'In Elizabethan days the hall stood back from the lane, ranged round a little paved courtyard. It was part brick, part timbered plaster, with a tiled roof. A tall gable faced the street to the south, a garden ran alongside to the north, and a wing used as a warehouse screened the rest from Harp Lane. One entered here, through great gates on yellow posts with a hanging lantern, and crossed the courtyard to a porch with a chamber above it, jutting out over the door that led into the main assembly hall. This was a spacious room with a gallery at the south end. The walls shone with whitewash, the timber work and panelling were dark red, and the chimney piece gilt. Of the windows, barred with iron bars painted red, one, in the gallery, was stained yellow and blazoned with the arms of the company. Rushes were strewn on the tiled floor; the high table at one end was spread with a thick cloth, and there were other tables, painted, and sideboards, benches draped with covers and padded with cushions, footstools, and iron dogs by the hearth. The panelled gallery was hung with pieces of painted cloth, and furnished with a trestle table and a long settle' (Thrupp, Short History of Bakers 163-4).