Note 8 — Chapter I

Part of a similar crypt is to be seen at 4a, Lawrence Pountney Hill; it belonged to a house called the Manor of the Rose, built originally in the reign of Edward III. Such crypts would doubtless be useful to mediæval merchants for the storage of goods. There are great cellars under Crosby Hall. I am reminded that in the thirteenth century houses furnished usually belonged to Kings or the higher nobility—at least, this is implied by Matthew Paris, in his ‘Lives of the Abbots of St. Albans.’ His words are: ‘Aula nobilissima picta cum conclavibus et camino et atrio et subaulâ, quæ palatium regium (quia duplex est et criptata) dici potest.’