Norman crypts to be found in all
London. It was not an ecclesiastical crypt, but the great vaulted
warehouse of a Norman merchant's house, and it is especially mentioned
by Stow.

"On the south side of Basing Lane," says Stow, "is one great house of
old time, built upon arched vaults, and with arched gates of stone,
brought from Caen, in Normandy. The same is now a common hostrey for
receipt of travellers, commonly and corruptly called Gerrarde's Hall, of
a giant said to have dwelt there. In the high-roofed hall of this house
some time stood a large fir-pole, which reached to the roof thereof, and
was said to be one of the staves that Gerrarde the giant used in the
wars to run withal. There stood also a ladder of the same length, which
(as they say) served to ascend to the top of the staff. Of later years
this hall is altered in building, and divers rooms are made in it;
notwithstanding the pole is removed to one corner of the room, and the
ladder hangs broken upon a wall in the yard. The hostelar of that house
said to me, 'the pole lacketh half a foot of forty in length.' I
measured the compass thereof, and found it fifteen inches. Reasons of
the pole could the master of the hostrey give none; but bade me read the
great chronicles, for there he had heard of it. I will now note what
myself hath observed concerning that house. I read that John Gisors,
Mayor of London in 1245, was owner thereof, and that Sir John Gisors,
Constable of the Tower 1311, and divers others of that name and family,
since that time owned it. So it appeareth that this Gisors Hall of late
time, by corruption, hath been called Gerrarde's Hall for Gisors' Hall.
The pole in the hall might be used of old times (as then the custom was
in every parish) to be set up in the summer as a maypole. The ladder
served for the decking of the maypole and roof of the hall." The works
of Wilkinson and J.T. Smith contain a careful view of the interior of
this crypt. There used to be outside the hotel a quaint gigantic figure
of seventeenth century workmanship.

In 1844 Mr. James Smith, the originator of early closing (then living at
W.Y. Ball and Co.'s, Wood Street), learning that the warehouses in
Manchester were closed at one p.m. on Saturday, determined to ascertain
if a similar system could not be introduced into the metropolis. He
invited a few friends to meet him at the Gerard's Hall. Mr. F. Bennock,
of Wood Street, was appointed chairman, and a canvass was c