Broderers' Hall
The Broderers' Hall or Embroiderers' Hall[1] at 36 Gutter Lane was the livery hall of the Worshipful Company of Broderers, the City of London livery company for embroiderers from 1515 until its destruction in 1940.[2][3]
The hall was originally a monastery that dated from the 10th century.[3] The site for the hall was bought with the proceeds of a bequest from a John Throwstone in 1519.[4] The hall was rebuilt after being damaged in the Great Fire of London in 1666.[5] It was described in 1815 by John Wilkes in his Encyclopaedia Londinensis as a "small but very handsome building".[6] After being little used by the Company of Broderers, it became a warehouse in the 19th century.[5] In 1889 during excavations for a basement, human bones were found as well as pieces of poetry and glass from Londinium, the Roman settlement.[3]
The hall was destroyed in World War II in 1940, during the London blitz.[3] The Broderers sold the site of the hall in 1957, and a plaque now marks the spot where it once stood, now 33 Gutter Lane, an office building.[7] The Worshipful Company of Broderers now dine in Mercers' Hall, the hall of the Worshipful Company of Mercers.[3] The Broderers gave the Mercers an altar cloth for their chapel in 1958.[3]
References[edit]
- ^ James Elmes (1831). A Topographical Dictionary of London and Its Environs. Whittaker, Treacher and Arnot. pp. 183–.
- ^ Derek Sumeray (23 August 2011). London Plaques. Shire Books. ISBN 978-0-7478-1155-8.
- ^ a b c d e f John Kennedy Melling (2003). London's Guilds and Liveries. Osprey Publishing. pp. 45–. ISBN 978-0-7478-0559-5.
- ^ John Richardson (2000). The Annals of London: A Year-by-year Record of a Thousand Years of History. University of California Press. pp. 80–. ISBN 978-0-520-22795-8.
- ^ a b Ben Weinreb (2008). The London Encyclopaedia. Macmillan. pp. 177–. ISBN 978-1-4050-4924-5.
- ^ John Wilkes (of Milland House, Sussex) (1815). Encyclopaedia Londinensis, or, Universal dictionary of arts, sciences, and literature. pp. 607–.
- ^ "Broderers' Hall".