whose members in 1611 divided the purchase amongst themselves.[1] The former Pipe Office, now called the gate-*house, with its yard, part of the glass-house, and a strip of the garden 23 ft. 10 in. wide passed to William Banister. Banister's son Thomas sold them in 1616 to Gideon De Laune and De Laune in 1617 to Jacob Hardratt. Then Hardratt rebuilt the property and in 1619 sold back to De Laune a tenement which extended 43 ft. from north to south, and 24 ft. westwards from 'the great gate near the playhouse' to the tenement occupied by a widow Basil. It had a small garden on the east, lying south of another garden belonging to De Laune.[2] The length of 43 ft. exceeds by 6 ft., the width of an entry, that of the Pipe Office rooms, the site of which De Laune's tenement no doubt occupied.
The big sale of 1609 did not include the kitchen and kitchen stairs built by Sir Henry Neville about 1560, or the wood yard which enclosed them. A bit of this yard had been included in Burbadge's purchase of 1596. The rest of the property, with the water supply, had been bought on 11 March 1601, by Henry Lord Cobham, whose house it underlay.[3] It had in fact been held by his father as far back as 1596.[4] In 1603 Cobham was attainted. His Blackfriars property was forfeited to the Crown, but regranted to his widow, Lady Kildare, and for some years remained in the hands of trustees for her and her daughter Lady Howard.[5] In 1612 an additional bit of the wood yard was sold, as already stated, to the Burbadges. Finally, in 1632 the estate was conveyed to the Company of Apothecaries, in whose hands it has since remained.[6] They must also have acquired the house of Gideon De Laune, who was one of their founders, and therefore their present premises, in their extent of 116 ft. from north to south, exactly replace the 'northern block' of buildings which stood to the west of the main Blackfriars cloister, when Sir Thomas Cawarden took possession of it in 1550.
James Burbadge was not destined to see the success of
- ↑ M. S. C. ii. 92 (Deed of Sale).
- ↑ Ibid. 126. There is some confusion as to the position of Mrs. Basil's house. I think it was west of the gatehouse.
- ↑ Ibid. 88 (Deed of Sale, misdated 1602).
- ↑ Ibid. 64.
- ↑ Ibid. 83; S. P. D. Jac. I, viii. 18 (Grant to trustees for Lady Kildare). An inquisitio on Cobham's Blackfriars property (1 Jac. I) appears to be amongst the Special Commissions and Returns in the Exchequer (R. O. Lists and Indexes, xxxvii. 61).
- ↑ C. R. B. Barrett, History of the Society of Apothecaries, 42. The existing Hall dates from 1669-70. John Downes (cf. App. I, No. iii) and Pepys, i. 336, record the use of the older building by Davenant for plays at the Restoration. So Farrant's tradition survived.
