1660
The Trinity House at Stepney
The first recorded meeting at the newly-leased Stepney headquarters of the Court of Assistants [i.e. the Elder Brethren]. The house was used for meetings, with every other meeting being alternately at Water Lane and Stepney.
A note on the property from Captain Thomas Golding’s The Trinity House From Within (private press, 1929) has the following:
Apparently about 1660 the Corporation acquired from William Mellish, Esq., his lease from the Mercers’ Company, the Trustees of Dean Colet’s Estate, of a house at Stepney as a meeting place for the affairs of the Trinity House and it appears that, as over £300 was expended on this house “on more than ordinary repairs to make it safe… and some “beautifying” the Corporation petitioned the Mercers’ Company to accept them as “ymmediate tenants.”
A plan of this Estate dated 1615, belonging to the Mercers’ Company, has been scrutinised and although so far it has not been possible to identify the particular premises, it is probable the house was situate in Whitehorse Street. This was almost the only road on the Estate at the time, and for a good part of its length was bordered by premises marked “Tenements, lands and orchards of the Mercers’ Company.”
In 1683 the lease expired and apparently was not renewed.
