block and Water Lane. The north row consisted of the two-*storied Duchy Chamber, a narrow building 50 ft. by 17 ft., and the parlour of Sir John Portinari's house. These had a frontage on the kitchen yard. South of them came the rest of Portinari's house, and south of this the little chamber, 26 ft. long by 10 ft. wide, the little kitchen, 23 ft. long by 22 ft. wide, and an entry to the latter, 30 ft. long by 17 ft. wide, which I suppose to have debouched upon Water Lane. The little chamber and kitchen had their frontage on the way leading to Lady Kingston's. The house referred to as Cheyne's in the 1550 survey is probably that occupied by Portinari. But Cheyne must also have had other property in the same neighbourhood, which the surveys do not mention. There was the house, probably that described as 'new built' in 1572, which he occupied himself, and which afterwards passed to Lord Henry Seymour.[1] And there were the three tenements which More claimed, but did not secure in 1572. These premises were leased as a whole by the Poles to Christopher Fenton on 31 May 1571, and appear to have been gradually cut up into smaller holdings. By 1610 there were four tenants and by 1614 five. They bounded More's property, and must have lain in the angle of Water Lane and the way to Lady Kingston's, just south of the entry to the little kitchen.[2]
The little chamber of 1548 is undoubtedly the butler's lodging leased to Bywater in 1564 and to Bonetti in 1585, which was a subject of the law-suit in 1572. But whereas it measured 26 ft. by 10 ft. in 1548, it measured 22 ft. 6 in. by 25 ft. 2 in. in 1585, and the enumeration of rooms in the two leases show that, although Bonetti may have built a small additional room upon a bit of land filched from More, there had been no substantial change since 1564. Further, while in 1548 it was bounded on the north by Portinari's holding, it was reached in 1564 by a railed and boarded entry across its yard, and documents of 1596 and 1601 make it clear that this entry terminated in a small porch opening on the kitchen yard.[3] Similarly the little kitchen, 23 ft. by 22 ft., of 1548 had been replaced in 1584 by a house 33 ft. by 39 ft. 8 in., and of this also Portinari's
- ↑ M. S. C. ii. 36, 47, 51, 122.
- ↑ Ibid. 36, 38, 56 ('the tenemente of Margrett Poole on the south and weste'), 70, 77, 81, 85, 125. Here must have been the chamber which Thomas Blagrave, finding the butler's lodging too small, hired of Parson Wythers, Cheyne's servant, from 1552 to 1560, and which Pole still had in 1572 (ibid. 53). But if it was strictly 'adjoininge' to his house he must have had the 'little kitchen' as well as the 'little chamber'.
- ↑ Ibid. 63, 71.
