It does not appear possible to say exactly where in the Blackfriars' precinct the Porter's Hall once occupied by Lady Saunders stood. It was certainly not the porter's lodge at the north-west corner of the great cloister, for this was still in 1615, as it had been since 1554, part of the Cobham house. One Ninian Sawnders, a vintner, took a lease of the chancel of the old conventual church from Sir Thomas Cawarden in 1553, and this would have been close to St. Anne's, which stood at the north-east corner of the great cloister. But Ninian died in 1553 and never got knighted. On the other hand, the rooms on the south side of the great cloister, generally described as Lygon's lodgings, had been in the tenure of one Nicholas Saunders shortly before their sale by Sir George More to John Freeman and others in 1609. Nicholas Saunders is said to have been knighted in 1603.[1] These lodgings adjoined More's own mansion house, and might at some time have served as a lodge for his porter.[2] But I do not feel that they would very naturally be described either as 'near' or 'in' Puddle Wharf, or as 'near' the Wardrobe. These indications suggest some building approached either from Puddle Wharf proper or from the hill, afterwards known as St. Andrew's Hill, which ran up from it to the Wardrobe, outside the eastern wall of the Priory precinct. The Cawarden estate did not extend to this wall, and the Saunders family may quite well, in addition to Lygon's lodgings, have had a house, either on the site of the old convent gardens, or higher up the hill on the Blackwell estate, near where Shakespeare's house stood, and near also to St. Anne's. Perhaps there had been a porter's lodge on the east of the old prior's house.
- [Footnote: says that the Corporation reported the carrying out of this mandate
'before three days had elapsed'.]
