The Austin Friars was an Augustinian Friary in the City of London, probably founded in the 1260s.

In the late 1400s, on the Feast of the Decollation of St John the Baptist (29 August) all the Worshipful Company of Fletchers met and attended Mass at the Austin Friars.  The Company undertook to ‘find for evermore’ a light of five waxen tapers at the Austin Friars Church, ‘to the worship of God and Saint John Baptist’.  Every member had to pay 2d each Quarter Day towards sustaining this light; anybody who did not come to Mass or pay his contribution to the light was liable to a fine of 1lb of wax or 6d.

Thomas Cromwell lived in one of the Friary’s tenements, as shown above on the 1550s ‘Copperplate Map’ of London.  The friary was dissolved in 1538.  Today, the road of Austin Friars runs through the site of the former friary.

Second paragraph from The Fletchers and Longbowstringmakers of London by James E Oxley, 1968