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The altar piece is spacious and beautiful, consisting of four columns, with their entablature of the Corinthian order; above is a large arched pediment, upon, which is placed the arms of England.

The length of the church is about fifty-one feet, breadth forty-five, height thirty, and the altitude of the steeple one hundred and forty-five feet.

No monuments of particular consequence.

Among the RECTORS we find mention of EPHRAIM UDALL, who in the beginning of the great rebellion was sequestered and plundered; and his wife, an elderly, lame, and bed rid woman, carried out of her house, with peculiar circumstances of cruelty, and left in the street. JOHN MOORE, D. D. afterwards rector of St. Andrew, Holborn, and bishop of Norwich, 1691. WILLIAM FLEETWOOD, D. D. afterwards bishop of Ely; a most excellent prelate.

This church was also called in old records, "Ecclesia Sancti Augustini ad Portam;" because it stood by the gate to St. Paul's church-yard from Watling Street.

The OLD CHANGE was so denominated on account of a building used by the kings of England for the receipt of bullion to be coined. Henry III. in the sixth year of his reign, wrote to the men of Ypres, &c. that he and his council had given prohibition, that none, Englishmen, or others, should make change of plate, or other mass of silver, but only in his Exchange at London, or at Canterbury. This exchange was then farmed of the king by Andrew Bockerell, mayor of London. In the fifth year of Edward I. William Hawshed was the keeper; as was Roger de Frowicke, in the eighteenth year of the same reign.

These persons received the old stamps, or coining irons, as they were worn out, and delivered those that were new for the use of the mintages throughout England..

Betwixt Cheapside and St. Augustine's church, Henry Wallis, mayor, by licence of Edward I. built a row of houses, the profits of the rent of which he appropriated to wards the expence of London Bridge.

On the west side is a substantial building for the CHARITY SCHOOL belonging to Cordwainer's Ward.

VOL. III No. 68.

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In this street, below Watling Street, is LITTLE CARTER LANE, in which is a very handsome meeting house for Protestant Dissenters; and beyond it is SERMON LANE, a corruption of SHEREMONIERS LANE; this having been ap pointed for preparing, cutting, and rounding the silver for the coiners in the Old 'Change; the building was called The Black Loft, and had four shops adjoining to it.

William De La Pole, earl of Suffolk, in the reign of Richard II. had a house here, as well as in Cornhill, which might probably have been his public office for transacting his concerns as king's merchant. On the west side of this lane is a charity school, for thirty boys and twenty girls, purchased by John Barber, Esq. lord mayor, 1733, for the use of Castle Baynard Ward, of which he was an alderman.

At the south-west angle of the Old Change, stands the parish church of

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THIS was a vicarage in the tenure of the canons of St. Paul's, in the year 181: but now, and for some ages,

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it has been a rectory in the gift of the dean and chapter of St. Paul's. The old edifice was destroyed by the fire of London; the present structure arose from its ruins, and was built in the year 1685.

It is a small well proportioned church, built with stone, sixty feet in length, forty-eight in breadth, and thirty in height to the roof. It is enlightened by a single series of arched windows, each ornamented with a cherub and scrolls, supporting a cornice, which runs round the building; but these windows are of such an unusual height from the ground, that the doors, which are low and plain, open completely under them: both these and the windows are of the same general construction, and the wall is terminated by a balustrade. In the gallery is a good organ. The tower is divided into two stages, in the upper of which is a large window on each side. From the top of this tower the work suddenly diminishes in the manner of high steps on cach side, and on the top of these is a turret, crowned with a very short spire, on which is placed an urn.

This was originally a very poor living, but since the parish of St. Gregory has been united to it, and made parochial for both parishes, it is raised by act of parliament to to the value of 120l. per annum, in lieu of tythes. And though St. Gregory's still remains an impropriation to the petty canons of St. Paul's, who are to receive all tythes, oblations, and duties of that parish, in as large and beneficial a manner as formerly they have, or lawfully might have done; yet the parishioners thereof are obliged to pay their quota of the said 120l. which by act of parliament is to be levied on both these parishes, in lieu of tythes to the incumbent.

