The New Murrey and Blue blog

Reblogged from A Medieval Potpourri @sparkypus.com

The Cheapside Hoard.  Discovered beneath the floor of an ancient cellar during the demolition of 30-32 Cheapside in 1912. How the owners of such jewels must have shimmered in the candlelight.  Photo 1websurfer@Flikr.

The Cheapside Hoard as it has become known was discovered in June 1912 at 30-32 Cheapside when workmen were demolishing a trio of 17th century post-Great Fire of London houses.  The cellars of the original medieval houses destroyed in that fire of 1666 had survived the conflagration and it was somewhere from beneath their floors that the Hoard was recovered.   Although the exact spot is now lost to us newspaper reports of the time recorded that the cellar was 16 foot below street level.  This would accord with modern archaeological findings which have uncovered other footings and remains of other similar brick lines structures at the same depth.  Also unknown is what type of receptacles were used, if any,  to bury the Hoard in.   I will return to this later but for now let’s take a little look at Cheapside itself. From early medieval times Cheapside was famous for its mercers, goldsmiths and jewellers  (the terms jeweller and goldsmith were largely interchangeable in those times and sometimes both terms were applied to the same person in the same documents) who sold their sumptuous wares there.   Known as early as 1067 as Westceape  (to differentiate it from Eastcheap, the market at the east end of the city) and the Chepe of London in 1257,  it was undoubtedly  one of the glories of old London, wide enough for a market – from which it first got its name – to be held in the middle of it as well as joustings (1),

30-32 Cheapside was situated on the corner where it joined Friday Street and was owned by the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths whose ownership it had been in for centuries.  In the 15th century Thomas Wood, a goldsmith who was also a Sheriff of London at one time, had there built a large timber framed structure, four stories high,  which he would later give to the Goldsmiths Company in 1491.  Comprising of 10 houses and 14 shops,  Stow  in 1598,  was to describe this structure as ‘the most beautiful frame of fair houses and shops in England’.  This structure became known as Goldsmiths Row.  Later on further houses and shops would spring up along that area of Cheapside which would eventually become generally known as Goldsmiths Row.  It was somewhere in this area that our goldsmith plied his trade.  Behind the handsome facades would spring up numerous workshops, vaults,  countinghouses,  gilding chambers, storerooms as well as living accommodation (2).  No doubt this led to a lot of coming and goings, old tenants and new tenants etc.,  Unsurprisingly all was not always harmonious with squabbles breaking out which sometimes caused the Goldsmiths Company  itself to get involved and arbitrate.   One example is when one tenant,  George Lansdale,   caused other tenants to complain  when he set up a furnace in his cellar which  ‘he doth verie dangerouslie mainteyne  and work’.  It transpired that George had tunnelled  through his privy  walls  to vent the smoke into the street so that noxious fumes wafted through the adjourning properties ‘ to his neighbours great disquiet of mind’.  When George refused to remove the furnace he was henceforth hauled off to prison.  Another situation which caused great indignation arose when John Hawes took  sneaky advantage of his neighbour Edward Wheeler‘s absence in the country to break down the wall between them.  He then extended his own property by a few inches but worse still exposed parts of Wheeler’s  study ‘wherein were  divers writings’ and other personal papers.   This was just not on and  Officers from the Company  inspected the damage.  Hawes had to pay Wheeler 20 shillings in reparation (3).

The properties we are interested  had five stories with garrets at the top and cellars running beneath them.   Over time they had become multi tenanted with rooms divided into smaller rooms and shops so it is now impossible to know which tenant,  subtenant  or even sub-subtenant was responsible for the burying of the Hoard.   It’s all rather mysterious however the most popular theory seems to be that it was buried by our unknown goldsmith prior to making an escape before the Great Fire of London reached  the wooden façade of his home and workplace.   However as the fire did not wreak its terrible destruction on Cheapside until its third day, Wednesday 5 September,  it’s puzzling why our most certainly usually astute goldsmith did not make his escape with his stock well before then.  Indeed most of the Cheapside goldsmiths having sufficient warning had already stored their valuables in the Tower of London and ‘thanks to this wise precaution their individual losses were insignificant compared with those of other tradesmen’ (4).  Could the burying of the Hoard have occurred in 1665 when the Great Plague cut its deadly swathe across London and Londoners left in droves if able to do so?   But this scenario also begs the question why was the valuable stock not taken when the owner made his escape if he indeed did.  Was he one of the casualties of that terrible pestilance?    Perhaps there was some sort of skulduggery involved.  Robbery, even murder?   Frustratingly we will never know and presumably the person who buried it died quite soon after having done so.

The Discovery.

George Fabian Lawrence aka Stony Jack in his office at Wandsworth. 

Now enters our story – drumroll! – a gentleman by the name of George Fabian Lawrence aka Stony Jack (1862-1939).

To continue reading and view photos from the hoard click here.