Page:Mediaevalleicest00billrich.djvu/232

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in January, 1871, it was resolved by the Town Council that Municipal Buildings should be erected upon this site. In the following year, however, this resolution was rescinded, and it was agreed that the new Town Hall and offices should be built on the land where the old Cattle Market used to be held. The Corporation then cleared the ground which they had bought from Mrs. Burnaby's Trustees, and made a street through it named "The Grey Friars." Subsequently, by an Indenture dated the 30th September, 1873, the Corporation took a conveyance of the land from their five Trustees, by the following description:— "All that piece of land situate in the parish of St. Martin's in the Borough of Leicester and lying between two streets there now called Friar Lane and St. Martin's and which said piece of land was lately the site of a messuage or mansionhouse for some years formerly occupied as two messuages with the gardens yards and out-buildings thereto belonging known as 'the Grey Friars,' and one of which said messuages was formerly in the occupation of Mary Burnaby widow deceased and the other of which said messuages was formerly in the occupation of John Henry Davis and which said mansion-house and premises have since the date of the lastly recited deed" (the Conveyance to the Corporation's Trustees), "been pulled down and the ground cleared and a street formed upon the said land by the Corporation." The Corporation of Leicester have since the date of this deed parted with the whole of the land, which is now built on. The site of the old mansion-house and grounds at the present day comprises the Grey Friars Street, with the Leicester Savings Bank and two blocks of offices, extending from St. Martin's to Friar Lane, on the West side of the street, and the London County Westminster and Parr's Bank and blocks of offices, extending from St. Martin's to Friar Lane, on the East side. If then the Grey Friars' Church and the burial place of Richard III were in Robert Herrick's garden, Richard's remains must now lie, if undisturbed, somewhere beneath the Grey Friars Street or the buildings that face it. The exact place cannot be more nearly identified.

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