GOLDSMITHS’ HALL, FOSTER LANE, LONDON EC2V 6BN

Monday 9 November 2015 5pm-7pm

The Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths was founded by royal charter in 1327.  It acquired its first Hall, a merchant’s house, in Foster Lane in 1339 and has been on the same site since that date.  The second Hall, designed by Nicholas Stone, the King’s Mason, with assistance from Inigo Jones, was erected in the mid-1630s and was badly damaged internally by the Great Fire of 1666.

Restored, it survived until the early-nineteenth century, when it was beginning to show its age.  Several reports were made and discussed before the decision to create a third Hall was taken.  A young architect, Philip Hardwick, was chosen and building work began in 1829.  Six years later the new Hall was opened - to great acclaim - in the summer of 1835.  This is the Hall which you will be visiting.

This private visit will include a tour of the main reception rooms and an opportunity to view, in situ, the nineteenth-century furniture made by George Seddon and by W. & C. Wilkinson.  In the Court Room, drawings of the furniture, from the Hardwick archive, will be on show together with some accounts.

Cost: £25