Like a Venetian merchant's house, the Tudor wharfside building had access from both the street and the waterway. From the wharf one entered, at ground level, a vaulted storage floor for goods - like the sea storey of a merchant's palace in Venice. Above that, on the main floor, was the great parlour where the Company's Court meetings were held, and over that the great chamber which was used as a drawing room when wives came to dinner. Behind the parlour was the Clerk's office which, before the Reformation, had been the Company's private chapel. Behind the Clerk's desk was the treasury where the altar had been. The Clerk's kitchen was in the crypt, behind the Company's storage place, whilst his family lived over his office in quarters meant for a single chaplain.

End-on to the parlour block and away from the river stood the Elizabethan dining hall with an open courtyard alongside. Kitchens were at first below in the semi-basement cellar, but were soon moved to the north end of the yard. A tavern did not exist in the pre-Fire cellars, as romantic people imagine, for public resort to such crowded premises was frowned upon by the Company. We have to remember that, before the Great Fire, the Company occupied only half of its present site.

Inside, the great hall had a hammerbeam roof and a tall bay window in the courtyard side. There, displayed, were barbaric ornaments - big gilded figures designed to be carried in street processions and river pageants.

Twice, during the period 1632-33, Inigo Jones, the royal architect, came to dinner with his friend, the Earl of Arundel, arriving by boat at the water-steps. In 1664 both Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn attended official meetings, entering the Company's gate from Thames Street and walking down a long passage to the courtyard between houses occupied by the Company's tenants.

Early in the morning of 2nd September 1666 this hall was destroyed in the Great Fire, but the records telling us about the old place were rescued from the treasury and hurled into a barge by the light of the roaring flames.

Current as at August 08, 2003