Houses on the South Side of Leadenhall Street

by J.T. Smith
1796

Houses in Leadenhall Street, drawn in 1796 and published in Ancient Topography of London, by John Thomas Smith (London: J. M'Creery, published and sold by the proprietor, John Thomas Smith, etc., 1815) (facing page 52).

The principal mansion of this nest of houses, which exhibit some of the most curious of their kind remaining in Leadenhall Street, is at present a public-house, known by the sign of the Cock. One of the first floors is lighted by a window the whole width of the front, and is the only specimen of that description remaining in London. This room, formerly a stately one, but now used as a kitchen, retains parts of its old wainscoting, consisting of small square pannels, often to be seen in the houses built in the time of Elizabeth.

The second floor, with the projecting window, has been altered in the lower half of its glazing. It supports the third room by carved brackets of boys holding inverted shields, on which there might have been heraldic charges. These are also the only specimens of their kind remaining in London. The attic was originally of the gable form, but has been reduced to a flat top.

It might not be very wide of the truth to conjecture, that this house was originally a charity-school; and that the carved boys supported the arms of its founder. The whole of these houses, consisting of oak, chesnut, lath and plaister, are in the front of a brick building dated 1627, formerly occupied by the bricklayers' company, as their hall, but now richly fitted up by the Jews, as a synagogue, the entrance to which is under the archway, and through a passage; at the front of this entrance there is a small gate, represented in the annexed plate. This place of worship is well worth examining, and the Jews are extremely civil and attentive in shewing and describing it. (52)