The Shoemakers’ Hall
was part of a complex of buildings on the corner of Salt Lane and
Rollestone Street left to the Guild of Shoemakers by Philip Crewe
in 1638, and it was these buildings that later became an inn, known
as the Crispin Inn from at least 1743, when John Fort was the innkeeper.
the Shoemakers’ guild
hall was built on the garden behind the buildings which later became
the inn, and by the late eighteenth century it was being made available
to other organisations and individuals as a meeting room –
to the clothworkers in the 1780s for meetings, and the Methodists
in the early 1800s for Sunday schools.
In the early nineteenth century
the complex was leased and then sold, subject to covenants that
the Shoemakers’ guild could still use the hall for its meetings.
A lease of 1821 refers to the inn was “heretofore called the
Crispin, but now known by the name and sign of the Pheasant”.
In 1828 the complex was sold to George Pain, brewer and maltster,
with no covenant regarding the use of the hall, which thus simply
became part of the inn.
What had happened, meanwhile,
was that the Salisbury shoemakers had grouped together as a local
branch of the Friendly Society of Cordwainers, under the name of
the Rainbow Club, after the inn where they met, later the William
IV in Milford Street.
