orway on a tablet which
bears the names, in the letters of the period, of the master, "James
Reading, Esq.," and the wardens, "Mr. Robert Lawrence," "Mr. Samuel
Barber," and "Mr. Henry Sell."

The names of other masters and wardens are also written over the carved
escutcheons of their different arms, and the whole room is one of the best
specimens in existence of the oak carving of this date. At the western end
is the master's chair, of which by the courtesy of Mr. Higgins, clerk to
the Company, we are able to give an illustration on p. 115--the
shield-shaped back, the carved drapery, and the coat-of-arms with the
company's motto, are all characteristic features, as are also the
Corinthian columns and arched pediments, in the oak decoration of the
room. The broken swan-necked pediment, which surmounts the cornice of the
room over the chair, is probably a more recent addition, this ornament
having come in about 30 years later.

There are also the old dining tables and benches; these are as plain and
simple as possible. In the court room, is a table, which was formerly in
the Company's barge, with some good inlaid work in the arcading which
connects the two end standards, and some old carved lions' feet; the top
and other parts have been renewed. There is also an old oak fire-screen of
about the end of the seventeenth century.

Another city hall, the interior woodwork of which dates from just after
the Great Fire, is that of the Stationers' Company, in Ave Maria Lane,
close to Ludgate Hill. Mr. Charles Robert Rivington, the present clerk to
the Company, has written a pamphlet, full of very interesting records of
this ancient and worshipful corporation, from which the following
paragraph is a quotation:--"The first meeting of the court after the fire
was held at Cook's Hall, and the subsequent courts, until the hall was
re-built, at the Lame Hospital Hall, i.e., St. Bartholomew's Hospital.
In 1670 a committee was appointed to re-build the hall; and in 1674 the
Court agreed with Stephen Colledge (the famous Protestant joiner, who was
afterwards hanged at Oxford in 1681) to wainscot the hall 'with
well-seasoned and well-matched wainscot, according to a model delivered in
for the sum of L300.' His work is now to be seen in excellent condition."

[Illustration: The Master's Chair. (_Hall of the Brewers' Company._)]

Mr. Rivington read his paper to the London and Middlesex Archaeological
Society in 1881; and the writer can