Guildable Manor

Guildable Manor formally 'The City of London’s Guildable Manorof the Town and Borough of Southwark' is an institution of the City of London which is not a Livery Company as it is territorially rather than trade based, being the organisation of the Juror freemen of the Court Leet. The Manor is the area immediately south of the City but originally lay in Surrey.

Earliest beginnings

The Guildable Manor is almost certainly coterminous with the original bridge-head settlement of the ‘Suthringa Geweorc’ mentioned in the Burghal Hidage of circa 900 AD. In Domesday Book of 1086 it is an estate with taxable revenues as a landing place and bridge crossing, with the interests shared between the king and the local earl. The first of these was Godwin and thence his son Harold II who lost the Battle of Hastings. William I ‘the Conqueror’ then gave the interest to his half-brother, Bishop Odo, and later to his son-in-law the Earl Warenne of Surrey. “The Men of Southwark” giving evidence on oath in Domesday are the same ‘View of Frankpledge’ Court Leet summonsed to this day. The charter of 1327 refers to it as ‘the town of Southwark’ and the charter of 1550 as ‘the town and borough of Southwark’. The informal name ‘Guildable’ for the manor derives from the collection of tolls and taxes on goods bound to the City across London Bridge and was first recorded in 1377, it was adopted to distinguish this part of Southwark from all of the other neighbouring manors which were referred to as ‘in Southwark’. These taxes were eventually waived. From the first parliament to call ‘burgess’ representatives, of 1295, Southwark had two MPs; which indicates its formal recognition as a ‘borough’ although its burgesses had no charter of incorporation. [David Johnson "Southwark and the City" Oxford University Press for the Guildhall Library Committee of the Corporation of the City of London 1968 ]

Edward III’s Charter and Quit Rents

In 1327 the City of London acquired the interests for a fee farm of £11 per annum from Edward III. [Johnson ibid p18] The original Charter, approved by Parliament, is still in the Guildhall Record Office. The formal reason for the City wanting control was because of the difficulties of judicial process and arrest of miscreants who could make-off to the Surrey bank out of the City’s jurisdiction; no doubt the potential of Southwark becoming a competitive alternative for the City markets also exercised the Corporation. This payment is still made, by the Foreman and officers of the Manor, usually in March, when the Jurors are summoned to an Exchequer Court, held in Southwark, by the Queen's Remembrancer, the Senior Master of the Supreme Court of England & Wales of the Royal Courts of Justice, as a ‘Quit-rent’ on behalf of the City. This is a specific requirement of the Charter of 1327. [Text of Charter reproduced at section below]

The City Bailiff took up his duties in 1328, on the retirement of the last King’s Bailiff, and there is a complete record of the incumbents of the office from then to the present day. In 1462 the original charter was confirmed and extended by Edward IV who added the right to hold an annual fair from 7th ‘til 9th of September and the jurisdiction of a “Pie Powder Court”. This strange term is a mispronunciation from Norman-French meaning “dusty feet”, a reference to itinerants. The court was necessary for hearing and acting on the cases of visitors and traders at such events without reference to a higher court. A Steward was appointed in 1542 and likewise a complete list of those who have served in this capacity is available. Both officials usually had other Guildhall appointments and duties, most often as the Bridge Masters, for the Bridge House-Yard was situated in the Manor off Tooley Street.

Edward VI’s Charter

In 1550 the City decided to acquire from the Crown the two neighbouring manors. Henry VIII had received or bought these from Bermondsey Abbey and the Archbishop of Canterbury during the dissolution of the monasteries. The City decided to do so because in the period from 1327 the built-up area of Southwark had spread beyond the original area of the Guildable Manor and the same problems of law enforcement and competitive and unregulated trade presented a challenge to the City’s authority in Southwark from the neighbouring manors. The 1550 Charter, of Edward VI, granted all of the rights and privileges over these manors (eventually known as the King's Manor, Southwark and the Great Liberty) as those enjoyed in the Guildable. The purchase price was agreed at £647 2s 1d for the land of the two newly acquired manors and 500 Marks for the feudal incidents relating to the three manors together. The Quit Rent for the Guildable was reserved and retained by the Crown. [Johnson ibid p320]

