Plaque number 13 can be found at this location.
The plaque is just inside the cinema in New Canal; you don't have to pay to see the plaque as long as the cinema is open.
The O/S grid position is SU 14470 East 29930 North.
Built 1470-1483 by John Halle, wool merchant and mayor of Salisbury.
Later used as an Inn.
Restored by A.W.Pugin 1834.
Plaque presented by Rank Leisure Services
John Halle (died 1479) was a wool merchant of Salisbury. He was one of the richest men in the city. He owned a ship trading out of Southampton. He is first mentioned in the Salisbury ledger in 1421. He had become a member of the common council of the city by 1445. He was 4 times mayor (1451, 1456, 1464 and 1465). He was MP for the city in 4 parliaments between 1453 and 1461.
During his time as mayor, Halle became embroiled in a quarrel with another merchant, William Swayne. This came to a head in 1464 when the bishop (Richard Beauchamp) sold Swayne a plot of land in St Thomas' churchyard for a house for a chantry priest. Halle alleged that the plot was not the bishop's to sell and (though there was little evidence to support him) persuaded the corporation to take the same view. Unfortunately, the quarrel reawakened a long standing but intermittent dispute about the competing rights of the corporation (under the city charter) and the bishops (as landlords).
In 1465 Halle was summoned to appear before the king (Edward IV). Diplomacy does not appear to have been among Halle's skills, for he presented the city's case in such forceful, uncompromising, and perhaps even insolent terms that he found himself imprisoned in London for sedition. The corporation were told to elect some more suitable person ('sad, sober and discreet') as mayor. This they refused no fewer than 4 times to do because they had come to see Halle as the city's champion against the overweening bishop (though, perhaps wisely, they replaced Halle as delegate to the king). Halle was released under an amnesty and reinstated as mayor. He and the bishop (whose authority over the city was confirmed by the king in 1469) must have become seasoned sparring partners, because Halle continued to represent the corporation in negotiations with the bishop between 1474 and 1478.
A charter of 1467 records that Halle bought a site on New Canal from William Hore but there is some doubt about whether this was for the present hall. The Royal Commission on Historical Monuments report on Salisbury considered that the hall was certainly of the late 15th century but that its exact date was uncertain. Perhaps Halle's preoccupation with civic negotiations delayed building work. If the dates on the plaque are correct, he did not live to see its completion. His son William was attainted for taking part in the Duke of Buckingham's unsuccessful rebellion in 1483 but the sentence was lifted in 1485 and subsequently, like his father, he became MP for Salisbury. Halle's daughter Christian married Sir Thomas Hungerford.
The 17th century antiquary John Aubrey records that by 1669 the hall had become a tavern (name not given). From 1816 to 1819 the hall was part of the printing offices of the Wiltshire Gazette. It was restored by Pugin in 1834 and Edward Duke notes that in 1838 its owner Mr Sampson Page (described as a 'china-man') was using it to display his china collection. The present North front was added in 1880. The hall was incorporated into a cinema by F E West, architect to the Gaumont British Picture Corporation in 1931. In 1986 a planning inspector, reporting on an inquiry into the future of the cinema, called the adaptation 'a masterpiece' and 'perhaps the finest surviving tribute to his (West's) imagination'.
There is a verbose plaque dated August 1931 on the opposite wall which gives the following information:
John Halle
John Halle the builder of the residence of which this halle
formed a part, was a wool merchant of Salisbury. He was possibly a
son of Thomas Halle a member of the Corporation from 1436 to 1440. In 1446
John Halle was a member of the Common Council becoming an Alderman in 1448
and constable of New Street ward in 1449. he was undoubtedly a man of wealth and
considerable influence for it is recorded by Aubrey, the Wiltshire Antiquary in 1669
that 'as Greville and Wenman bought all the Coteswold soe did Halle and Webb
all the wooll of Salisbury plaines'. John Halle was a 'Merchant of the Staple'
i.e. a merchant trading in a commodity which was liable to export duty
and as such sworn to maintain the 'Staple' laws then in force as to the
handling of the goods and the proper collection of the duty. In 1451 he
was elected Mayor of Salisbury, an honour repeated in 1458, 1460 and 1461.
During John Halle's mayoralty of 1465, the Corporation became involved
in a dispute with Richard de Beauchamp Bishop of Salisbury as to the ownership
of a piece of land near St Thomas Churchyard and John Halle took forcible
possesion. For this he was prosecuted by the Bishop and summoned to appear
before the King and Privy Council in London where his bearing was apparently so
truculent that the King (Edward IV) committed him to the Tower for 'shewing hymself of
a right cedicious hasty wilful and full unwilly disposicon'. The Corporation were
ordered to elect a new mayor which they refused to do and it would appear that
Halle was re-elected Mayor for the forth time whilst actually in the Tower. Later on
John Halle was released and in 1470 in response to a call from the Earl of Warwick
(the king Maker) to the City of Salisbury he was given a sum of forty marks to
raise a troop of forty men to help the Lancastrian King against Edward IV of
York. After Warwick's defeat and death at Barnet in April 1471 Halle appears
to have returned to his allegiance to the victorious Edward IV and nothing
further is recorded of him until his death on October 18th 1479.
He had one son William Halle who is mentioned as taking part
in Buckingham's rebellion in 1483 and whose daughter married Sir Thomas
Wriothesley Garter King at Arms in the reign of Henry VII. Also one daughter
Chrystian married to Sir Thomas Hungerford.
August 1931 William Edward Trent Architect
Gaumont British Picture Corporation
Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England) report on Salisbury 1980 DoE listed buildings in Salisbury 1972
Prolusiones historicae: or, Essays illustrative of the Halle of John Halle, citizen and merchant of Salisbury, in the reigns of Henry VI and Edward IV. Author: Rev. Edward Duke; publisher: Brodie, Salisbury 1838 (quotes the Hore charter, Salisbury ledger and John Aubrey)
Ye Halle of John Halle - article by Charles Villiers in Salisbury Civic Society journal September 2007
Endless Street - John Chandler, Hobnob Press 1983 (inter alia, quotes accounts of the quarrel between Halle and Swayne)
The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entries on Halle (which quotes from the Salisbury ledger) and Pugin - authors David R Carr and Alexandra Wedgwood respectively
Picture House (magazine of the Cinema Theatre association) No 9, Winter 1991 - article by Allen Eyles
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