OLD FISH STREET, was so called on account of being one of the principal resorts of fishmongers,, in the city, and where two of their halls were situated.

LABOUR-IN-VAIN-HILL, was formerly named OLD FISH STREET HILL, and received its present denomination from its steep ascent, and from a court bearing that name.

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On the west side of this hill was the antient mansion of the family of Monte Alto, of Norfolk, vulgarly Monthaut, and Monthaw. In 1234, Ralph de Maydenstone, bishop of Hereford, purchased it of that family, as a residence for himself and successors in the see of Hereford. Charles Booth, bishop of Hereford, and chancellor of the Marches, repaired it about the year 1517. It afterwards was neglected and fell to ruin, the offices being converted into small tenements, and the great hall and principal apartments used for a sugar house; however the great fire levelled the whole, and the name only is preserved in the site of the parish church of

ST. MARY MONTHAW.

THIS was a very small church, and originally the chapel belonging to Monthaut House; but the patronage being purchased by bishop Maydenstone, it continued in his successors. The bishop of Hereford still presents to the living.

In 1345, John Glocester, alderman of London, founded a chantry here, and gave Salt Wharf, in Thames Street, for its maintenance.

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John Skip, bishop of Hereford, was buried here in 1539. The church was partly rebuilt and enlarged by bishop Bennet, and other benefactors, in 1609; but being burnt down in 1666, no remains exist to perpetuate it, except the spot on which it stood, now converted to a burial ground; the parish being united to St. Mary Somerset.

In this parish was a mansion belonging to Sir Robert Belkenape, one of the justices, who escaped seizure by the wonder-working parliament, in the twelfth year of the reign of Richard II. and being out of the reach of their personal fury, by flight, he' with other fugitive lords and judges were doomed to banishment. The house was then bestowed by the king on WILLIAM of WICKHAM, bishop of Winchester

This great man and excellent prelate had himself very few years before felt the iniquitous tyranny of the times. John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, the undutiful son of Ed

ward,

ward III. the traitorous uncle of Richard II. and the promoter of sedition in both those reigns, had upon the death of Edward the Black Prince, assumed unbounded authority at court, where he countenanced and promoted the intrigues of Alice Perrers with the superannuated king his father; and by means of their faction, had imprisoned Sir Peter de la More in the castle of Newark, without any accusation, or allowing him to plead. The duke of Lancaster laboured to involve the bishop of Winchester by every means in his power, and, among other things objected against him, that he had not faithfully served the king as lord chancellor; and although the bishop in declaring his innocence, offered to produce in his defence both authorities and living witnesses, he was most unjustly condemned without any plea. This point being gained, his temporalities were seized by royal authority; but that he might ingratiate himself with the rabble, on whom he had future designs, the duke insidiously proposed that the episcopal estate should be bestowed on prince Richard; and thus, under colour of such protection, converted it to his own profit. He also forbade the bishop, at his peril, to come within twenty miles of the royal presence. Such an incroachment, did not seem very pleasing to the rest of the prelacy; who considered the whole body of the clergy insulted by such unprovoked injuries to one of their principal members; therefore when the duke called a parliament, by virtue of his assumed authority, a short time afterward, and demanded a whole subsidy, as was pretended, for the king, they unanimously refused, and made a protestation to the archbishop of Canterbury against the ill-treatment of the bishop of Winchester, which they considered as an attack upon them all, as well as on the li berties of the whole Church; and concluded, "that they would treat of nothing else, till the whole of their body were collected together." They applied to the archbishop in this manner, because they imagined him to be a tool to the duke, as it proved; for without any delay, upon consulting his patron, he sent his commandment to the bishop to appear at the convocation of the clergy at London, whi ther he instantly repaired, and was joyfully received by

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