The Corporation did not actually pay these sums from its own resources but from the wealth it held in trust to maintain London Bridge free of charges. This was derived from bequests and also the rents from the buildings on the Bridge administered from the ‘Bridge House’ in Tooley Street; hence the trust’s name of ‘Bridge House Estates’ commonly called the City Bridge Trust. No doubt the City fathers explained this dubious exercise away as an investment for the benefit of the Bridge, a financial arrangement which would not pass scrutiny in later times. Indeed, the City’s practical authority in Southwark went into decline when it was decided, in 1820, that income from the Charter lands could only be applied to the benefit of the Bridge and not used for the civil administration of the Borough. This was the legal advice of the then Recorder of London~High Steward of Southwark, John Silvester, to whom we owe the present procedural ‘charges’ of the Manor’s ceremonial. To this day the Bridge House Estates remains one of the major property owners in this area. Its symbol, the Bridge Mark, is affixed to many buildings here and as such it is the oldest symbol signifying civic authority in Southwark. The Mark has been incorporated into the 1996 College of Arms grant of an heraldic Southwark Badge and is also incorporated on the Manor’s Seal. The Estates still pay the Jurors fee. The Chief Commoner, the title of the chair of the Estates committee, of the year attends the ‘Bridge House-Yard Dinner’ in Southwark with the Manor Officers, a tradition stretching back to the annual ‘Audit Feast’ when the bridge trust accounts were scrutinised in the Bridge House. [Johnson p410]

The Ward of Bridge Without

As part of the changes from 1550 an Alderman was appointed by the Court of Aldermen to oversee the new responsibilities held by the Bridge Masters; the Southwark Manors were now termed as ‘The Ward of Bridge Without’. The post quickly became a sinecure and eventually was the nominal office for the senior Alderman past the Chair to enjoy a semi-retirement in, the Steward, Bailiff and Manorial officers looking after the practical administration of ‘the Borough’ as the main part of Southwark was always termed. The last Alderman of this ‘Ward’ (the resident inhabitants and Livery never had directly elected representatives in Guildhall) retired in 1978 and the position was abolished by merging it with Bridge Ward in the City proper. The Alderman of the ‘Ward of Bridge and Bridge Without’ is entertained annually by the Manor to maintain this link. [Manor Website]

Under a general Charter of Edward IV of 1461 concerned with confirming and extending the City’s rights the Corporation was allowed to nominate a magistrate to the Commission of the Peace of Surrey; this was exercised with the local borough court presided over by the senior Aldermen and Lord Mayor. This power was not exercised until 1606 when the magistrate was set up with a house, court room and lock-up in the Bridge Masters precinct and salaried by them to administer the City’s jurisdiction in regard to its Southwark Surrey manors. The officer was styled ‘The Justice of the Bridge Yard’, the last died in harness in 1835 and no further appointments were made; the new magistrates courts and Metropolitan Police system had made the role redundant. The ‘late’ Lord Mayor and the Sheriffs ‘elect’ attend a feast with the Manor each year to commemorate this connection.

The City’s Southwark Town Halls

The Guildable Manor Court Leet was recorded as assembling at the Bridge House-Yard in 1539. With the acquisition by the City of the other two Manors and the extensive responsibilities pertaining to them, in 1550, it was decided to create a separate forum for this, effectively a Justice Room and lock-up for the Lord Mayor and City officers. This was to be the redundant parish church of Southwark, St Margaret’s, available since 1540 because the parishioners had been granted the Priory of St Mary Overie (the present Southwark Cathedral) by Henry VIII, as a consequence of his dissolution of that house. This, the first, ‘town hall’ was provided by inserting a floor at the level of the gallery for a court room and by blocking in the windows below that for cells. It was known variously as ‘St Margaret’s Justice House’, the ‘Town Hall’, ‘Justice Room’ or ‘Court House’ and eventually as the ‘Borough Compter’. This was destroyed in the great fire of Southwark, in 1676, the lock-up part was eventually rehoused in Tooley Street. The Court House remained on the original site and was replaced with a new town hall in 1685, the ground floor was let to the ‘King’s Arms’ public house. [Johnson p420]

The City surrendered one of its Charter rights, that of holding and controlling markets in Southwark, when it agreed to the ‘Borough Market (Southwark) Act’ of 1756. This moved the market from the main thoroughfare and eased traffic flow to London Bridge. The replacement facility was to be administered by independent local Trustees and was set up off the main street where its four acre site still continues in its role. From that date the Guildable Manor court ceased to appoint from its number officers described as ‘Supervisors of the Market’.

