[Illustration:  THE MASTER’S CHAIR AT THE PARISH CLERKS HALL.]

The original home of the guild was in Bishopsgate.  Brewers’ Hall was, in 1422, lent to them for their meetings.  But the old deeds in the possession of the company show that as early as 1274 they acquired property “near the King’s highway in the parish of St. Ethelburga, extending from the west side of the garden of the Nuns of St. Helen’s to near the stone wall of Bishopsgate on the north, in breadth from the east side of William the Whit Tawyer’s to the King’s highway on the south.”  These two highways are now known as Bishopsgate Street and Camomile Street.  They had property also at Finsbury on the east side of Whitecross Street.  Inasmuch as the guild did not in those early days possess a charter and was not incorporated, it had no power to hold property; hence the lands were transmitted to individual members of the fraternity[52].  After their incorporation in 1442 the trustees of the lands and possessions were all clerks.  Another property belonged to them at Enfield.

[Footnote 52:  The transmission of the property is carefully traced in Some Account of Parish Clerks, by Mr. James Christie, p. 78.  He had access to the company’s muniments.]

The chief possession of the clerks was the Bishopsgate property.  It consisted of an inn called “The Wrestlers,” another inn which bore the sign of “The Angel,” and a fair entry or gate near the latter which still bears the name Clerks’ Place.  Wrestlers’ Court still marks the site of the old inn—­so conservative are the old names in the city of London.  Passing through the entry we should have seen seven modest almshouses for the brethren and sisters of the guilds.  Beyond these was the hall of the company.  It consisted of a parlour (36 ft. by 14 ft.), with three chambers over it.  The east side with fan glasses overlooked the garden, 72 ft. in length by 21 ft. wide.  The west side was lined with wainscot.  The actual hall adjoined, a fine room 30 ft. by 25 ft., with a gallery at the nether end, with a little parlour at the west end.  A room for the Bedell, a kitchen with a vault under it, larder-rooms, buttery, and a little house called the Ewery, completed the buildings.  It must have been a very delightful little home for the company, not so palatial as that of some of the greater guilds, but compact, charming, and altogether attractive.

But evil days set in for the City companies of London.  Spoliation, greed, destruction were in the air.  Churches, monasteries, charities felt the rude hand of the spoiler, and it could scarcely be that the rich corporations of the City should fail to attract the covetous eyes of the rapacious courtiers.  They were forced to surrender all their property which had been used for so-called “superstitious” purposes, and most of them bought this back with large sums of money, which went into the coffers of the King or his ministers.  The Parish Clerks’