This Street Also Is Situated Near The Centre Of The
City, And Some Say, Upon The Highest Ground In It.
It is spacious,
and well built with lofty houses, four or five storeys high,
inhabited by linendrapers and other considerable tradesmen, who deal
by wholesale as well as retail, and adorned with the principal gate
and front of the Royal Exchange.
Here also it is said the
metropolitan church was situated, when London was an archbishopric.
Exchange Alley, so denominated from its being situated on the south
side of this street, over against the Royal Exchange, has long been
famous for the great concourse of merchants and commanders of ships,
and the bargains and contracts made there and in the two celebrated
coffee-houses in it, which go under the respective names of
"Jonathan's" and "Garraway's," where land, stocks, debentures, and
merchandise, and everything that has an existence in Nature, is
bought, sold, and transferred from one to another; and many things
contracted for, that subsists only in the imagination of the
parties.
The public buildings in this ward are, the Royal Exchange, and the
churches of St. Peter and St. Michael.
The Royal Exchange is situated on the north side of Cornhill, about
the middle of the street, forming an oblong open square, the inside
whereof is a hundred and forty-four feet in length from east to
west, and a hundred and seventeen in breadth from north to south;
the area sixty-one square poles, on every side whereof is a noble
piazza or cloister, consisting of twenty-eight columns and arches
that support the galleries above.
The length of the building on the outside is two hundred and three
feet, the breadth a hundred and seventy-one, and the height fifty-
six. On the front towards Cornhill also is a noble piazza,
consisting of ten pillars; and another on the opposite side next
Threadneedle Street, of as many; and in the middle of each a
magnificent gate. Over the Cornhill gate is a beautiful tower, a
hundred and seventy-eight feet high, furnished with twelve small
bells for chimes; and underneath the piazzas are capacious cellars,
which serve for warehouses.
The whole building is of Portland stone, rustic work; above the
arches the inward piazza is an entablament, with fine enrichments;
and on the cornice a range of pilasters, within entablature, and a
spacious compass pediment in the middle of the corners of each of
the four sides. Under the pediment on the north side are the king's
arms; on the south those of the City; and on the east the arms of
Sir Thomas Gresham. And under the pediment on the west side the
arms of the Company of Mercers, with their respective enrichments.
The intercolumns of the upper range are twenty-four niches, nineteen
of which are filled with the statues of the kings and queens regent
of England, standing erect with their robes and regalia, except that
of King James II. and King George II., which are habited like the
Caesars.
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