A ‘Coming Home’ Dinner, Pewterers’ Hall, 10th July

Members may be aware that the Coachmakers’ Company used to own a hall of our own, sadly it was destroyed in a WWII air raid in 1940. The hall was situated in Noble Street just off London Wall, on the corner of Oat Lane.

After some extensive searching of old records and images, we have discovered that the current Pewterers’ Hall in Oat Lane is built on land that used to be the Coachmakers’ stables at the rear of the hall and abutting what was the Church of St Mary Staining. The Church was lost much earlier in the Great Fire of 1666 and never rebuilt. The churchyard survives as an open space next to Pewterer’s Hall, and weather permitting we plan to enjoy an open-air reception on 10th July.

Accordingly, we have chosen the Pewterers’ Hall for our Summer Court dinner, and the Master’s last dinner, with a ‘coming home’ theme. On the corner of Noble Street and Oat Lane, members can view two blue plaques, one commemorating Coachmakers’ Hall, the other Scriveners’ Hall. The Company bought its own first hall from the Worshipful Company of Scriveners for £1,600 in 1703, when apparently it was in financial difficulty.

The site was rebuilt in 1843 and 1870, but was destroyed in an air raid, and it seems we were not in a position to rebuild. The Company’s library and many of its possessions, including a Master’s chair from 1670, were lost. Luckily, the plate, and other treasures including an original model of the Royal State Coach from 1761, had been removed.

Noble Street runs parallel with the western boundary Roman Wall of the City of London, indeed the Wall foundations survive until the present and would have been overlooked by the Hall entrance. There are no images of the Hall exterior except the main entrance double doors, see image, which dates from 1854.

This painting shows that there was a hatter next door which would have been handy for coachmen for their traditional top hat head gear.

Hall entrance doors, Noble Street

The site map unearthed is an extract from an Aldersgate Ward map from William Maitland’s Survey of London (1755). It shows Noble Street and Foster Lane as a continuous street.

The map clearly shows the extent of the property that appeared to have a narrow corridor entrance leading to an open courtyard ahead of the hall itself. The area abutting St Mary Staining is believed to be the stables that would have been accessed from Oat Lane where Pewterers’ Hall now stands.

The City’s Roman Wall is shown as the castellated line. Much of the area has changed, both Fitch’s Court and Lillipot Lane are no more.

There is just one image of the interior of our Hall that has emerged as shown above. The image appears to show bales of hay which seems odd, perhaps we had just received a delivery when the image was captured! This interior painting of the Coachmakers’ Hall, Noble Street, City of London, is dated 1851. The artist being one Thomas Colman Dibdin (Alamy licence).

The Master hopes that you will enjoy returning to this hallowed turf, hosted by the Pewterers’ Company. It is hoped that we will forge ever closer links in the future driven by our connections with this piece of City history.

Pewterers’ Hall is not very large for our summer dinner gathering, when the notice emerges be sure to make an early booking to avoid disappointment.