The Lord Craven Inn

Arthur Hall issued this trade token, worth a half penny, for his business at a premises under the sign of Lord Craven, in Bishopsgate without, Bishopsgate Ward, City of London.

Boyne & Williamson (1889) reference London number 294; Obv inscription: ARTHVR / HALL. AT / YE. SINE. OF / MY. LORD / CRAVEN (in five lines of Roman capitals, in field); Rev inscription: WITHOVT.BISHOPS.GATE (around field, in Roman capitals) Device = HIS / HALF / PENY (in three lines of Roman capitals, in field).

Lord Craven was a nobleman and crucial personality in the wake of the Great Fire of London. There is another similar token in the museum collection, 96.66/189. See also token numbers 6647 and 6648 in the Sylloge of Coins of the British Isles, 59, The Norweb Collection: Tokens of the British Isles 1575-1750, Part VII - City of London and J. H. Burn, A Descriptive Catalogue of the London Traders, Tavern, and Coffee-house Tokens current in the Seventeenth Century, presented to the Corporation Library by Henry Benjamin Hanbury Beaufoy, 2nd ed. (London, 1855), no. 189.