eet. Sir Robert Chichele (a relation
of Archbishop Chichele), mayor in 1411-12, gave the ground for
rebuilding the church of St. Stephen, Walbrook, which his descendant,
Sir Thomas (Mayor and Grocer), helped to rebuild after the Great Fire.
Sir William Sevenoke was founder of the school and college at Sevenoaks,
Kent. Sir John Welles (mayor in 1431), built the Standard in Chepe,
helped to build the Guildhall Chapel, built the south aisle of St.
Antholin's, and repaired the miry way leading to Westminster (the
Strand). Sir Stephen Brown, mayor, 1438, imported cargoes of rye from
Dantzic, during a great dearth, and as Fuller quaintly says, "first
showed Londoners the way to the barn door." Sir John Crosby (Grocer and
Sheriff in 1483), lived in great splendour at Crosby House, in
Bishopsgate Street: he gave great sums for civic purposes, and repaired
London Wall, London Bridge, and Bishopsgate. Sir Henry Keble (mayor,
1510) was six times Master of the Grocers' Company: he left bequests to
the Company, and gave L1,000 to rebuild St. Antholin's, Budge Row.
Lawrence Sheriff, Warden 1561, was founder of the great school at Rugby.

"The rivulet or running water," says Maitland, "denominated Walbrook,
ran through the middle of the city above ground, till about the middle
of the fourteenth century, when it was arched over, since which time it
has served as a common sewer, wherein, at the depth of sixteen feet,
under St. Mildred's Church steeple, runs a great and rapid stream. At
the south-east corner of Grocers' Alley, in the Poultry, stood a
beautiful chapel, called Corpus Christi and Sancta Maria, which was
founded in the reign of Edward III. by a pious man, for a master and
brethren, for whose support he endowed the same with lands, to the
amount of twenty pounds per annum."

"It hath been a common speech," says Stow (Elizabeth), "that when
Walbrook did lie open, barges were rowed out of the Thames, or towed up
so far, and therefore the place hath ever since been called the _Old
Barge_. Also, on the north side of this street, directly over against
the said Bucklersbury, was one antient strong tower of stone, at which
tower King Edward III., in the eighteenth of his reign, by the name of
the King's House, called _Cornets Tower_, in London, did appoint to be
his exchange of money there to be kept. In the twenty-ninth he granted
it to Frydus Guynisane and Lindus Bardoile, merchants of London for L20
the year; and in the thirty-s