Street and area in Holborn, London
Hatton Garden
is a street and commercial zone in the
Holborn
district of the
London Borough of Camden
, abutting the narrow precinct of
Saffron Hill
which then abuts the
City of London
. It takes its name from Sir
Christopher Hatton
, a
favourite
of Queen
Elizabeth I
, who established a mansion here and gained possession of the garden and orchard of
Ely Place
, the London seat of the
Bishops of Ely
. It remained in the Hatton family and was built up as a stylish residential development in the reign of King
Charles II
. For some decades it often went, outside of the main street, by an alternative name
St Alban's Holborn
, after
the local church
built in 1861.
St Etheldreda's Church
in Ely Place, all that survives of the old Bishop's Palace, is one of only two remaining buildings in London dating from the reign of
Edward I
. It is one of the oldest churches in England now in use for
Roman Catholic
worship, which was re-established there in 1879. The red-brick building now known as Wren House, at the south-east corner of Hatton Garden and St Cross Street, was the
Anglican
church for the Hatton Garden development. It was taken over by the authorities of a
charity school
, and the statues of a boy and girl in uniform were then added.
Hatton Garden is London's jewellery quarter and the centre of the diamond trade in the
United Kingdom
. This specialisation grew up in the early 19th century, spreading out from its more ancient centre in nearby
Clerkenwell
. Today there are nearly 300 businesses here in the jewellery industry and over 90 shops, representing the largest cluster of jewellery retailers in the UK.
[1]
The largest of these businesses was
De Beers
, the international family of companies which dominated the international diamond trade. Their headquarters were in an office and warehouse complex just behind the main Hatton Garden shopping street.
Sir
Hiram Maxim
had a small factory at 57 Hatton Garden and in 1881, invented and started to produce the
Maxim Gun
, a prototype machine gun, capable of firing 666 rounds a minute. Hatton Garden has an extensive underground infrastructure of vaults, tunnels, offices and workshops.
[2]
The area is now home to many media, publishing and creative businesses, including
Blinkbox
and
Grey Advertising
. Surrounding streets including Hatton Place and
Saffron Hill
(the insalubrious setting for Fagin's den in
Oliver Twist
) were improved during the 20th century and in modern times have been developed with blocks of 'luxury' apartments, including Da Vinci House (occupying the former
Punch
magazine
printworks) and the architecturally distinctive Ziggurat Building.
Hatton Garden development, 1659?1694
[
edit
]
The Hatton Garden area between Leather Lane in the west and Saffron Hill in the east, and from Holborn in the south to Hatton Wall in the north, was developed as a new residential district in the
Restoration period
, between 1659 and 1694.
[3]
It arose soon after the residential developments in Covent Garden and was contemporary with those of
Bloomsbury Square
.
[4]
It was formerly the site of the medieval palace, gardens and orchard of the Bishops of Ely, forming their City residence. The palace stood in the southeast corner, on the site of
Ely Place
. During the 1570s
Queen Elizabeth
's Chancellor and favourite, Sir Christopher Hatton, held a lease of part of the site and developed Hatton House to the northwest of the palace. In 1581, he obtained a more permanent grant from Queen Elizabeth during a vacancy in the see, and after his death, it passed into the possession of
Lady Elizabeth Hatton
, the widow of Sir Christopher's nephew Sir William Newport (who changed his name to Hatton). At her death in 1646, during the
English Civil War
, it reverted to
Christopher Hatton, 1st Baron Hatton
, a close associate of
Charles II
in his exile in Paris during the
Commonwealth period
, 1649?1660.
[5]
The bishops disputed the Hattons' title, but, under
the Protectorate
, Bishop
Matthew Wren
was a prisoner in the
Tower of London
, and the palace itself was sequestrated to Parliamentarian uses and was badly damaged. To raise money Lord Hatton granted a long lease of the site in 1654, which became effectively permanent in 1658, though he retained the
freehold
. In 1659,
John Evelyn
observed Hatton Street (Hatton Garden road) being laid out from south to north, hard against the west side of the palace, as the beginning of a newly planned town district.
[6]
Speculative builders took leases to construct tall and spacious adjoining houses to attract wealthy men at court, city officials and country gentlefolk wanting London homes, convenient for
Clerkenwell
and the
Inns of Court
.
In this way a varied but harmonious townscape, with attractive detail of porches and interior panelling,
[7]
grew up on a rectangular grid of new streets. Charles Street (at first called Cross Street) was laid west to east as a continuation of Greville Street, and the Bishops' orchard, which (as shown in
Richard Newcourt
's map of 1658) the Hattons had laid out as a walled
knot garden
with a central fountain,
[8]
lay north of that up to Hatton Wall. Hatton Street followed the line of its central path. By 1666, the year of the
Great Fire
, the development had advanced north to form two principal blocks up to the line of St Cross Street (then called Little Kirby Street). The remaining open land was used as a refuge by Londoners escaping the Fire, which did not consume Hatton Garden.
[9]
After Lord Hatton's death in 1670, the northern sector up to Hatton Wall was completed by 1694, in the time of his son Sir
Christopher Hatton, 1st Viscount Hatton
, whose agent was the noted accountant
Stephen Monteage
(1623?1687).
