The building was a quadrangle, enclosing an open space. The sides formed a cloister or sheltered walk; above this was a corridor, or walk, called "the pawn," with stalls or shops, like the Burlington Arcade of the present day; above this again was a tier of rooms. The great bell-tower stood on the Cornhill front; the bell was rung at noon and at six in the evening. On the north side, looking towards St. Margaret's, Lothbury, was a tall Corinthian column. Both tower and column were surmounted by a grasshopper--the Gresham crest. The inscription on the façade of the building was in French, German, and Italian. The motley scene of Lombard Street had been transferred to the Royal Exchange. The merchants of Amsterdam, of Antwerp, of Hamburg, of Paris, of Bordeaux, of Venice and Vienna, distinguishable to the eye by the dress of the nations they represented, and to the ear by the differences of language, conducted their exchanges with English merchants, and with each other, in this replica of the Bourse of Antwerp, the rialto of Elizabethan London.[1]
Cheapside was called West Cheap in Elizabethan London, in contradistinction to East Cheap, famous for ever as the scene of the humours of "Dame Quickly" and "Falstaff." The change in West Cheap since the mediæval period was chiefly at the eastern end, on the north side. Here a large space opposite the church of St. Mary-le-Bow was formerly kept clear of building, although booths and stalls for market purposes occupied the ground temporarily. The space was otherwise reserved for the mediæval jousts, tournaments, and other civic pageantry. The site of Mercers' Hall was occupied by the _Militia Hospitalis_, called, after Thomas à Becket, St. Thomas of Acon. After the Dissolution this establishment was granted by Henry to the Mercers' Company, who adapted the existing buildings to the purposes of their hall, one of the principal features of Cheap in Elizabethan times. The district eastward of Mercers' Hall had become filled up with building, and the making of Cheap as a thoroughfare was now complete. The original road westward was from the top of New Fish Street, by East Cheap, Candlewick or Cannon Street, past London Stone (probably the Roman _Milliarium_), along Budge Row and Watling Street, to the site of St. Paul's, where it is conjectured a temple of Diana stood in Roman times. But Cheap, or West Cheap, was the chief traffic way westward in Elizabethan London; it was filled with shops and warehouses, a thriving business centre, the pride of the city. The name of "Cheap" was derived from the market, and several of the streets leading into it yet bear names which in Elizabethan times were descriptive of the trades there carried on. Thus the Poultry was the poulterers' market; ironmongers had their shops in Ironmonger Lane, as formerly they had their stalls in the same area; in Milk Street were the dairies; and towards the west end of Cheap was Bread Street, the market of the bakers, and Friday Street, where fishmongers predominated. Lying between these two streets, with frontages in both, was the Mermaid Tavern, the chief resort of "the breed of excellent and choice wits," included by Camden among the glories of Elizabethan London. Stow does not refer to the Mermaid by name, but possibly he had it in mind when he wrote the following passage: "Bread Street, so called of bread sold there, as I said, is now wholly inhabited by rich merchants; and divers fair inns be there, for good receipt of carriers and other travellers to the city." The trades kept themselves in their special localities, although they did not always give the name to the street they occupied. Thus, to return to the eastern end of Cheap, there was Bucklersbury, where the pepperers or grocers were located, having given up their former quarters in Sopars' Lane to the cordwainers and curriers. With the grocers were mingled apothecaries and herbalists; and hence the protest of Falstaff, in the _Merry Wives of Windsor_, that he was not "like a many of these lisping hawthorn-buds, that come like women in men's apparel, and smell like Bucklesbury in simple time." In the midst of Cheap, at a point between Mercers' Hall and Old Jewry, opposite the end of Bucklersbury, was the water conduit--in the words of Stow, "The great conduit of sweet water, conveyed by pipes of lead underground from Paddington for the service of this city, castellated with stone, and cisterned in lead." Around the conduit stood the great jars used by the water-carriers to convey the water to the houses. The water-carrier, as a type of Elizabethan London, is preserved by Ben Jonson in the character of Cob in _Every Man in his Humour_.