Crosby Hall

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Other Images

Crosby Hall Oriel
Exterior Image, c.2006
Historical Map (1843)
Interior #2
Interior, c. 1804
Legend
map legend
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Venue Type & Location

Lecture Hall

Site Name: Crosby Hall
Location: London
County: London (city-county)
Location Type: Town - in town at determined location

Overview

  • Address: Bishopsgate Street, London. For a current map,
    Click Here. For an historical map showing the venue (in addition to the one excerpted at right), Click Here.



  • Alternate Names: Hall, Crosby Place; Dining Hall, Crosby Place



  • Performance Space Description: Crosby Hall was a large, single storey space that had once been the grand dining hall of a 15th Century Gothic Mansion. In 1854, John Weale described the venue as follows: “The hall (though some feet at each end are of modern design) retains its original proportions, viz., 54 ft. long, 27 ft. wide, and forty ft. high. […] [It] is lighted from both sides near the ceiling by Lancastrian arched windows of singular beauty both externally and internally. […] The crowning beauty, however, is the vaulted semi-octagonal bay window, or oriel, as it is called. Its interior is one of the most perfect things domestic architecture ever produced and the exterior one of the best of its class” (161). Similarly, an author writing in Mogg’s New Picture of London (1844) called the space a “noble hall, now converted into a lecture and concert room formed with great elegance”, and noted its “beautiful roof, divided by three rows of pendants ranging along, and, connected by pointed arches” and “its windows of stained glass” (reproduced in the Dictionary of Victorian London online). According to John Timbs, the room was fitted with “a minstrels’ gallery, but not a dais” (240)



  • Typical Fare: During the years covered by this database, Crosby Hall was mainly used for lectures and concerts. It was also the home of a Literary and Scientific Institution. Descriptions of playbills for concerts and entertainments at the facility can be found in the Arts & Humanities Research Council’s Concert Programmes Database, Here.


    • Performance History

  • Crosby Place was built as a private mansion for Sir John Crosby in 1472. It remained a private dwelling place (housing, amongst others, Richard, Duke of Gloucester and Sir Thomas More) until 1672. At that point, the Hall was converted into a chapel.



  • The chapel remained until 1769, when the space was let as a packer’s house. When this lease expired in 1831, the hall was restored to its original state (with some additions and refurbishments). It re-opened in 1842.



  • In the late 1800s, the hall seems to have been used as a restaurant. In 1910, however, it was carefully dismantled (to make way for a bank) and then rebuilt in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea. For a time, it served as the dining hall of the British Federation of University Women in this new location. Now, however, it is once again part of a private residence.




    Please see the 'Bibliographic Sources' link at right for a complete listing of materials (both primary and secondary) from which the above information was compiled.


    Beth Marquis

    • Troupes at Crosby Hall

    Troupe Troupe Type # of events
    Bosjesmans Exhibition 1
    Ethiopian Delineators (Pelham's, 1847) Minstrel 1
    Ethiopian Harmonists (1846-47) Minstrel 1
    Ethiopian Serenaders (1846-48) Minstrel 10
    Female American Serenaders Minstrel 1

    Events at Crosby Hall

    Event Date Venue Location Troupe
    Minstrel Show 22 April 1846 - 22 April 1846 London, London (city-county) Ethiopian Serenaders (1846-48)
    Minstrel Show 1 May 1846 - 1 May 1846 London, London (city-county) Ethiopian Serenaders (1846-48)
    Minstrel Show 11 May 1846 - 11 May 1846 London, London (city-county) Ethiopian Serenaders (1846-48)
    Minstrel Show 4 January 1847 - 9 January 1847 London, London (city-county) Ethiopian Serenaders (1846-48)
    Minstrel Show 11 January 1847 - 16 January 1847 London, London (city-county) Ethiopian Serenaders (1846-48)
    Minstrel Show 18 January 1847 - 22 January 1847 London, London (city-county) Ethiopian Serenaders (1846-48)
    Minstrel Show 5 February 1847 - 5 February 1847 London, London (city-county) Ethiopian Serenaders (1846-48)
    Minstrel Show 8 February 1847 - 13 February 1847 London, London (city-county) Ethiopian Serenaders (1846-48)
    Minstrel Show 19 April 1847 - 19 April 1847 London, London (city-county) Ethiopian Serenaders (1846-48)
    Minstrel Show 7 May 1847 - 7 May 1847 London, London (city-county) Female American Serenaders
    Minstrel Show 17 May 1847 - 17 May 1847 London, London (city-county) Ethiopian Serenaders (1846-48)
    Minstrel Show 8 July 1847 - 8 July 1847 London, London (city-county) Ethiopian Harmonists (1846-47)
    Exhibition 2 August 1847 - 7 August 1847 London, London (city-county) Bosjesmans
    Minstrel Show 29 November 1847 - 29 November 1847 London, London (city-county) Ethiopian Delineators (Pelham's, 1847)

    Bibliographic Sources

    • Arts & Humanities Research Council, Concert Programmes Database. 03/13/2008 (http://www.concertprogrammes.org.uk/html/)

      (search "Crosby Hall")

    • Bishopsgate Institute Website. 05/22/2008 (http://www.bishopsgate.org.uk/index.asp)

      (Under Bishopsgate Library - Collections - Archives Collections - London Collection Manuscripts - Crosby Hall)

    • Dictionary of Victorian London Online. 07/27/2008 (http://www.victorianlondon.org/)

      (Under Buildings, Monuments & Museums - Crosby Place)

    • The London Ancestor Website. 03/22/2008 (http://www.londonancestor.com/views/vb-all.htm)
    • London as it is To-day. London: H.G. Clarke & Co., 1851.

      pp224-225.

    • Morning Chronicle (London) January 29, 1847: 1 (second relvant ad).
      Info in Record:
      • venue description/décor/performance environment
      Document Scan
    • Morning Chronicle (London) April 28, 1846: 1.
      Info in Record:
      • venue description/décor/performance environment
      Document Scan
    • Observer (London) May 10, 1846: 1: 1.
      Info in Record:
      • venue description/décor/performance environment (suggested in ticket price breakdown)
    • Observer (London) May 3, 1846: 1: 1.
      Info in Record:
      • venue description/décor/performance environment (suggested in ticket price breakdown)
      Document Scan
    • Richard III Society Website. 03/22/2008 (http://www.richardiii.net/crosby%20hall.htm)
    • Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Website. 03/22/2008 (http://www.rbkc.gov.uk/InterestingPlaces/localarchitecture/crosby.asp)
    • Thornbury, Walter. Old and New London. London: Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co., 1881.

      pp.154-8.

    • Timbs, John. Curiosities of London (1855). London: David Bogue, 1855.
    • Weale, John. Pictorial Handbook of London. London: G. Woodfall and Son, 1854.