In the parish of St. Sepulchre, which is without the liberties of
the City of London, we meet with Hicks's Hall and the Charter House.
Hicks's Hall is situated in the middle of St. John's Street, towards
the south end, and is the sessions house for the justices of peace
of the County of Middlesex, having been erected for this end, anno
1612, by Sir Baptist Hicks, a mercer in Cheapside, then a justice of
the peace. The justices before holding their sessions at the Castle
Inn, near Smithfield Bars.
To the eastward of Hicks's Hall stood the late dissolved monastery
of the Charter House, founded by Sir Walter Manny, a native of the
Low Countries, knighted by King Edward III. for services done to
this crown, probably in the wars against France.
Sir Walter Manny at first erected only a chapel, and assigned it to
be the burial-place of all strangers; but in the year 1371 Sir
Walter founded a monastery of Carthusian monks here, transferring to
these fathers thirteen acres and a rood of land with the said
chapel: the revenues of which convent, on the dissolution of
monasteries, 30 Henry VIII., amounted to 642 pounds 4d. 1ob. per
annum.
Sir Thomas Audley soon after obtained a grant of this Carthusian
monastery, together with Duke's Place, and gave the former in
marriage with his daughter Margaret to Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, from
whom it descended to the Earl of Suffolk, and was called Howard
House, the surname of that noble family.
