The palace stood in the parish of
St. Thomas Apostle, the church of which was not rebuilt after the
Fire; but the name of the church survives in a small fragment of the
street so-called.
There were, therefore, in this small bit of London, at least four
royal palaces, besides the great houses of the nobles that I have
enumerated. Half the City companies had their Halls here; and even to
this day there are standing here and there one or two of the solid
houses built by the merchants in the narrow streets north of Thames
Street for their private residences. As late as the beginning of the
present century the house now called the 'Shades,' close to the Swan
Stairs, London Bridge, was built for his own town house by Lord Mayor
Garratt, who laid the foundation stone of London Bridge. Of the old
merchants' houses, rich with carved woodwork, built with black timber
round courts and gardens, not one now remains in the City. But there
are one or two remaining in the old inns of Southwark and the Old Bell
Inn, Holborn, Yet the last great house built in the City, the Mansion
House, was itself originally built round a court.
* * * * *
You may, if you try, reconstruct Thames Street as it was before the
Fire.
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