Carter Lane, very near to the building before mentioned, consisting of a ground chamber, with a vaulted roof supported by a central pillar. This last building undoubtedly belonged to the Hostelry of the Priors of Lewes, which is mentioned in records as having been situate in Carter Lane, and which Stow says was afterwards "a common hostery for travellers, and had to sign the Walnut Tree." Mr. Gwilt's account of the last-mentioned building is illustrated by an interior view.
Mr. Gage Rokewood thus describes the former building:—
"The plain unmixed character of the circular style in these remains would lead me to conclude that this part of the Hostelry was built before the time of Osbert the Prior," in whose time (from 1170 to 1186) Mr. Gage Rokewood shows that the Priors of Lewes had no house of residence of their own in the Metropolis.
"The vaulted chamber formed a parallelogram of 40 feet 3 inches by 16 feet 6 inches, and 14 feet 3 inches high, the vaulted roof being supported by arches springing from six semicircular pillars, attached to the side walls: these pillars were 5 feet 10 inches high, including the capitals and bases. The entrance was by an elliptical arch, and possibly there had been a door also on the opposite side. On the south there were two windows, as well as on the west, and there was one on the north."
Mr. Gage Rokewood, following Mr. Bray and preceding writers who have mentioned this crypt, assumed it to have been part of the hostelry of the Priors of Lowes; but I think that the documents which I have now to lay before the Society will go far to show, if they do not conclusively establish, that the building which forms the subject of Mr. Gage Rokewood's paper was the original manor or mansion-house of the Earls of Warren and Surrey, in their town of Southwark; (or the Town-hall, or Hotel de Ville, with a prison and a house for the bailiff's residence adjoining); and we may judge from the early Norman style of the building that it was erected by William the first Earl, or by his son.
It appears from Domesday Book, that in the reign of Edward the Confessor, Southwark was subject to a divided authority; for it is there said that of the profits of the water where ships plied the King had two parts, and Earl Godwin the third. Godwin had certainly a mansion in Southwark, as we learn from the Saxon Chronicle, A.D. 1052, and the Life of King Edward the Confessor[1] (Harl. MSS. 526); and it would seem that, after the Conquest, the rights of Earl Godwin in Guildford and Southwark became vested in the Earls of Warren and Surrey; for in the Placita de Quo Warranto, temp. Edw. I. is recorded the claim of the Earl
- ↑ Edited by Henry Richards Luard, Esq. lately published under the direction of the Master of the Rolls, lines 442 to 451, p. 402.
