Mansion House, York site of the old "Common Hall Gates" which provided an entrance to the Guildhall. A chapel and other property and tenements which were once owned by the Guild of St. Christopher and St. George including the Cross Keys Public House also lay on this site. These buildings were demolished to build the current Mansion House in 1724. The fifteenth century York Guildhall is situated behind the Mansion House, where the medieval city council held their meetings. In May of each year the Mayor Making ceremony is still held in the Guildhall before the Lord Mayor takes up residence in the
Mansion House, London article was republished in 1872. Sharpe argues that Mansion House "remains as a monument of the unjust manner in which Dissenters were treated in the last century" (i.e. the 18th, in contrast to his own 19th, century). William Edward Hartpole Lecky in his "History of England during the Eighteenth Century" (1878) describes the funding of the construction of Mansion House as "a very scandalous form of persecution". There are over one hundred livery companies, the senior members of which form a special electorate known as Common Hall. In 1748 the City of London Corporation devised a Catch-22 situation to raise