Paul's Bakehouse Court

Paul's Bakehouse Court

West out of Godliman Street at No. 6, in Castle Baynard Ward (P.O. Directory).

First mention: O. and M. 1677.

Other names: "Paul's bakers court" (P.C. 1732). "Bakehouse Court" (Rocque, 1746–Boyle, 1799).

On the site of St. Paul's Bakehouse (q.v.), from whence the name is derived.

St. Paul's Bakehouse Ct., Doctors'-Commons, is about six houses on the right hand side of Godliman-street, going from St. Paul's Church-yard.

Paul's Bake-House Court, on the west side of Godliman Street, Paul's Chain, was so called from the bakehouse "employed in baking of bread for the Church of Paul's."¹

On the west side of the street now called Godliman Street stood the bakehouse: it was a large building, and its place is still identified by Paul's Bakehouse Yard. The brewery probably adjoined it. There was a mill for grinding the corn, worked by horses. There were four servants in the bakehouse, three in the brewery, and two at the mill, besides a clerk of the receipts. The brewery and the bakehouse were under the charge of an officer, the Custos Bracini.—Domesday of St. Paul's, 1222 : ed. Archdeacon Hale (Camden Society, 1858, p. 48).

Here was the office of the Registrar of the High Court of Admiralty, now transferred to the Royal Courts of Justice, Somerset House. The brewhouse attached to the Cathedral was converted into the Paul's Head Tavern.²

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¹ Stow, p. 137.
² Ibid., p. 137.

Paul's Bakehouse Court. Paul's Back house in Strype (1720); Bakehouse Court in Rocque (1746); not named in Horwood (1799), though the court is shown.