At The West End The Arms Of The Confessor,
Those Of England And France Quarterly, And The Arms Of England.
On
the fourteen demy pillars (above the capital) are the king's arms,
the arms of London, and the arms of the twelve companies.
At the
east end are the King's arms carved between the portraits of the
late Queen, at the foot of an arabathram, under a rich canopy
northward, and those of King William and Queen Mary southward,
painted at full length. The inter-columns are painted in imitation
of porphyry, and embellished with the portraitures, painted in full
proportion, of eighteen judges, which were there put up by the City,
in gratitude for their signal service done in determining
differences between landlord and tenant (without the expense of
lawsuits) in rebuilding this City, pursuant to an Act of Parliament,
after the Fire, in 1666.
Those on the south side are, Sir Heneage Finch, Sir Orlando
Bridgeman, Sir Matthew Hale, Sir Richard Rainsford, Sir Edward
Turner, Sir Thomas Tyrrel, Sir John Archer, Sir William Morton.
On the north side are, Sir Robert Atkins, Sir John Vaughan, Sir
Francis North, Sir Thomas Twisden, Sir Christopher Turner, Sir
William Wild, Sir Hugh Windham.
At the west end, Sir William Ellis, Sir Edward Thurland, Sir Timothy
Littleton.
And in the Lord Mayor's Court (which is adorned with fleak stone and
other painting and gilding, and also the figures of the four
cardinal virtues) are the portraits of Sir Samuel Brown, Sir John
Kelynge, Sir Edward Atkins, and Sir William Windham, all (as those
above) painted in full proportion in their scarlet robes as judges.
The late Queen Anne, in December, 1706, gave the City 26 standards,
and 63 colours, to be put up in this hall, that were taken from the
French and Bavarians at the battle of Ramillies the preceding
summer; but there was found room only for 46 colours, 19 standards,
and the trophy of a kettle-drum of the Elector of Bavaria's. The
colours over the Queen's picture are most esteemed, on account of
their being taken from the first battalion of French guards.
From the hall we ascend by nine stone steps to the Mayor's Court,
Council Chamber, and the rest of the apartments of the house, which,
notwithstanding it may not be equal to the grandeur of the City, is
very well adapted to the ends it was designed for, namely, for
holding the City courts, for the election of sheriffs and other
officers, and for the entertainment of princes, ministers of State,
and foreign ambassadors, on their grand festivals.
17. Coleman Street Ward. The principal streets in this ward are
the Old Jewry, part of Lothbury, Coleman Street, part of London
Wall, and all the lower part of Moorfields without the walls.
The public buildings are Bethlem or Bedlam Hospital, Founders' Hall,
Armourers' Hall, the churches of St. Olave Jewry, St. Margaret,
Lothbury, and St. Stephen, Coleman Street.
New Bethlem, or Bedlam, is situated at the south end of Moorfields,
just without the wall, the ground being formerly part of the town
ditch, and granted by the City to the governors of the hospital of
Old Bethlem, which had been appropriated for the reception of
lunatics, but was found too strait to contain the people brought
thither, and the building in a decaying condition.
The present edifice, called New Bedlam, was begun to be erected anno
1675, and finished the following year. It is built of brick and
stone; the wings at each end, and the portico, being each of them
adorned with four pilasters, entablature and circular pediment of
the Corinthian order. Under the pediment are the King's arms,
enriched with festoons; and between the portico and each of the said
wings is a triangular pediment, with the arms of the City; and on a
pediment over the gate the figures of two lunatics, exquisitely
carved. The front of this magnificent hospital is reported to
represent the Escurial in Spain, and in some respects exceeds every
palace in or about London, being 528 feet in length, and regularly
built. The inside, it is true, is not answerable to the grand
appearance it makes without, being but 30 feet broad, and consisting
chiefly of a long gallery in each of the two storeys that runs from
one end of the house to the other; on the south side whereof are
little cells, wherein the patients have their lodgings, and on the
north the windows that give light to the galleries, which are
divided in the middle by a handsome iron gate, to keep the men and
women asunder.
In order to procure a person to be admitted into the hospital, a
petition must be preferred to a committee of the governors, who sit
at Bedlam seven at a time weekly, which must be signed by the
churchwardens, or other reputable persons of the parish the lunatic
belongs to, and also recommended to the said committee by one of the
governors; and this being approved by the president and governors,
and entered in a book, upon a vacancy (in their turn) an order is
granted for their being received into the house, where the said
lunatic is accommodated with a room, proper physic and diet, gratis.
The diet is very good and wholesome, being commonly boiled beef,
mutton, or veal, and broth, with bread, for dinners on Sundays,
Tuesdays, and Thursdays, the other days bread, cheese, and butter,
or on Saturdays pease-pottage, rice-milk, furmity, or other pottage,
and for supper they have usually broth or milk pottage, always with
bread. And there is farther care taken, that some of the committee
go on a Saturday weekly to the said hospital to see the provisions
weighed, and that the same be good and rightly expended.
18. Basinghall, or Bassishaw Ward, consisteth only of Basinghall
Street, and a small part of the street along London Wall.
The public buildings of this ward are Blackwell Hall, Masons' Hall,
Weavers' Hall, Coopers' Hall, Girdlers' Hall, and St. Michael
Bassishaw Church.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 12 of 40
Words from 11245 to 12255
of 40922
