Author: W.P. GRIFFITH
Title: A New Appeal for the Restoration of St. John's Gate, the only Portal Now Remaining in the Metropolis. With subscriber's receipt and lithograph.
Description: At the Office of The Builder, 1847. Folio subscribers sheet, 370 x 270 mm. printed both sides, top edge tipped onto backing paper. [with] A receipt for half a guinea from one of the subscribers in the list. 80 x 150 mm. signed by Griffith, laid down. [with] Lithograph of the Gate by W.P. Griffith. 215 x 260 mm. The Gate wss the original printing-house for Edward Cave's pioneering monthly, The Gentleman's Magazine, and sometime workplace of Samuel Johnson. From 1701 to 1709 it was the childhood home of the painter William Hogarth, whose father Richard Hogarth in 1703 opened a coffee house there, known as "Hogarth's Coffee House", which offered Latin lessons together with coffee. For many years the building was used as a tavern. In 1831 John Frost established a medical hospital (St John's Hospital) in the building, the original mediaeval usage of that word signifying a guest-house. Originally owned by the Order of St. John, it was appropriated by the Crown in 1559, and returned to the newly reconstituted Order of St. John of Jerusalem in 1873. The subscription appears to have been successful with sums raised to prevent the building being disfigured by "compo" [a concrete or mortar rendering which would have ruined the 16th century facade. The restoration was supervised by William Pettit Griffith [1815 - 84] who restored and designed a number of landmark buildings in the area.

Keywords: Ephemera


See more books from our catalog: Ephemera