Modern buildings have obliterated the scene of this ancient drama acted
by the clerks of London, but some traces of the association of the
fraternity with the neighbourhood can still be found. The two famous
conventual houses, for which Clerkenwell was famous, the nunnery of St.
Mary and the priory of St. John of Jerusalem, founded in 1100, have long
since disappeared. Clerks' Close is mentioned in numerous documents, and
formed part of the estate belonging to the Skinners' Company, where
Skinner Street now runs. Clerks' Well was close to the modern church of
St. James's, Clerkenwell, which occupies the site of the church and
nunnery of St. Mary _de fonte clericorum_, which once possessed one of
the six water-pots in which Jesus turned the water into wine. Vine
Street formerly delighted in the name Mutton Lane, which is said to be a
corruption of meeting or moteing lane, referring to the clerks' mote or
meeting place by the well. When Mr. Pink wrote his history of
Clerkenwell forty years ago, there was at the east side of Ray Street a
broken iron pump let into the front wall of a dilapidated house which
showed the site of Clerks' Well. In 1673 the spring and plot of ground
were given by the Earl of Northampton to the poor of the parish, but the
vestry leased the spring to a brewer. Strype, writing in 1720, states
that "the old well at Clerkenwell, whence the parish had its name, is
still known among the inhabitants.
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