Page:An Historical Essay on the Livery Companies of London.djvu/17



The greater part of the Halls which existed before or near the Reformation appear to have been formed from the deserted mansions of the great, and from buildings devoted to religious purposes. Drapers Hall was a mansion belonging to Lord Cromwell; Salters Hall belonged to the Earl of Oxford; The Grocers built their Hall on the site of Lord Fitzwalter's town mansion; the minor companies, in several instances, bought and converted the Halls of the dissolved religious houses into Trade Halls, as, for instance, the Leathersellers, who fitted up the fine hall of the Nuns of St. Helens; the Pinners, who occupied the Austin Friars Hall, afterwards called "Pinners Hall Meeting House"; the Barber Surgeons, who built on part of the site