Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 5.djvu/371

. v. APRIL 2i, 1906.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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and was elected to the Mayoralty by his fellow- citizens in 1348 and 1358, while in 1365 he was chosen, " rege jubente," for that year and the following one. He died in 1368, leaving a widow, Margaret his second wife who subsequently married the celebrated Sir William Walworth, and whose will has been noted above. Walworth in his youth had been an apprentice of Lpvekyn, and always held the memory of his master in great veneration. Further particulars of Lovekyn's career and of his charitable endowments, which included the rebuilding of the church of St. Michael, Crooked Lane, are given in the Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society by Mr. J. G. Nichols, F.S.A. (iii. 133-7), and by Major Alfred Heales, F.S.A. (vi. 341-70). As Lovekyn seems to have died childless, he left directions for certain tenements at 11 Billyngesgate" (one being called " Treieres- wharf," in the parish of "St. Mary atte Hulle ") to be sold for piouS and charitable uses. This wharf, anciently known as Holy- rood Wharf, derived its name from an old civic family called Le Treyhere or Treyere.

About the year 1289 Robert le Treyer granted ,to the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's a quitrent issuing from two tene- ments in Billingsgate, in the parish of St. Mary "de la Hulle," one of which was called "le holirode warf," towards the maintenance of the chantry of Sir Ralph de Donion (Ninth Report Hist. MSS. Comm., Part I., Appendix, p. 17b). This Robert, called in his will " Le Treyhere," died about 1306, and bequeathed to Johanna his wife his tenement in the parish of St. Mary "atte Hulle" for life, remainder to Thomas and Richard his sons ; also his capital messuage and wharf called u le Holirode- warf " for life, remainder to Robert his son, subject to certain rent charges due to Adam and John his sons ; and to his daughter Cecilia land and houses in the same parish in discharge of twenty marks left to her by Johanna his daughter, wife of Nicholas de Mari (Sharpe, 4 Husting Wills,' i. 180). It would appear from another will (ibid. i. 158) that Robert's wife was a daughter of John de Flete, a "chapeler" or hatter (described as "capper," p. 45). Robert the son, who was a minor in 1303, seems eventually to have succeeded to the property, and by his will, dated 25 Nov., 1337, he directed his tenements opposite "Billyngesgate" to be sold by his executors, and the proceeds to be divided into two parts, one moiety to go to Alice his wife, and the other to be divided between Alice and Idonia, his two daughters,

a sum of ten shillings being reserved for four trentals of masses (ibid., i. 425). The pro- perty afterwards came into the possession of John Lovekyn.

In later times interest attached to Love Lane from the fact that after the Great Fire of 1666 the King's Weighhouse was trans- ferred from Cornhill to a vacant piece of ground lying at the north-west corner of the lane as it entered from Little East Cheap. Here merchandise entering the country was weighed for customs purposes. In the time of Charles I. a small body of Independents established a chapel in an upper room be- longing to the Weighhouse. Subsequently a meeting-house was built which was served by many well-known ministers ; but the con-

S-egation afterwards removed to Fish Street ill, and the building was swept away by the extension of the Metropolitan Railway.

At the present time some anxiety has beer* aroused by the threatened destruction of a, fine old house which is thought to have been built, and possibly occupied, by Sir Christo- pher Wren. The front of this house faces a. courtyard leading out of Botolph Lane, but the back, which also possesses a fine oak doorway, gives upon the eastern side of Love- Lane. The exterior of the house, which was probably erected for one of the grand old merchant- princes who flourished after the Restoration, is rather battered ; but the in- terior possesses a beautiful staircase, with the date 1670 on the plaster, and some finely carved chimney-pieces, panellings, and ceilings. The old house is the property of the Sir John Cass Foundation, and has for many years been used as the Billingsgate and Tower Ward Schools, which have now been amalgamated with another educational establishment. Efforts have been made especially by Mrs. Arthur Strong, the widow of the late distinguished Librarian of the House of Lords to induce the City Corpora- tion to secure the old house for the purposes of a museum or some similar object ; but at a Court of Common Council held on 6 April at the Guildhall, a report of the City Library Committee was received, to the effect thafc there was a doubt whether the house ever had been in the possession of Sir Christopher Wren, and further that most of the objects of interest in the interior had been removed ;. and it was thereupon decided that the Court should take no steps for the acquisition or

E reservation of the premises. It may there- )re be expected that the house will be speedily demolished, and that one of the last surviving relics of seventeenth-century Lon- don will finally disappear. A fuller descrip-