The James II town hall fell into disrepair and was replaced in 1793; with the decline in the practical civic activity of the City’s officers in Southwark in the following decades, the Bridge House Estates demanded that it be surrendered to them for redevelopment. Because of the town and port’s expansion the site was more valuable. It was closed and the site was leased in 1859 to the London and County Bank which built a new building and hence named ‘Town Hall Chambers’. In 1999 the structure was refurbished as licensed premises at street level with apartments above and was formally opened by the Guildable Manor officers, thus reviving a connection with a site going back 450 years. [Manor website 1999]

The Court Leet of the Guildable Manor then began to meet at the old London Bridge Hotel (now 2 Borough High Street) until the Borough Market Trustees built themselves a new office with a Court Room on Southwark Street in 1932, which is where the Jury assembled until 1999. Since then a number of appropriate and dignified venues have been used due to the larger numbers needing to be accommodated. These have included the Southwark Cathedral Library, the Greater London Authority’s City Hall, the Glaziers Hall and in recent years the LSE Bankside Hall. [Manor website]

Legal Status: Relationship with the ‘Old Bailey’ and Jurors Summons

From the late Georgian period the City began to appoint as High Steward the incumbent Recorder of London, ie the senior Judge of the Central Criminal Court at the Old Bailey, with the office of High Bailiff of the Manors being a supplementary role of the Under Sheriff & Secondary ie the senior administrative officer of that Court. That is so to the present day, the Writs summonsing the jurors are issued out of the Old Bailey under the Secondary’s Seal. [Manor website] [City of London Directory p1023]

The Manor Jurors therefore had a number of officials and authorities to assist them in correcting their ‘presentments’ and to whom they could make complaint about the problems associated with this burgeoning urban area, second in population only to the City of London in course of time. Yet the Jurors were the effective representatives of the inhabitants who could in any other location have enjoyed full burgess and municipal corporate rights. From the late Georgian period repeated attempts were made to have the Southwark Manors incorporated fully into the City, or alternatively to secure effective independence. The campaigns were led by active members of the three City manorial courts. With the growth of the metropolis and the development of Vestry Boards and ‘civil’ parishes in the London County, Lord Salisbury’s Government made these full local authorities, as Metropolitan Boroughs of London, from 1900. The issue of the Southwark Manors was brought to a head by this proposal and as the City resisted overtures from Southwark representatives, local institutions and the Jurors for full integration it was by default that the three Manors became parts of two of the new municipal councils created by this scheme, that of Southwark and of Bermondsey. In 1965 the creation of the Greater London Council, incorporating the London County Council area and parts of the Home Counties, merged Bermondsey and Southwark with Camberwell to form the London Borough of Southwark. However, all of these civic reorganisations have not affected the functioning of the City’s rights and the summonsing and empanelling of the Manor Courts Leet. [London Government Act 1964]

The three Southwark Courts Leet retain the right to sit for their customary business as a limited jurisdiction under the ‘Administration of Justice Act 1977; §23 (1)(a) Sch 4 Pt III’. [Act and Legislation; England & Wales]

Other Ceremonial Activities

The form for holding the Southwark Courts Leet is based on a document of 1664, itself a revision of an earlier format of 1561. It has certain differences of detail to that of other Courts held elsewhere dating from 1650, almost certainly because the City could draft laws for itself and so the format for this was based on local traditions and conditions. The Assize & Assay is directed at the quality of wine, ale, bread and meats. The Assize of Buildings & Survey relates to the duties to oversee the maintenance of highways and buildings, ie what became planning and building regulations. These two powers are those most frequently exercised today as they legally underpin the ceremonies of ‘Ale Conning’ and opening of new buildings which forms so much of the activities of the manor jury. Other parts of the general ‘charge’ to the Jury relate to the immoral activities, pursuits and businesses that had to be controlled in Southwark. Apart from the ‘stews’ and gambling houses this included theatres and other such places of entertainment. The manor officers gladly breached the prohibition on play houses, enforced successfully for the previous 750 years, when they agreed to open the Unicorn Children’s Theatre on Tooley Street in 2006. [Manor website]

Text of the Charter of Edward III

Edward, by grace of God, King of England, Lord of Ireland, and Duke of Aquitaine; to all to whom these present letters shall come, greeting.

"'Know ye, that whereas our beloved, the citizens of our city of London, by their petition exhibited before us and our council, in our present parliament at Westminster assembled, have given us to understand that felons, thieves, and divers other malefactors and disturbers of the peace, who, in the aforesaid city and elsewhere, have committed manslaughters, robberies, and divers other felonies, secretly withdrawing from the same city, after having committed such felonies, flee to the town of Southwark, where they cannot be attached by the ministers of the said city, and there are openly received; and so for default of due punishment are emboldened to commit more such felonies; and they have besought us, that, for the conservation of our peace within the said city, bridling the wickedness of these same malefactors, we would grant unto them the said town, to have and to hold to them, their heirs and successors for ever, for the yearly farm therefor due to us, to be paid at our exchequer. We, having given consideration to the premises, with the assent of the prelates, earls, barons, and commons of our kingdom, being in the parliament aforesaid, have granted, for us and our heirs, to the same citizens, the said town of Southwark, with the appurtenances, to have and to hold, to them and their heirs and successors, citizens of the aforesaid city, of us and our heirs for ever, paying to us yearly at the exchequer of us and our heirs, at the accustomed terms, the farm therefor due and accustomed. In witness whereof we have caused these our letters to be made patent.

