The best acoustics in the Square Mile? This 17th century hall is a musical marvel

In 1684, Stationers’ Hall, which still stands in the shadow of St Paul’s Cathedral, became the venue for festivities to celebrate the Feast of Saint Cecilia, which falls on November 22. By late medieval times, Cecilia, an early Christian martyr, had evolved into the patron saint of music. This was partly the fault of Chaucer, who in the Second Nun’s Tale had Cecilia singing while she said prayers before her wedding, and being accompanied by musicians. The idea of her as a musical saint spread around western Europe, but the City of London was especially observant of her. In the second half of the 17th century, musicians would play weekly at the Castle Tavern in Fleet Street. They began the November feast, which moved to the Stationers’ Company.

The livery company’s hall is currently marking its 350th anniversary. The Stationers’ Company was formed in 1403. It controlled what later came to be known as copyright, and became wealthy as the popularity of the printed word grew. The company also had the power to seize books that offended the standards set by the church or went counter to the policies of the state. From 1606, it based itself at Abergavenny House in Ave Maria Lane, but that building became a casualty of the Great Fire six decades later.

However, this enabled another fine hall to be built, which was the one opened in 1673; and, miraculously having come through the Blitz, the hall survives largely as it was built then, with a superb interior of the finest woodwork, and excellent stained glass – including a window to Saint Cecilia herself. The designer of the livery hall is believed to have been Robert Wapshott, a bricklayer. It was extensively remodelled in 1800 by Robert Mylne, and the various ornamental features are described in Pevsner as being “a collage of work of every century since the Great Fire, much of it of high quality”. 

The most outstanding feature is the panelling by Stephen Colledge, a Hertfordshire carpenter known as “the Protestant joiner” because of his ferocious reputation as an anti-Catholic speaker. The hall’s interior is his main surviving work; he took against Charles II for doctrinal reasons and in 1681 was hanged, drawn and quartered for sedition. The great oak screen at the south end of the hall is not his, but the work of Henry Foord, an infinitely less disputatious figure; it is richly ornamented and, appropriately, given the company’s association with Saint Cecilia, is capped by a musicians’ gallery. The hall has been described as having the finest acoustics in the Square Mile, and a St Cecilia’s Festival concert is being held there on November 18, with the Britten Sinfonia performing a selection of British music from Purcell and Handel through to Britten and Michael Berkeley. 

It is a rare treat to be able to hear such fine music in so architecturally splendid a setting, and with such a strong historical link going back more than three centuries. It is just the sort of thing that the saint who sang on the eve of her wedding would no doubt have relished.