(Holy) Cross, Friars of

A Dictionary of London by Henry A Harben.

House of Crouched or Crossed Fryers founded 1298, at the south-east corner of Hart Street (S. 149). In Aldgate Ward.


Church built but not dedicated, and churchyard unconsecrated, 1319 (Guildhall MS. 122, fo. 127, quoted in Vict. Co. Hist. I. p. 514).

Surrendered, 30 H. VIII. (Newcourt), and site granted to Sir Thos. Wyatt (Povah, 291). Hall made a glass house and burnt 1575 (S. 149), and site covered by the Navy Office 1720 (Strype, I. ii. 74). Trinity Bonded Tea Warehouses in Cooper's Row erected on part of the site (Povah, p. 11), and the East and West India Dock Cos. Warehouses (ib. 291). Small portions of the foundations of the Friars' house can be seen in the cellars underneath No. 25 Crutched Friars (ib. 291).

There was a brotherhood of the Holy Blood of Wilsnak in Saxony in the monastery in 1459, and the ordinances of the fraternity are set out in Trans. L. and M. Arch. Soc. IV. p.44. There was also one in Austin Friars.

Another fraternity in the Friars' house was that of St. Katheryn founded and ordeyned by Duchemenne in the 15th century. Ordinances set out in Trans. L. and M. Arch. Soc. IV. 52.

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