As a chartered company there is no record of the Salters before the 37th
year of Edward III., when liberties were granted them. In the 50th of
Edward III. they sent members to the common council. Richard II. granted
them a livery, but they were first incorporated in 1558 by Elizabeth.
Henry VIII. had granted them arms, and Elizabeth a crest and supporters.
The arms are:--Chevron azure and gules, three covered salts, or,
springing salt proper. On a helmet and torse, issuing out of a cloud
argent, a sinister arm proper, holding a salt as the former. Supporters,
two otters argent plattee, gorged with ducal coronets, thereto a chain
affixed and reflected, or; motto, "Sal sapit Omnia." "A Short Account of
the Salters' Company," printed for private distribution, rejects the
otters as supporters, in favour of ounces or small leopards, which
latter, it states, have been adopted by the assistants, in the arms put
up in their new hall; and it gives the following, "furnished by a London
antiquary," as the Salters' real supporters:--Two ounces sable besante,
gorged with crowns and chased gold. The Salters claim to have received
eight charters.
The Romans worked salt-pits in England, and salt-works are frequently
mentioned in Domesday Book. Rock or fossil salt, says Herbert, was never
worked in England till 1670, when it was discovered in Cheshire. The
enormous use of salt fish in the Catholic households of the Middle Ages
brought wealth to the Salters.
In a pageant of 1591, written by the poet Peele, one clad like a
sea-nymph presented the Salter mayor (Webb) with a rigged and manned
pinnace, as he took barge to go to Westminster.
In the Drapers' pageant of 1684, when each of the twelve companies were
represented by allegorical figures, the Salters were figured by Salina
in a sky-coloured robe and coronation mantle, and crowned with white and
yellow roses. Among the citizens nominated by the common council to
attend the mayor as chief butler, at the coronation of Richard III.,
occurs the name of a Salter.
The following bill of fare for fifty people of the Company of Salters,
A.D. 1506, is still preserved:--
s. d.
36 chickens 4 6
1 swan and 4 geese 7 0
9 rabbits 1 4
2 rumps of beef tails 0 2
6 quails 1 6
2 ounces of pepper 0 2
2 ounces of cloves and mace 0 4
1-1/2 ounces of saffron 0 6
3 lb. sugar 0 8
2 lb. raisins 0 4
1 lb. dates 0 4
1-1/2 lb. comfits 0 2
Half hundred eggs 0 2-1/2
4 gallons of curds 0 4
1 ditto gooseberries 0 2
2 dishes of butter 0 4
4 breasts of veal 1 5
Bacon 0 6
Quarter of a load of coals 0 4
Faggots 0 2
3-1/2 gallons of Gascoyne wine 2 4
1 bottle muscadina 0 8
Cherries and tarts 0 8
Salt 0 1
Verjuice and vinegar 0 8
Paid the cook 3 4
Perfume 0 2
1-1/2 bushels of meal 0 8
Water 0 3
Garnishing the vessels 0 3
In the Company's books (says Herbert) is a receipt "For to make a moost
choyce Paaste of Gamys to be eten at ye Feste of Chrystemasse" (17th
Richard II., A.D. 1394). A pie so made by the Company's cook in 1836 was
found excellent. It consisted of a pheasant, hare, and capon; two
partridges, two pigeons, and two rabbits; all boned and put into paste
in the shape of a bird, with the livers and hearts, two mutton kidneys,
forced meats, and egg balls, seasoning, spice, catsup, and pickled
mushrooms, filled up with gravy made from the various bones.
The original congregation of Salters' Hall Chapel assembled at
Buckingham House, College Hill. The first minister was Richard Mayo, who
died in 1695. He was so eloquent, that it is said even the windows were
crowded when he preached. He was one of the seceders of 1662. Nathaniel
Taylor, who died in 1702, was latterly so infirm that he used to crawl
into the pulpit upon his knees. "He was a man," says Matthew Henry, "of
great wit, worth, and courage;" and Doddridge compared his writings to
those of South for wit and strength. Tong succeeded Taylor at Salters'
Hall in 1702. He wrote the notes on the Hebrews and Revelations for
Matthew Henry's "Commentary," and left memoirs of Henry, and of Shower,
of the Old Jewry. The writer of his funeral sermon called him "the
prince of preachers." In 1719 Arianism began to prevail at Salters'
Hall, where a synod on the subject was at last held. The meetings ended
by the non-subscribers calling out, "You that are against persecution
come up stairs:" and Thomas Bradbury, of New Court, the leader of the
orthodox, replying, "You that are for declaring your faith in the
doctrine of the Trinity stay below." The subscribers proved to be
fifty-three; the "scandalous majority," fifty-seven. During this
controversy Arianism became the subject of coffee-house talk. John
Newman, who died in 1741, was buried at Bunhill Fields, Dr. Doddridge
delivering a funeral oration over his grave. Francis Spillsbury, another
Salters' Hall minister, worked there for twenty years with John Barker,
who resigned in 1762. Hugh Farmer, another of this brotherhood, was
Doddridge's first pupil at the Northampton College. He wrote an
exposition on demonology and miracles, which aroused controversy. His
manuscripts were destroyed at his death, according to the strict
directions of his will.
