Map (1720) the present Godliman Street is a continuation of Paul's Chain. Godliman is a common corruption of Godalming, but why it was applied to this street does not appear. It may be mentioned however that "godalmins" were a kind of skin or leather, "probably," says Mr. Ryland, "calf-leather, so called perhaps from Godalming in Surrey, where it was prepared." 1 In an Inquisition as to the customs payable by the citizens of London to the King, temp. Henry III., "godelmynges" are enumerated along with "cordwain and basil as liable to a charge of one penny the dozen, but "this custom is only to be taken for wares that come from beyond the sea." At No. 3 Godliman Street (by Paul's Bakehouse Court) was formerly the Registry of the Consistory Court. Here was also the Bishop of London's Registry for granting marriage licences, faculties, etc. At No. 10, on the opposite side of the way, was the Registry of the Arches Court of Canterbury. Godolphin House, STABLE YARD, ST. JAMES's, a mansion belonging to the Duke of Bedford, was for some time before his death the town residence of Charles James Fox. He was taken from here, August 29, 1806, to the Duke of Devonshire's villa at Chiswick, where he died on September 13 following. Stafford House [which see] now occupies the site of Godolphin House. Gold and Silver Wire Drawers' Company, the eighty-first of the City Companies, was incorporated by James I. in 1623, and reincorporated by William III. in 1693 as the Master, Wardens, Assistants and Commonalty of the Art and Mystery of Drawing and Flatting of Gold and Silver Wire, and making and spinning of Gold and Silver thread and Stuffs. The Company had no livery till 1780; and they have never had a hall. Golden Cross Hotel, CHARING CROSS, No. 452 West Strand, a celebrated inn and coach-office, the Bull and Mouth of the west end of London. Since road travelling was disused, it has been used as a railway booking-office. "An excellent New Ballad: being entitled a Lamentation over the Golden Cross, Charing Cross," attributed to Maginn, bemoans the changes wrought in this locality: No more the coaches shall I see Come trundling from the yard, King Charles, I think, must sorrow sore, Even were he made of stone, When left by all his friends of yore, (Like Tom Moore's rose), alone. O! London won't be London long, 1 Liber Albus, p. 203. The old Golden Cross faced the back of the statue of King Charles at Charing Cross. It was also famous for the numerous exhibitions which were held there for some years. In an old painting belonging to Mr. J. E. Gardner, F.S.A., the sign is seen overhanging the road, and fixed to a framework on the kerb. Bish's Lottery Office was next door. The present building was designed in 1832 by Mr. (afterwards Sir) William Tite. It has two fronts, one in the Strand and the other in Duncannon Street. Golden or Golding Lane, BARBICAN, runs from opposite Red Cross Street to Old Street. "Of no great account," writes Strype, "either for buildings or inhabitants;" and much the same may be Isaid of it now. From a Survey of the Manor of Finsbury, made in 1567, and printed by Strype, it appears to have then contained good tenements and gardens, the latter probably market gardens, as some of the tenants are described as gardeners; inns, and a brewery. Early in the next century the Fortune Theatre was built here, and later the Nursery. [See Fortune Theatre and Nursery.] In Strype's time there were two "brewhouses," the Sun and the Three Arrows, "both of good trade." Still, as in Strype's time, there are numerous courts and alleys, but some of the worst rookeries, and they were very bad, have been cleared away under the Artisans' and Labourers' Dwellings Act. Here are the City of London Baths and a Mission Hall. Golden Square, REGENT'S STREET— Was built after the Revolution, or before 1700. It was originally called Gelding Square, from the sign of a neighbouring Inn; but the inhabitants, indignant at the vulgarity of the name, changed it to the present. This anecdote was communicated by the late Earl of Bath to a friend of mine.-Pennant. It is, however, called "The Golden Square" in an advertisement in the London Gazette of the year 1688 (No. 2393), and Golding Square in Morden and Lea's Large Map of London, engraved in William and Mary's reign. Hatton, in 1708, calls it Golding Square, and adds that it was "so called from the first builder." Part of Poland Street and Great Marlborough Street appears to have been originally called "Little Gelding Field." A grant was made to Eliza Dodington (18 Eliz.) of the Gelding Field. This was stated to be in the parish of St. Margaret's instead of St. Martin's, and an Act was therefore passed in the same year to correct the mistake. (See Doe on the Demise of Conant and others v. Warner, tried in the Court of Queen's Bench, and reported in the Times of February 13, 1849.) Eminent Inhabitants.