GREAT FEASTS HELD HERE. berries cultivated in the garden by bishop Morton. He informs us that Richard duke of Glocester (afterward Richard III.) at the council held in the Tower, on the morning he put Hastings to death, requested a dish of them from the bishop. Mr. Grose has given us two representations of the buildings and chapel. Here was a most venerable hall, seventy-four feet long, lighted with six gothic windows; and all the furniture suited the hospitality of the times: this room the serjeants at law frequently borrowed to hold their feasts in, on account of its size. In the year 1531, eleven gentlemen, who had just been honored with the coif, gave a grand feast here five days successively. On the first, the king and his queen, Catherine of Arragon, graced them with their presence. For quantity of provisions it resembled a coronation feast the minutia are not given; but the following particular of part will suffice* to shew its greatness, as well as the wonderful scarcity of money in those days, evinced by the smallness of the prices compared to those of the present day: GREAT 255 HELD HERE. 256 ELY CHAPEL. One hundred fat muttons, each Thirty-four porkes, at Ninety-one pigs, at Capons of Greece, of one poulter (for £ s. d. 0 2 10 0 4 8 0 3 S 006 018 0 10 008 CHAPEL. Larkes 340 dozen, each dozen · 005 THE chapel (which was dedicated to St. Etheldreda, foundress of the monastery at Ely) has at the east end a very handsome gothic window, which looks into a neat court, lately built, called Ely-place. Beneath is a crypt of the length of the chapel. The cloisters formed a square on the south side. THE several buildings belonging to this palace falling into ruin, it was thought proper to enable, by act of parlement, in 1772, the bishop to alienate the whole. It was accordingly sold to the ELY-HOUSE, DOVER-STREET. 257 crown, for the sum of six thousand five hundred pounds, together with an annuity of two hundred pounds a year, to be payed to the bishop and his successors for ever. Out of the first, five thousand six hundred was applied towards the purchase of Albemarle-house, in Dover-street, with other messuages and gardens. The remainder, together with three thousand pounds paid as dilapidations by the executors of bishop Mawson, was applied towards building the handsome house at present occupied, in Dover-street, by my respected friend the present prelate.* This was named Ely-house, ELY-HOUSE, and is settled on the bishops of Ely for ever. It was the fortune of that munificent prelate Edmund Keene, to rebuild or repair more ecclesiastical houses than any churchman of modern days. He bestowed most considerable repairs on the parsonage house of Stanhope, in the bishoprick of Durham. He wholly rebuilt the palace at Chester. He restored almost from ruin that at Ely; and, finally, Ely-house, in Dover-street, was built under his inspection. IN DOVER STREET. ST. ANDREW'S FROM hence is a steep descent down Holbornhill. On the south side is St. Andrew's church, of HOLBORN. considerable antiquity, but rebuilt in the last century in a plain neat manner. Here was buried Thomas Wriothesley, lord chancellor in the latter The honorable James Yorke. ED. S |