When the Presbyterians forsook Salters' Hall, some people came there who
called the hall "the Areopagus," and themselves the Christian Evidence
Society. After their bankruptcy in 1827, the Baptists re-opened the
hall. The congregation has now removed to a northern suburb, and their
chapel bears the old name, "so closely linked with our old City history,
and its Nonconformist associations."
In April, 1866, a mysterious murder took place in Cannon Street. The
victim, a widow, named Sarah Millson, was housekeeper on the premises of
Messrs. Bevington, leather-sellers. About nine o'clock in the evening,
when sitting by the fire in company with another servant, the street
bell was heard to ring, on which Millson went down to the door,
remarking to her neighbour that she knew who it was. She did not return,
although for an hour this did not excite any suspicion, as she was in
the habit of holding conversations at the street door. A little after
ten o'clock, the other woman--Elizabeth Lowes--went down, and found
Millson dead at the bottom of the stairs, the blood still flowing
profusely from a number of deep wounds in the head. Her shoes had been
taken off and were lying on a table in the hall, and as there was no
blood on them it was presumed this was done before the murder. The
housekeeper's keys were also found on the stairs. Opening the door to
procure assistance, Lowes observed a woman on the doorstep, screening
herself apparently from the rain, which was falling heavily at the time.
She moved off as soon as the door was opened, saying, in answer to the
request for assistance, "Oh! dear, no; I can't come in!" The gas over
the door had been lighted as usual at eight o'clock, but was now out,
although not turned off at the meter. The evidence taken by the coroner
showed that the instrument of murder had probably been a small crowbar
used to wrench open packing-cases; one was found near the body,
unstained with blood, and another was missing from the premises. The
murderer has never been discovered.
St. Martin Orgar, a church near Cannon Street, was destroyed in the
Great Fire, and not rebuilt. It had been used, says Strype, by the
French Protestants, who had a French minister, episcopally ordained.
There was a monument here to Sir Allen Cotton, Knight, and Alderman of
London, some time Lord Mayor, with this epitaph--
"When he left Earth rich bounty dy'd,
Mild courtesie gave place to pride;
Soft Mercie to bright Justice said,
O sister, we are both betray'd.
White Innocence lay on the ground,
By Truth, and wept at either's wound.
"Those sons of Levi did lament,
Their lamps went out, their oyl was spent.
Heaven hath his soul, and only we
Spin out our lives in misery.
So Death thou missest of thy ends,
And kil'st not him, but kil'st his friends."
A Bill in Parliament being engrossed for the erection of a church for
the French Protestants in the churchyard of this parish, after the Great
Fire, the parishioners offered reasons to the Parliament against it;
declaring that they were not against erecting a church, but only against
erecting it in the place mentioned in the Bill; since by the Act for
rebuilding the city, the site and churchyard of St. Martin Orgar was
directed to be enclosed with a wall, and laid open for a burying-place
for the parish.
The tame statue of that honest but commonplace monarch, William IV., at
the end of King William Street, is of granite, and the work of a Mr.
Nixon. It cost upwards of L2,000, of which L1,600 was voted by the
Common Council of London. It is fifteen feet three inches in height,
weighs twenty tons, and is chiefly memorable as marking the site of the
famous "Boar's Head" tavern.
The opening of the Cannon Street Extension Railway, September, 1866,
provided a communication with Charing Cross and London Bridge, and
through it with the whole of the South-Eastern system. The bridge across
the Thames approaching the station has five lines of rails; the curves
branching east and west to Charing Cross and London Bridge have three
lines, and in the station there are nine lines of rails and five
spacious platforms, one of them having a double carriage road for exit
and entrance. The signal-box at the entrance to the Cannon Street
station extends from one side of the bridge to the other, and has a
range of over eighty levers, coloured red for danger-signals, and green
for safety and going out. The hotel at Cannon Street Station, a handsome
building, is after the design by Mr. Barry. Arrangements were made for
the reception of about 20,000,000 passengers yearly.