LANDMARKS 4 I 



was discontinued July 10, 1671, one Nicholas Dun- 

 come being paid fifteen pounds ten shillings for clear- 

 ing it away. But, as in the case of Hicks' s Hall, 

 distances continued to be reckoned from its site for a 

 century or more after the column had been taken 

 down. 



The Hall, dating from 1610 or 1612, was planted in 

 an open space next St. John's Lane and St. John 

 Street, on the southern edge of Clerkenwell parish. 



It was built by Sir Baptist Hicks (or Hickes), partly 

 for the use of the justices at Sessions, and partly 

 as a Bridewell, or house of correction. It fell into 

 ruin, and was replaced, in 1780, b}- the present 

 Sessions House on Clerkenwell Green. A new house 

 of correction, where the Fenian attempt took place, 

 provided for the custody of misdemeanants, hard by. 



I recollect very well hearing the Clerkenwell explo- 

 sion. I was in my room at the Post-Office at the 

 time, and the effect was as though a heavy piece of 

 furniture had fallen down on the floor above. 



Sir Baptist was a wealthy silk-mercer of Cheapside, 

 He was knighted early in the seventeenth century, 

 subsequently made a baronet, and finally a peer, 

 under the title of Lord Hickes of Ilmington and 

 Viscount Campden. He died in 1629, his widow 

 erecting a monument to his memory in Campden 

 Church, in Gloucestershire. 



Hicks's Hall survived in name long after it had 

 ceased to exist as a building. It stood, as the record 

 in St. John Street shows to this day, one mile one 