Witness myself at Westminster, the sixth day of March, in the first year of our reign.

[Reproduced in Guildhall Library 'City's Charters']

The Guildable Manor Boundaries

The Manor is the original ‘Town of Southwark’ referred to in Domesday Book and the Charter of 1327. Archaeological evidence suggests that it was the Anglo-Saxon bridge-head settlement and also the Roman equivalent for Londinium. ‘Guildable’ seems to refer to the manor’s role as a tax and toll point for the King’s interests and differentiates it from any other transpontine neighbours that may also for convenience have been referred to as ‘Southwark’; although its formal legal name, as seen on its Seal, is ‘Town and Borough of Southwark’.

The limits and borders of the three Southwark Manors are outlined by a Report to Parliament. [In “Report of the Royal Commission on Municipal Corporations: London and Southwark” HC 239, p3 n (1837), xxv] The text of this report is given below in italics with brief notes relating it to a modern map. However, the insertion of the first London Bridge Station terminus, from 1840, and its later expansions across the St Thomas Hospital estate can obscure that part of the boundary for the modern observer. The area on the south landing of the bridge is within the City of London.

[The Guildable Manor] “… "commences at St. Saviour's Dock, Saint Saviour's " [sic in fact St Mary Overey’s Dock] ", and extends along the east side of Church-street" [now Cathedral St.] , "the Southwark side of a passage through the Borough market which separates the Clink Liberty from the Borough of Southwark, north-east side of Market-street, and east side of Counter-street" [ie to a point in Stoney St opposite Park St; Market St. and Counter St. ran behind the old Town Hall site, now the fork of Borough High St., into Stoney St.] , as far as Counter-alley [now Counter Court] , "north side thereof, west side northerly of Borough High-street and Wellington-street" [the northern section of Borough High St. was known as Wellington St.] , "and east side of the last-named street, from where the old Ship Inn formerly stood" [at the junction of London Bridge St. and Borough High St.] , "both sides of Duke-street" [now Duke St. Hill] " and Tooley-street (taking in both sides of Joiner's-street) as far as where the watch-house formerly stood" [see under the Great Liberty Manor: the following is from the survey’s description of that manor’s boundary at this point "{… as far as where the old Ship Inn formerly stood; from thence back to St Thomas’s-street, both sides of that street, Broadway, Three Hammer-alley, Crown-square, Glean-alley, and southerly to No 226 Tooley-street (formerly at the back of Saint Olave’s watch-house)}"] , "from thence only the north side of Tooley-street, as far as Hay's-lane, west side thereof to Hay's Wharf, and westerly along the river's side to Saint Saviour's Dock aforesaid."”

The eastern boundary obscured by the station and access roads can therefore be traced as shown. The old Broadway was incorporated into the subsequent widening of St Thomas Street; Three Hammer Alley, Crown Square and Glean Alley in effect demarcate the east side of the line described as “ … both sides of Joiner’s Street.”, these lay parallel and between Joiner and Dean (now Stainer) streets. The line between the St Thomas precinct and the Guildable “both sides of Duke-street …” and “… St. Thomas’s-street, both sides …” can be followed on this map and previous maps; it is marked by the curve of the street now called Railway Approach, south side, to its intersection with London Bridge Street (late Denman St. and Ship Inn alley) and Joiner St., which follows the boundary wall of the St Thomas’ hospital garden, its sub-manor and parish boundary.

Annual Court Day

"The Court Leet and View of Frankpledge with the Court Baron of the Lord Mayor and Commonalty of the City of London" is now summoned for the three City manors once a year, usually on the second Wednesday in November, ie following the Presentation of the Lord Mayor (see Lord Mayor's Show). The next Court Leet is to be held on 12 November 2008.

Records

Apart from the original Charters mentioned above, the lists of all Foremen, Officers and Jurors are intact from the earliest time, including copies of Writs made by the Bailiffs and records of Presentments, process and proceedings of the Courts and which can be read by interested persons in the Guildhall Records Office.

References

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External links

* [http://www.guildable.org/ Official website]