Caen stone, with a large early English doorway, still exist in a building which seems to correspond in situation with a chapel-like edifice, which is shown in the large and remarkably fine drawing of London from the tower of St. Mary Overy’s, in Southwark, taken in the reign of Henry the Eighth, by Antonio van den Wyngrerde, who accompanied Philip of Spain to this country on the occasion of his marriage to the Princess Mary of England. This valuable memorial of old London is dated 1543, and is preserved in the Sutherland collection of the Bodleian Library, Oxford. In this delineation the Steelyard premises extend considerably beyond their present area westward, and appear bounded by the wharf of the Vintry. Within this circumference, from the thirteenth century downwards, several premises had become included, comprising the house of Sir Thomas Salisbury, that of Sir Richard Lyons, another house given originally by Richard the Second to a follower of his Queen, Anne of Bohemia, and five houses in Windgose Lane, adjoining. In the sixteenth century the whole of the consolidated property was in the possession of the German merchants. The old hall was a huge stone building, with round-headed gates opening into Thames Street, which, with the walls by which the premises were enclosed, afforded the Germans a sufficient defence against the assaults to which in unsettled times they were liable as foreigners—always extremely obnoxious to the rabble of ancient Cockaigne. Over each of the gates was a Latin distich, that in the centre being ascribed to the paternity of no less a man than Sir Thomas More.
Hans Holbein painted in this country four famous pictures, besides many others of minor dimensions—one of them in the Hall of the Barber-Surgeons, the other in the College of Physicians; the third and fourth were two large pictures painted in distemper in the Hall of the Easterling merchants in the Steelyard.
These pictures exhibited the triumphs of Riches and Poverty. The former was represented by Plutus riding in a golden car; before him sat Fortune, scattering money, the chariot being loaded with coin, and drawn by four white horses, but blind and led by women, whose names were written beneath; round the car were crowds with extended hands, catching at the favours of the god. Fame and Fortune attended him, and the procession was closed by Crœsus and Midas and other avaricious persons of note. . . . Poverty was an old woman, sitting in a vehicle as shattered as the other was superb, her garments squalid, and every emblem of wretchedness around her. She was drawn by asses and oxen, which were guided by Hope and Diligence, and other emblematic figures, and attended by mechanics and labourers. It was on the sight of these pictures that Zucchero expressed such esteem of the master. . . . The large pictures themselves, Felibien and Depiles say, were carried into France from Flanders, whither they were transported, I suppose, after the destruction of the company.—Walpole’s Anecdotes, ed. Dallaway, i. 152.
Copies of them made by Verrio were in the collection at Strawberry Hill, and engravings of them by Vosterman exist.
A stately mansion on the river bank, now represented by a modern edifice, was the residence of the Steelyard master. Between the river and Thames Street was a garden planted with fruit-trees and vines, where the young Teutons might gambol, but dry-mouthed, for the act of plucking an apple or plum involved the heavy penalty of five shillings. An old tap, still in favour with the Thames Street carters and porters, flanks the premises on the Thames Street side, next Allhallows the Great. This represents the ancient Rhenish Winehouse, where, perhaps, Rhine wine continued to be drunk from the time when Henry the Second first sanctioned the free importation of Hock to the citizens of Cologne. Thomas Nash in his “Pierce Pennilesse, his Supplication to the Devil,” makes a sluggard say: “Let us go to the Stiliard, and drink Rhenish wine.” And in one of Webster’s plays, we have, “I come to entreat you to meet him this afternoon at the Rhenish Winehouse in the Stilyard. Will you steal forth and taste of a Dutch bun and a keg of sturgeon?” Smoked ox tongues were likewise among the whets for which this house was renowned, which explains the allusion in “Nobbe’s Bride,” “Who would let a cit (whose teeth are rotten out with sweetmeat his mother brings him from goshipings), breath upon her vernish for the promise of a dry neat’s tongue and a pottle of Rhenish at the Stilliards?” Blount even after the great fire attests the old-established reputation of the Steelyard tap. In his Glossography he says “the Steelyard was lately famous for Rhenish wines, neats’ tongues, &c.” A pleasing memorial of the German merchants is still preserved in the neighbouring church of All Hallows, where they attended divine service in the days of stout Queen Bess, being an oaken screen, among the carvings whereof their badge, the German eagle, is conspicuous. This was carved at Hamburgh, and presented to the parish by the Germans on being expelled their premises by the manful queen, in memory of old kindness and better days.
The Steelyard is about to become a thing of the past. The railroad surveyor, with his levels and rods, has cast the eye of destruction upon it. The premises have been sold by the senates of Lubeck and Bremen, in whose right it continued, and a railway, in continuation of the South-eastern line, will drive through its area to a projected terminus in Cannon Street. It is highly probable that when the excavations requisite to this project shall be effected, remains of great and curious antiquity may be revealed to rejoice the eye of the watchful antiquary.
