2-982-544 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Ancient Fragments of the London Guildhall, 1858. 'In the Guildhall from a very remote period nearly every King and Queen of England has been feasted, and other events of much importance have been celebrated...it is a spacious and in some respects a noble interior, which, at a small but judicious expenditure, might be very much improved. At the time of the Great Fire the new hall, which had been erected in the fifteenth century, was so greatly damaged that a very large portion had to be rebuilt; notwithstanding, the large crypt below the hall, and much of the masonry of this date, remain so covered with stucco or by other buildings that they are not easily to be discovered. The niches and tracery below the window, at the dais, are of old workmanship; and on the south side of the hall a small doorway leads to a sort of covered passage, where the ancient fragment now engraved has been sketched'. From "Illustrated London News", 1858.