Terry F. on 31 Jul 2005  •  Link

Mercers' Chapel
"On the north side of Cheapside, at the south-east end of Mercers' Hall (O.S.). Between Ironmonger Lane and Old Jewry. In Cheap Ward.
Earliest mention : The chapel, called "le Mercers Chapell," annexed to church of St. Thomas the Martyr called "de Acon" 1505-6 (Ct. H.W. II. 611).
At the dissolution of the monasteries temp. H. VIII., the Hospital of St. Thomas of Acon was purchased by the Mercers (S. 271) and licence was given to them to erect a chapel and hall next to St. Thomas of Acon's church in Cheapside, 11 H. VIII. 1519 (L. and P. H. VIII. III. Pt. 1, p. 122).
Burnt in the Fire and rebuilt with a beautiful stone front to Cheapside (Strype, ed. 1720, I. iii. 39)."

From: 'Mercers' Chapel', A Dictionary of London (1918). URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/…. Date accessed: 31 July 2005.

Bill on 21 Nov 2013  •  Link

Mercers' Hall and Chapel, Cheapside, between Ironmonger Lane and Old Jewry. The hall and chapel of the Mercers' Company, the first on the list of the Twelve Great Companies of London. The buildings occupy the site of the ancient college or hospital of St. Thomas of Acon or Acres. On the dissolution of this with the other conventual establishments Henry VIII. granted to the Mercers' Company, in consideration of the payment of a sum of £969 : 17 : 6, the church of the College of Acon, the parsonage of St. Mary Colechurch, and various other premises and properties. The church of St. Thomas was reopened for divine service, and "is now" (1598), says Stow, "called Mercers' Chapel, and therein is kept a Free Grammar School," the original of the present Mercers' School. ... Hall, chapel, and other buildings of the Mercers were all destroyed in the Great Fire. The hall and chapel were rebuilt about 1672. Sir C. Wren is said to have designed them, but they might have been by Edward Jerman, surveyor to the Gosham College.
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.