Roman, Anglo-Saxon and Medieval During the
Roman period, the Guildhall was the site of the
London Roman Amphitheatre, rediscovered as recently as 1988. It was the largest in
Roman Britain, partial remains of which are on public display in the basement of the
Guildhall Art Gallery, and the outline of whose arena is marked with a black circle on the paving of the courtyard in front of the hall. The siting of the Anglo-Saxon Guildhall here was probably due to the amphitheatre's remains. Excavations by
Museum of London Archaeology at the entrance to Guildhall Yard exposed remains of the great 13th-century gatehouse built directly over the southern entrance to the Roman amphitheatre, which raises the possibility that enough of the Roman structure survived to influence the siting not only of the gatehouse and Guildhall itself but also of the church of
St Lawrence Jewry whose strange alignment may shadow the elliptical form of the amphitheatre beneath. The first documentary reference to a London Guildhall is dated 1127 or 1128; archaeologists have also discovered foundations dating to around that time. Legend describes the Guildhall site as being the location of the palace of
Brutus of Troy, who according to
Geoffrey of Monmouth's (1136) is said to have founded a city on the banks of the River Thames, known as
Troia Nova, or New Troy. The great hall is believed to be on a site of an earlier guildhall (one possible derivation for the word "guildhall" is the Anglo-Saxon "gild", meaning payment, with a "gild-hall" being where citizens would pay their taxes). Possible evidence for this derivation may be in a reference to John Parker, the sergeant of "Camera Guyhalde", London, in 1396.
Current building Construction began on the current building in 1411 and was completed in 1440 under the supervision of John Croxton.). The Great Hall did not completely escape damage in the
Great Fire of London in 1666; it was partially restored (with a flat roof) in 1670. The present grand entrance (the east wing of the south front), in "
Hindoostani Gothic", was added in 1788 by
George Dance. was unveiled by Churchill in 1955. Trials at the Guildhall have included those of
Anne Askew (the Protestant martyr),
Thomas Cranmer (Archbishop of Canterbury) and
Lady Jane Grey ("the Nine Days' Queen") as well as
Henry Garnet (executed for his complicity in the
Gunpowder Plot of 1605). The 1783 hearing of the infamous
Zong case, the outcome of which focused public outrage about the
transatlantic slave trade, also took place at Guildhall. On 16 November 1848, the pianist
Frédéric Chopin made his last public appearance on a concert platform there. The
marathon route of the
2012 Summer Olympics passed through Guildhall Yard. ==Present use==