Crosby Hall, Bishopsgate

Built in 1466 as a mansion by the wool merchant Sir John Crosby, Crosby Hall on Bishopsgate was subsequently used as the home of the East India Company, and then a Presbyterian Meeting House. When Thomas Hosmer Shepherd drew it for his topographical publication ‘London in the Nineteenth Century’ (1829), the building had become the warehouse of Holmes, Hall & Son Packers. Shepherd has suggested this use by including in his drawing two workmen pulling a handcart, as well as enlivening his scene with various other figures. The building later became home to the Crosby Hall Literary and Scientific Institution, and was dismantled and rebuilt in Chelsea in 1910.