-Lord Bolingbroke, when Secretary of War. Here, February 17, 1712, he entertained Prince Eugene at that dinner to which Swift failed to get invited. He wrote to Steele, "They will be all drunk, I am sure." The father of Anastasia Robinson; here the great Lord Peterborough made love to that charming singer. Mrs. Cibber, the actress. "Direct to me," Mrs. Cibber writes to Garrick in 1 B. iii. p. 93. 2 B. iv. p. 102. 1746, "at the centre house in Golden Square, for I have left Craven Street."1 It was in this square that Matthew Bramble and his sister, with Humphrey Clinker and Winifred Jenkins, took up their London residence. "We lodge in Golden Square," writes Melford to Sir Watkin Philips, "at the house of one Mrs. Norton, who takes great pains to make us all easy." There is a curious engraving of Golden Square, such as it was when Bramble lodged there, in the 1754 edition of Stow. William Windham was born at No. 6 in 1750; and in 1752 Charles Wentworth, the second and last Marquis of Rockingham, was "married to Miss Bright of Golden Square, with £60,000.” Robert Perreau, who, with his brother Daniel, was executed for forgery, January 17, 1776, was an "apothecary" (i.e. general medical practitioner) in this square. He must have been in large practice, as Henry Drummond, the banker, to whom the forged bond was made over, deposed that he knew him "from being apothecary to several families" he was connected with. The case is remembered from the respectability of the criminals, and from the mysterious share which a certain Mrs. Margaret Caroline Rudd, who was credited with irresistible powers of fascination, had in the crime. This was of course sufficient to make Boswell obtain an introduction, and he gave such an account of the interview as led Johnson to declare that he envied him his acquaintance with her, and on another occasion he said he should have visited her himself were it not that "now they have a trick of putting everything into the newspapers.' The brothers were twins and greatly attached to each other. They stood together, handin-hand, in the fatal cart, and so remained for half a minute after it had passed away from under them. Three years afterwards Mrs. Rudd died in this square in very distressed circumstances. Sir Joshua Reynolds notes an engagement, June 9, 1772, to "Mrs. Armistead, at Mr. Mitchell's, Upper John Street, Golden Square." The lady was afterwards married to Charles James Fox. The west side of Golden Square was called John Street, the east side James Street. Anthony Morris Storer, the owner of the magnificent library which he left to Eton College, was living in Golden Square in 1786. Angelica Kauffmann lived with her father in a house on the south side, where she held pleasant Sunday evening conversazioni. At the time of the Gordon Riots the Bavarian Minister's Chapel was in Golden Square. » 2 June, 1780.-Old Haslang's Chapel was broken open and plundered; and as he is a Prince of Smugglers as well as Bavarian Minister, great quantities of rum, tea, and contraband goods were found in his house."-Walpole to Mann, vol. vii. p. 381. Count Haslang is referred to in Mrs. Bellamy's Apology (vol. v. p. 108). No. 35 was the town residence of Cardinal Wiseman. No. 32 is the Hospital for Diseases of the Throat. Most of the other houses are occupied for business purposes. The statue in the centre was bought from the Duke of Chandos's seat at Canons, and represents King George II. Carrick, Correspondence, vol. i. p. 40. 2 Croker's Boswell, p. 518. Goldsmiths' Alley, or GOLDSMITHS' RENTS, JEWIN STREET, CRIPPLEGATE, "in Cripplegate parish, behind Red Cross Street." Here Thomas Farnaby kept school. The school-house was a large brick building, divided into several partitions, or apartments, according to the distinctions of the forms and classes.-Ath. Ox., ed. 1721, vol. ii. p. 104. From him I came to Mr. Farnabie, who taught school in a garden-house in Goldsmyths' Allie, a fine airie place; he had ioyned two or three gardens and houses togeather, and had a great manie boarders and towne schollars; soe manie that he had 2, sometymes three, vshers besides himselfe. I boarded with him, tho' my father liued then in Phillip Lane, very near the schoole.