Crosby Hall is the only surviving example in London of a wealthy merchant’s mansion from before the Reformation. Sir John Crosby, grocer and wool merchant, was a generous benefactor of St. Helen’s, a member of Parliament for London and a Knight of the Garter. He built Crosby Hall in 1470 near St. Helen’s on Bishopsgate Street, which Stow says was ‘very large and beautiful, and the highest at that time in London’. Later in the fifteenth century it was rented by Sir John’s widow to Richard, Duke of Gloucester (later Richard III). Shakespeare, who was himself familiar with Crosby Hall, uses the old mansion as a backdrop for Richard’s intrigues to take over the crown in his historical play Richard the Third.
In 1501 a lord mayor, Sir Bartholomew Reed, entertained Princess Catherine of Aragon at Crosby Hall two days before her marriage to Prince Arthur. Between 1516 and 1523 the Hall was inhabited by the great Sir Thomas More when Under Treasurer, and here he was host to Erasmus of Rotterdam. He was followed by a good friend, the merchant Antonio Bonvici, to whom More wrote a farewell letter with a piece of charcoal in the Tower the night before his execution. In Elizabethan days Crosby Hall was owned by Sir John Spencer, who while lord mayor put on an entertainment here for the queen herself.
For a while the Dowager Countess of Pembroke was a tenant, at whose table Shakespeare was probably a frequent guest. During the Civil War Crosby Hall was used as a temporary prison; then from 1672 until 1769 it became a Presbyterian chapel which was served by a number of eminent ministers. By the early nineteenth century this fine Gothic residence in the perpendicular style had fallen into decay, but it was ultimately restored through public subscription. It became a literary and scientific institute, then a restaurant, and was finally purchased by the University and City Association of London and moved to Chelsea in 1910. It is now a college hall of the British Federation of University Women, and open for view upon application at the door (enter from Cheyne Walk).