The fire described in the preceding pages, disclosed to public view the remains of ancient buildings, the very existence of which was almost wholly unknown, and the original design and name of which could be only conjectured. They appear to have been noticed in the of Saturday, , page ; where it is stated, that "in the ruins in and , occasioned by the last fire, there appear the remains of the Church of St Peter, formerly the Metropolitan Church of England, afterwards removed to Canterbury."[*]  The only foundation for this statement appears to have been the tradition of the extreme antiquity of that Church, recorded on a brass tablet still preserved there, a representation and an account of which are also contained in this work:— whence it was supposed that, as the district of extended from the west end of Leadenhall to the Stocks Market, the original edifice might have stood at some distance from the present erection. The general age of that which was destroyed in the Great Fire, is commonly believed to have been about the time of Edward IV., from the armorial ensigns of various noble persons of that period, with which it was decorated as benefactors to the structure. It is probable, however, that their gifts extended to its only, and the of its roof and windows, and that the steeple of the old building was actually of a date more ancient than the architecture of the ruins discovered in ; the style of which appears to have been that of about the latter end of the , or commencement of the , century. In the year Maitland appears to have had an extraordinary opportunity of examining all the ancient architectural remains in this spot and its vicinity: and the following particular description of them, extracted from Entinck's edition of his , Lond. , folio, Vol. ii. page , will convey the best general notion of their appearance:—

"Under the corner house of Leadenhall and Bishopsgate Streets, and houses on the east, and on the north, side thereof, was situate a very ancient Church of Gothic construction, the principal part of which is still remaining under the said corner house, and adjoining in ; but part of the north aisle beneath the house contiguous in , was lately obliged to make way to enlarge the cellar. When or by whom this old church was founded I cannot learn, it not being so much as mentioned by any of our historians or surveyors of London that I can discover: However, the inside of it appears of the length of feet, and the breath of and inch; the former whereof consists of arches, and the latter of aisles; that towards the south being of the breadth of feet inches, and that on the north feet, which shews the small pillars to be only inches in diameter. The roof of this ancient structure, which is a flattish Gothic arch, is at present only feet inches above the present floor; wherefore I suppose that this church originally was not above the height of feet within; which, together with feet, the thickness of the arch, as lately discovered by a perforation, shews that the ground is very much raised in this neighbourhood. The walls of this church being so much decayed and patched with brickwork, I could discover neither door nor window therein; however, an entrance to the chief part thereof, A. D. , is at Mr. Jones's, a distiller, opposite Leadenhall Gate."—It is this building, the remaining vestiges of which are exhibited in the annexed Engraving; and which are now contained in a kitchen in the basement-story of No. , still in the occupation of Messrs. John Robinson and Son, Silversmiths, on the north side of . These remains consist of part of piers of the ancient building, with broad pointed arches springing from short round columns with octangular capitals; the pillars themselves being greatly reduced in height by the raising of the floor of the apartment, and the extreme points of the arches being cut off by the modern ceiling. A small representation of the left hand arch, partly filled up by a glass door, is given in the for , Vol. lxv. part ii. page , Plate . No. . Beneath the present view of the above kitchen, is a representation of the line of houses erected in on the site of those destroyed in , when these ancient ruins were re-opened. That with a pediment over the windows of the story is the in which this part of the old remains is situate; and in the pediment is contained a memorial of the conflagration, and the inhabitant at that time, carved in stone, the figures of which are copied in outline between the subjects of the annexed Plate. They consist of a circular tablet in the centre, bearing the following inscription in Latin—"Consumed by Fire: Restored , by T (homas) T (readway);" who, it may be seen by the preceding list of the sufferers, was a Glover on this spot when the house was destroyed. On each side of this tablet is a stone cartouche shield, sculptured with the arms of Treadway, a bend charged with mullets; beneath of which are the owner's initials, and beneath the other the date of .

Some other ancient architectural remains, perhaps originally connected with the former, were also found under the houses extending up the eastern site of . The description of their situation given by Maitland, fixes their locality to the side of the very house at which the fire of commenced; and which appears to have continued until that time in the same kind of occupation as it was when the ensuing account of these ruins was written. "At the distance of feet from this church,"—namely the remains already noticed at the north-east corner of ,—"is to be seen, under the house at the late Mr. Macadam's, a peruke-maker in , a stone building of the length of feet, breadth of , and altitude of feet inches above the present floor; with a door in the north-side, and a window at the east end, as there probably was in the west.

The re-discovery and removal of these ruins upon clearing the ground after the fire of , gave rise to some discussion as to their probable design and name. A view of the interior of the principal building at the corner of , with an article on the subject, appeared in the for , Vol. xxxvi. page ; in which it was suggested, that the larger ruins had once formed the crypt of a church, and the smaller a charnel-house, or oratory: and Malcolm also considers it probable that they might have constituted "small chantry chapels, or crypts of such, the founders of which are forgotten."[*]  In another work on the topography of London, it is stated, that the larger ruins were conjectured to have been "the remainder of a church of which stood at the top of, or above, , dedicated to St. Andrew the Apostle; from which the other church, at the corner of St. Mary at Axe, dedicated to the same Saint, was distinguished by the addition of ."[*]  Another conjecture supposed that the ruins might have been those "little cells," mentioned by Stow,[*]  built and inhabited by the Franciscans, or Grey Friars, who came to England in , and hired a house in of John Travers, of the Sheriffs of London; whence they removed to the place given to their Order in .

[*] This supposition appears to have been very soon abandoned; for in the Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser of Saturday, Dec. 28th, after the extracts from Maitland given above, it is observed that "from this account there can be no reason to suppose, as hinted in the papers, cither of these ancient fabrics was the ancient church of St. Peter, the first Christian church builded by King Lucius, about 400 years before the coming in of St. Austin, as set forth in a table in St. Peter's, Cornhill; the truth of which is greatly doubted by Maitland and several other good historians."

[*] This is well known to have been the case with the crypt, or under-chapel of the ancient building dedicated to St. Thomas, formerly standing about the centre of old London Bridge. In the Morning Advertiser of April 26th, 1798, it is stated that one of the arches in the lower part of the edifice was used for fifty years by Messrs. Gill and Wright, Stationers, as a paper-warehouse: and that "although the floor was always at high water mark from ten to twelve feet under surface, yet, such was the excellency of the materials and masonry, that not the least damp or leak ever happened; and the paper was kept as safe and dry as it would have been in a garret."—A similar instance of the use of an under-chapel or crypt as a warehouse, is that of St. Michael, Aldgate, formerly belonging to Messrs. Tipper and Fry, Stationers, of which an account and engraving will be found in the first volume of the present work.

[*] Londinum Redivivum. Vol. iv. Lond. 1807. 4to. p. 577.

[*] A New Universal History, Description, and Survey, of the Cities of London and Westminster, by Walter Harrison. Lond. 1776. fol. p. 36

[*] Stow's Survey of London: Edit. by Strype. 1720. Vol. i. Book iii. Chap. viii. p. 129.