Power & Politics

A political history of Britain in the places where it happened: parliament and palace, courts and counting houses, and the streets where people pushed back.

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Goldsmiths' Hall

A medieval guild that lost its monopoly, kept its hall, and still helps choose the Lord Mayor.

Money & the City

Photo by Katie Chan, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The City's livery companies began as trade guilds that controlled who could practise a craft, what standard the work had to reach and how apprentices were trained. Industrialisation and national regulation took most of that away, and they might reasonably have died; instead they kept their property, their charities and, oddly, a constitutional role - liverymen still gather in Common Hall to elect the City's sheriffs and to put forward the Lord Mayor. The Goldsmiths kept something more concrete than most. Hallmarking, the testing and stamping of precious metal, is still done at their assay office, so a medieval system of quality control survives as a working technical function. The hall, rebuilt in the 1830s, opens for exhibitions and open days.

Where
Foster Lane, EC2V 6BN
Nearest station
St. Paul's · 2 min walk

Open for a few guided-tour days a year and for the Company's exhibitions.

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Data is compiled from public sources including OpenStreetMap, under the ODbL. Hours change often, so check before making a journey.

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