It is most pleasant to find that it has now
fallen into such tender hands, that its old timbers have been saved
and preserved by the generous care of its present owner, who has thus
earned the gratitude of all who love antiquity.
Sometimes buildings erected for quite different purposes have been
used as guild halls. There was one at Reading, a guild hall near the
holy brook in which the women washed their clothes, and made so much
noise by "beating their battledores" (the usual style of washing in
those days) that the mayor and his worthy brethren were often
disturbed in their deliberations, so they petitioned the King to grant
them the use of the deserted church of the Greyfriars' Monastery
lately dissolved in the town. This request was granted, and in the
place where the friars sang their services and preached, the mayor and
burgesses "drank their guild" and held their banquets. When they got
tired of that building they filched part of the old grammar school
from the boys, making an upper storey, wherein they held their council
meetings. The old church then was turned into a prison, but now
happily it is a church again. At last the corporation had a town hall
of their own, which they decorated with the initials S.P.Q.R., Romanus
and Readingensis conveniently beginning with the same letter.
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