Hall
The principal outward and visible sign that a City Company had “arrived” was the possession of its own Hall, where it could transact its business and hold meetings of its officers and members.
The Founders achieved this goal in 1531, when 18 members of the Company joined together to buy two houses and a garden in Lothbury and proceeded to build a Hall on a site which still bears the name of “Founders’ Court”. The Hall was apparently completed in 1549 and thereafter yielded income from rents paid by tenants renting part of the premises, among them being the Eastland Merchants, the East India Merchants, the Merchant Adventurers, and the Company of Brown Bakers.
The Company was hard hit when the Hall, like so many others, was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666 and rebuilt at a heavy cost mainly borne by the Liverymen from their own pockets.
The Hall in 1848, when occupied by The Electric Telegraph Co.
In 1845 the Company built another Hall in Founders’ Court intended for its own purposes, but this was leased to the Electric Telegraph Company in 1853 and the Founders’ Company then acquired freehold premises in St. Swithin’s Lane. The property in Founders’ Court was later leased to Brown Shipley and Company, Merchant Bankers, in 1921, and in 1964 they bought the freehold from the Founders.
The building in St. Swithin’s Lane was for many years partly let to various tenants as offices, but in 1966 it was entirely reoccupied by the Company and internally reconstructed.
In the early 1980’s, the Court took a decision to build a new Hall and during the period 1985 to 1987 a new building was erected on a freehold site at the east end of St. Bartholomew the Great in Cloth Fair.
Founders' Hall
The latest Founders’ Hall rejects the modern movement and is built of traditional materials in a manner which is in keeping with this historic part of the City. The Hall was opened by the Lord Mayor, Sir David Rowe-Ham, in September 1987.
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