"These priors have sitten and ridden amongst the aldermen of London, in livery like unto them, saving that his habit was in shape of a spiritual person, as I, myself, have seen in my childhood; at which time the prior kept a most bountiful house of meat and drink, both for rich and poor, as well within the house as at the gates, to all comers, according to their estates" (Stow).
In 1531 the King took possession of Christchurch; the canons were sent to other houses of the same order--St. Bartholomew the Great, Smithfield; St. Mary Overies, Southwark; and St. Mary Spital--"and the priory, with the appurtenances, King Henry gave to Sir Thomas Audley, newly knighted, and after made Lord Chancellor" (Stow). So extensive and so solid was the mass of building that Audley was at a loss to get the space cleared for the new house he wished to build here. He offered the great church of the priory to any one who would take it down and cart away the materials. But as this offer met with no response, Audley had to undertake the destruction himself. Stow could remember how the workmen employed on this work, "with great labour, beginning at the top"--the tower had pinnacles at each corner like the towers at St. Saviour's and St. Sepulchre's--"loosed stone from stone, and threw them down, whereby the most part of them were broken, and few remained whole; and those were sold very cheap, for all the buildings then made about the city were of brick and timber. At that time any man in the city might have a cart-load of hard stone for paving brought to his door for sixpence or sevenpence, with the carriage." Thus, in place of the priory and its noble church, was built the residence of Thomas, Lord Audley, and here he lived till his death in 1544. By marriage of his only daughter and heiress, the house passed into the possession of Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, and was then called Duke's Place.
Turning our backs upon Duke's Place and continuing a little further along the way by which Stow used to fetch the milk from the farm at the Minories to his father's house on Cornhill, we come to Leadenhall, a great building which served as a public granary in ancient times, and later as the chief market hall of the city. Leaving aside all the particulars of its history which Stow gives, let us note what he tells us from his own recollections: