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' Company
fared no better than the rest. Their hall was seized by the King, or
rather by the infamous courtiers of Edward VI, and sold, together with
the almshouses, to Sir Robert Chester in 1548. He at once took
possession of the property, but the clerks protested that they had been
wrongfully despoiled, and again seized their rightful possessions.
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