1549-50 and painted with fantastic designs, "antick work," as it was called, scriptures and the King's arms, The garden was let off in 1537 on a thirty years' lease to a private citizen at a rent of 23 pence. It may be the garden "against the Mayor's Hall," which was sold about 1590 to Thomas Clarke for 30s. It should be mentioned that in 1461 a house, near the High Cross, had been given to "the Mayoralty of the town of Leicester perpetually "by John Reynold the Elder. He had himself held that "honourable and worshipful office," as he states in the deed of Conveyance, no less than four times, and he had no doubt felt the want of accommodation. It is not known if the house furnished an official residence of the Mayor, or if it was used in some other way.
After the purchase of the Corpus Christi Guild Hall in 1562-3, the old Mayor's Hall was still kept in repair, The armour was removed to the new hall, and so was one of its doors. Before the building of the Free Grammer School, the old Mayor's Hall did duty at least on one occasion as a temporary school. It had long been used for the reception of prisoners, and also for the storage of coal. In 1573 a stone wall was built to divide the coal-house from the prisoners. The Corporation passed a resolution, seven years later, that no member of the 48 should be punished any longer at the old hall, but at the new.
It is not known when the Old Mayor's Hall was demolished, and different stories are told about its end. According to some M.S. notes made by James Thompson, it was sold in 1653 to John Kestian, malster, for £30. Throsby asserted, on the other hand, that during the siege of Leicester in 1645 the building was used as a store room for powder and ball, and was blown up by the King's forces at the storming of the town. This statement has been repeated, with some hesitation, by other writers. But in the rent roll of the Leicester Corporation for the year 1694 "the Mayor's Old Hall" still appears, so that Throsby's story is probably untrue, and could at the most apply only to a partial demolition, and Thompson also seems to have been mistaken.
III.
It is quite within the bounds of probability that the Hall and Parlour of the Corpus Christi Guild were built and designed not
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