-Autobiography of Sir John Bramston, p. 101. Farnaby, who died in 1647, is described by Wood as the chief grammarian, rhetorician, poet, Latinist and Grecian of his time. "His school was so much frequented that more churchmen and statesmen issued thence than from any school taught by one man in England. Goldsmiths' Hall, FOSTER LANE, CHEAPSIDE, behind the General Post Office; the hall of Goldsmiths' Company (the fifth of the Twelve Great Companies of London), designed by Philip Hardwick, R.A. The old building was taken down, together with some adjacent houses, in 1829. The new hall was opened with a splendid banquet July 15, 1835. The goldsmiths existed as a guild from a very early period; they are mentioned as a guild in 1180, but were not incorporated before 1327, the 1st of Edward III. Pursuant to various Charters and Acts of Parliament, the Goldsmiths' Company possess the privilege of assaying and stamping all articles of gold and silver manufacture. The assays in one day are over 150, and are conducted as follows: They scrape a portion from every piece of plate manufactured, and send it to their assay master. If found true to the standard quantities the articles are passed; if what is called of "deceitful work," they are destroyed. These standard scrapings are afterwards melted down and assayed by the Company, to whom they belong. This last assay is a sort of "pyx" by the Company on the practice of its assayers. The hall mark, stamped on the several articles assayed, consists of the Sovereign's head (first added in 1784), the royal lion, and the letter in the alphabet which marks the year of the Sovereign's reign when the assay was made. The Company derives no pecuniary profit from their assay offices, the charge being barely sufficient to pay expenses. In the Trial of the Pyx, the official testing of the coinage issued from the Mint, the Goldsmiths' Company appoint the jury of freemen of the Company, and carry through the assaying operations in their own laboratory within the hall. Goldsmiths' Hall is a completely isolated building, the fronts about 150 feet long, the sides 100 feet. The exterior, a noble specimen of Mr. Hardwick's abilities, bold and well proportioned throughout, but unfortunately closely shut in by other buildings, is of Portland stone on a granite plinth. The western, or principal façade, has a slightly projecting centre with six Corinthian capitals and some good carving. The other fronts correspond in character, but are less ornamented. Inside, beyond the vestibule, a superb marble staircase, lined with sculpture, leads to galleries, corridors, court, meeting and dining-rooms, a sumptuous drawing-room, and still more sumptuous hall (80 feet long, 40 wide, and 35 high), in which are held the state banquets for which the Company is famous. Observe-In the Livery tea room, a Conversation piece, by Hudson (Sir Joshua Reynolds's master). In the Committee Room, the original portrait, by Jansen, of a liveryman of the Company, the celebrated Sir Hugh Myddelton (d. 1631), who brought the New River to London; portrait of Sir Martin Bowes, with the cup he bequeathed to the Goldsmiths' Company standing on the table before him (Queen Elizabeth is said to have drunk out of this cup at her coronation; it is still preserved, and is engraved in Shaw's Dresses and Decorations of the Middle Ages); Roman altar, exhibiting a full-length figure of Apollo, in relief, found in digging the foundations for the present hall. In the Livery Hall fulllength portraits of Queen Victoria, by Hayter; Queen Adelaide, by Shee; the Prince Consort, by Smith; and marble busts, by Chantrey, of George III., George IV., and William IV., also Storey's fine statues of the Sibyl and Cleopatra. The treasure of plate should also be examined. In the time of the Long Parliament the Committee of Sequestration on the Estates of the Royalists sat in Goldsmiths' Hall. The Gentry are sequestred all; Our wives you find at Goldsmiths' Hall, For there they meet with the Devil and all: Wilkin's Political Ballads, vol. i. p. 55. Under the rose be it spoken, there's a damn'd Committee The Devil take their souls and the hangman their ears. Ibid. vol. i. p. 58. It was then known among the Cavaliers as Squeezing Hall. Professor Morley, in his Bartholomew Fair, has given an interesting abstract of a booth-play issued in 1649 as a Bartholomew Fairing, in the Prologue to which the Hall is spoken of : You Cavaliers, what will you buy? or how? How go by Goldsmiths' Hall, the States milcht cow? In the fourth act one lady calls for "some white wine of that the merchant sent my husband for his brothers' quick despatch at Squeezing Hall," and the play winds up with one Mr. Avery, a committee man, declaring: I must unto my Court at Squeezing Hall, 1 Morley, Bartholomew Fair, p. 171. |