East from St. Mary Axe at No. 52 to Duke Street (P.O. Directory). In Aldgate Ward.
First mention: Strype, ed. 1720, I. ii. 81.
Earlier forms : "Bewesmarkes," 1407 (Ct. H.W. ii. 372). "Bevys Marke," 1450 (ib. 518). "Bevesmarkes," 4 H. VIII. (1513), Lond. I. p.m. I. 30. "Buries Markes" (S. 141). "Bevers-market," 1630 (Hessel's Archives Dutch Ch. Registers No. 435). "Beavis Markes" (O. and M. 1677).
In Stow's time it consisted of a large house, courts and garden plots, which he said belonged at one time to the Bassets, and subsequently to the Abbots of Bury in Suffolk (Bury St.Edmunds), and since the dissolution of the Abbey to the Heneages (S. 148, and L. and P. H. VIII. XV. p. 479).
But Stow must have been in error about the Bassets, for it appears from documents relating to the abbey of Bury St. Edmonds, extracts from which were communicated to a meeting of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society, 1st July, 1913, at the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in Bevis Marks, that the house of the Abbots must have been in their possession prior to 1156, and was perhaps given to them by David the Dane some time after 1020, when the first Abbot was consecrated.
Derivation of name : Stow says it was named after the Abbots of Bury, Buries Markes, corruptly "Bevis Markes" (S. 148).
The synagogue mentioned above was built in 1679, being the oldest in use in England. Erected by the Sephardic branch-the highest type (paper by A. M. Hyamson, Esq., communicated to L. and M. Arch. Soc., 1st July, 1913).
Hatton (1708) says it was called Brooks Court and Garden when it belonged to the Abhot of Bury, but there does not seem to be any authority for this statement.
But it does appear from some of the documents above quoted that a portion of the street lay at one time within the parish of St. Ethelburga, which would suggest that it then occupied some portion at least of the present Camomile Street.
The documents relating to the early history of the house, in which it is described as "the Hospice of the Abbot of St. Edmund beside the Church of Holy Trinity," are set out in Trans. L. and M. Arch. Soc. N.S. III. (1), p. 49.
In one of these documents the Priory of Holy Trinity is described as "in front of the hospice of the Abbot of Bury."
Statue of a youth in Phrygian costume found here in the course of excavations in 1849 (R. Smith, 47).