Guildhall, London

Guildhall
Middlesex
The façade of Guildhall
Type:	Guildhall
Location
Grid reference:	TQ32488138
Location:	51°30’57"N, 0°5’31"W
City:	London
History
Address:	Guildhall Yard, EC2
	Built 1440
	Guildhall
Information
Owned by:	The Corporation of London

Guildhall is the ancient headquarters of the yet more ancient Corporation of London, the governing body of the City of London since the Middle Ages. It is the City's only surviving secular medieval building, dating from 1411.

The building has been used as a town hall for several hundred years, and is still the ceremonial and administrative centre of the City of London and its Corporation. Today a Grade I-listed building.

Guildhall stands in the heart of the City, in Guildhall Yard, off Gresham and Basinghall Streets, in the wards of Bassishaw and Cheap. The term 'Guildhall' refers both to the whole building and to its main room, which is a mediæval great hall. The building is traditionally referred to as 'Guildhall', not 'the Guildhall'.

The great hall is believed to be on a site of an earlier guildhall of the Anglo-Saxon period. It is known that London was governed by a 'guild', the statutes of which survive: the word is from the Old English gid or gegild, meaning a society or association, found later in the innumerable trade guilds of later history.

History

Roman, Saxon and Mediæval history

Guildhall crypt

During the Roman]] period, an amphitheatre stood on this site, the largest in Britannia, partial remains of which are on public display in the basement of Guildhall Art Gallery. The outline of the arena is marked with a black circle on the paving of the courtyard in front of the hall.

In the Anglo-Saxon period a hall was built for the guild which governed London and it is beliuved that it stood where today's Guildhall stands: it has been proposed that the siting of the Saxon Guildhall was due to the remains of the old amphitheatre.

Excavations by Museum of London Archaeology in 2000 at the entrance to Guildhall Yard exposed remains of the great 13th-century gatehouse built directly over the southern entrance to the Roman amphitheatre, which raises the possibility that enough of the Roman structure survived to influence the siting not only of the gatehouse and Guildhall itself but also of the church of St Lawrence Jewry whose strange alignment may shadow the elliptical form of the amphitheatre beneath.

The first documentary reference to a London Guildhall is dated 1128 and the current hall's west crypt may be part of a late-13th century building.

1411–present

The Great Hall

The current building began construction in 1411 and completed in 1440, and it is the only non-ecclesiastical stone building in the City to have survived through to the present day. The complex contains several other historic interiors besides the hall, including the large mediæval crypts, the old library, and the print room, all of which are now used as function rooms.

The Guildhall has served as the courthouse of the City since the Middle Ages.

In 1450, Jack Cade's Rebellion broke out against the government of King Henry VI: Cade seized the City and the Guildhall and brought James Fiennes, the Lord High Treasurer, into the hall for a sham trial. Cade declared Fiennes to be guilty of treason, and had him taken to Cheapside and beheaded.

Trials in this hall in the early modern period have included those of Anne Askew (Protestant martyr), Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, Lady Jane Grey, Guildford Dudley, Francis Dereham and Thomas Culpeper (lovers of Queen Catherine Howard), Thomas Cranmer, Henry Peckham and John Daniel (members of the 1556 Dudley conspiracy), John Felton, Roderigo Lopez, Henry Garnet (in connection with the Gunpowder Plot), and Gervase Helwys (in connection with the Overbury plot).

The 1783 hearing of the infamous Zong case, the outcome of which focused public outrage about the transatlantic slave trade, also took place at Guildhall.

On 16 November 1848, the pianist Frédéric Chopin made his last public appearance on a concert platform here.

Guildhall contains memorials to Pitt the Elder, Pitt the Younger, Admiral Lord Nelson, the Duke of Wellington, William Beckford, and Winston Churchill.

Restorations

A gathering at Guildhall in 1863 attended by Queen Victoria

The Great Hall did not completely escape damage in the Great Fire of London in 1666. It was partially restored (with a flat roof) in 1670. The present grand entrance (the east wing of the south front), in "Hindoostani Gothic", was added in 1788 by George Dance (and restored in 1910). A more extensive restoration than that in 1670 was completed in 1866 by the City of London architect Sir Horace Jones, who added a new timber roof in close keeping with the original hammerbeam ceiling. This replacement was destroyed during the Second Great Fire of London on the night of 29/30 December 1940, the result of a Luftwaffe fire-raid. It was replaced in 1954 during works designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, but the original hammerbeam design was not retained.

Present

West Wing of Guildhall

The day-to-day administration of the City of London Corporation is now conducted from modern buildings immediately to the north of Guildhall, but Guildhall itself and the adjacent historic interiors are still used for official functions, and it is open to the public during the annual London Open House weekend. Guildhall Art Gallery was added to the complex in the 1990s. Guildhall Library, a public reference library with specialist collections on London, which include material from the 11th century onwards, is also housed in the complex.

The Clockmakers' Museum was previously located at Guildhall but as of 2015 has been relocated to the Science Museum.

The marathon route of the 2012 Summer Olympics passed through Guildhall Yard.

Functions

Guildhall hosts many events throughout the year, the most notable one being the Lord Mayor’s Banquet, which is held in honour of the immediate-past Lord Mayor and is the first to be hosted by the new Lord Mayor of the City of London. In keeping with tradition, it is at this Banquet that the Prime Minister makes a major World Affairs speech. One of the last acts of the outgoing Lord Mayor is to present prizes at the City of London School prize day at Guildhall. Other events include those of various law firms, award evenings for the Wine and Spirit Education Trust (WSET), and the banquet for the International Wine and Spirit Competition (IWSC). The Worshipful Company of Carmen holds its Cart-Marking ceremony in the courtyard each July.

Members Bar

The Members Bar in the Guildhall is a highly subsidised facility for members of the Court of Common Council and the Court of Aldermen. However access to the facilities becomes a privilege for life even after an individual is no longer a member of either of these courts. Members can also entertain guests there. With spirits available for as little as 60p in October 2017 it is substantially cheaper than any other bar in the City of London. The bar is subsidised from the City's Cash, a wealth fund originally set up in the 15th century.

Legend

Legend describes the Guildhall site as being the location of the palace of Brutus of Troy, who according to Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae (1136) is said to have founded a city on the banks of the River Thames, known as Troia Nova, or New Troy, from which Geoffrey derives the legendary name Trinovantum for the city of the actually historical Trinovantes tribe.

Gog and Magog

The figure of Gog

Two giants, Gog and Magog, are associated with Guildhall. Legend has it that the two giants were defeated by Brutus of Troy and chained to the gates of his palace on the site of Guildhall. Carvings of Gog and Magog are kept in Guildhall and 7-foot high wicker effigies of them donated by the Worshipful Company of Basketmakers in 2007 lead the procession in the annual Lord Mayor's Show.

Early versions of Gog and Magog were destroyed in Guildhall during the Great Fire of London. They were replaced in 1708 by a large pair of wooden statues carved by Captain Richard Saunders. These giants, on whom the current versions are based, lasted for over two hundred years before they were destroyed in the Blitz. They, in turn, were replaced by a new pair carved by David Evans in 1953 and given to the City of London by Alderman Sir George Wilkinson, who had been Lord Mayor in 1940 at the time of the destruction of the previous versions.

Outside links

("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Guildhall, London)

• City of London Corporation: Guildhall