ppeareth, and was found by inquisition taken in the Guildhall of
London, before William Purchase, mayor, and escheator for the king,
Henry VII., in the 14th of his reign, after the death of John Lord
Scrope, that he died deceased in his demesne of fee, by the
feoffment of Guy Fairfax, knight, one of the king's justices, made
in the 9th of the same king, unto the said John Scrope, knight,
Lord Scrope of Bolton, and Robert Wingfield, esquire, of one house
or tenement late called Sergeants' Inn, situate against the Church
of St. Andrew in Oldbourne, in the city of London, with two gardens
and two messuages to the same tenement belonging to the said city,
to hold in burgage, valued by the year in all reprises ten
shillings" (Thomas's edit. Stow, p. 144).

This, as may be judged from the above, was not a regular Inn of
Chancery, but appertained to Serjeants' Inn.

Crossing Holborn Circus to the north side, we come into the Liberty of
Saffron Hill, Hatton Garden, and Ely Rents. This Liberty, is coterminous
with the parish of St. Peter, Saffron Hill. Hatton Garden derives its
name from the family of Hatton, who for many years held possession of
house and grounds in the vicinity of Ely Place, having settled upon the
Bishops of Ely like parasites, and grown rich by extortion from their
unwilling hosts. The district was separated from St. Andrew's in 1832,
and became an independent ecclesiastical parish seven years later. As
the Liberty of Saffron Hill, Hatton Garden, and Ely Rents, it has a very
ancient history. It was cut in two by a recent Boundary Commission, and
put half in Holborn and half in Finsbury Borough Councils.

Ely Place was built in 1773 on the site of the Palace of the Bishops of
Ely. The earliest notice of the See in connection with this spot is in
the thirteenth century, when Kirkby, who died in office in 1290,
bequeathed to his official successors a messuage and nine cottages in
Holborn. A succeeding Bishop, probably William de Luda, built a chapel
dedicated to St. Ethelreda, and Hotham, who died in 1336, added a
garden, orchard, and vineyard. Thomas Arundel restored the chapel, and
built a large gate-house facing Holborn. The episcopal dwelling steadily
rose in magnificence and size. It boasted noble residents besides the
Bishops, for John of Gaunt died here in 1399, having probably been
hospitably taken in after the burning of his own palace at the Savoy.
The str