[10]
[11]
Work on the Hatton Street church (now Wren House) commenced in 1685?86.
[12]
Great Kirby Street, parallel to Hatton Street on the east side, enclosed a central block with rear gardens backing, but in the northern sectors, Hatt and Tunn Yard on the east (on the site of Hatton Place) and other small yards on the west provided access to smaller dwellings and coach houses. In the southern sectors King's Head Yard (later Robin Wood Yard, Robin Hood Yard) was similarly enclosed to the west, and to the east
Bleeding Heart Yard
(Arlidge's Yard, with Union Court
[13]
) was developed near the palace by Abraham Arlidge (1645?1717), a carpenter of
Kenilworth
(Warwickshire) origins who worked extensively on the project and made his fortune by judicious investments.
[14]
Arlidge's survey of 1694 shows the completed estate in detail:
[15]
he succeeded Sir
John Cass
as Master of the
Worshipful Company of Carpenters
in 1712.
[16]
Among early residents were
Christopher Merret
,
Robert Ferguson
,
John Flamsteed
,
William Whiston
and Captain
Thomas Coram
.
Crime
[
edit
]
A "Great Robbery in Hatton Garden" occurred in late December 1678, when twenty men turned up at the house of a wealthy gentleman claiming to have a warrant to search the house for dangerous persons. After letting them in the owner asked to see the
search warrant
, whereupon he was forced at gunpoint into an inner room and locked in while the intruders rifled the house of its valuables. However, someone managed to escape and raised the alarm, and the thieves made a run for it. They were apprehended two days later while trying to dispose of the stolen property, which was recovered.
[17]
George Brown, John Butler, Richard Mills, Christopher Bruncker and George Kenian were hanged at
Tyburn
for the offence on 22 January
1678/9
.
In 1685, the notorious
informer
and confidence trickster
Thomas Dangerfield
, who was being returned to prison after a public whipping, was killed in Hatton Garden in an altercation with a
barrister
called Robert Francis, who struck him in the eye with his cane. Rather to the surprise of the general public, who thought the killing was an accident, Francis was convicted of
murder
and hanged.
In July 1993, thieves stole £7 million worth of gems belonging to the jewellers
Graff Diamonds
. This was London's biggest gem heist of modern times.
[18]
In April 2015, an underground
safe deposit
facility in the Hatton Garden area was burgled in the
Hatton Garden safe deposit burglary
.
[19]
The total stolen may have had a value of up to £200 million,
[20]
[21]
although court reports referred to £14 million
[22]
The theft was investigated by the
Flying Squad
,
[20]
a branch of the
Specialist, Organised & Economic Crime Command
within London's
Metropolitan Police Service
, leading to the arrests and March 2016 convictions of seven perpetrators.
[22]
Street name etymologies
[
edit
]
This is a list of the etymology of street names in the
London
district of Hatton Garden. Its area has no formally defined boundaries ? those used here are the generally accepted ones of Clerkenwell Road to the north, Farringdon Road to the east, Holborn and Charterhouse Street to the south and Gray's Inn road to the west.
- Baldwins Gardens
? from Richard Baldwin (or Baldwyn), gardener to
Queen Elizabeth I
and treasurer of the
Middle Temple
, who owned property in the area in the 16th century
[23]
[24]
- Beauchamp Street ? from Beauchamp Court, the
Warwickshire
birthplace of
Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke
, local property owner
[25]
[26]
- Black Bull Yard ?
unknown
; this yard has now largely been covered by shop developments and is not accessible to the public
- Bleeding Heart Yard
? thought to be from the sign of a former pub in this area called the Bleeding Heart
[27]
[28]
[29]
- Brooke Street, Brooke's Court and Brooke's Market ? after Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke, who owned a house near here in the 17th century
[30]
[26]
- Charterhouse Street
?
Anglicisation
of "Chartreuse", from
Grande Chartreuse
, head monastery of the
Carthusians
in France. A nearby abbey was founded by monks of this order in 1371
[31]
[32]
- Clerkenwell Road
? from a local well (the clerk's well), which gave its name to the area to this district.
[33]
[34]
- Dorrington Street ? corruption of ‘Doddington’, from Anne Doddington, wife of Robert Grenville who owned a house near here in the 17th century
[35]
[26]
- Ely Court and
Ely Place
? after the Bishops of
Ely
,
Cambridgeshire
who owned much of this area prior to 1659
[36]
[37]
- Farringdon Road
? from Sir William or Nicholas de Farnedon/Faringdon, local sheriffs or aldermen in the 13th century
[38]
[39]
[40]
- Gray's Inn Road
? from Lord Gray of Wilton, owner of a local inn or townhouse which was later leased to lawyers in the 16th century
[41]
[42]
- Greville Street ? from
Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke
, who owned a house near here in the 17th century
[43]
[26]
- Hatton Garden, Hatton Place and Hatton Wall ? from
Sir Christopher Hatton
, who was ceded much of this area from the Bishops of Ely by Elizabeth I in 1577?1580
[44]
[45]
- Holborn
? thought to be from ‘hollow bourne’ i.e. the
river Fleet
which formerly flowed in a valley near here
[46]
[47]
[48]
[49]
- Kirby Street ? from Christopher Hatton's
Kirby Hall
in
Northamptonshire
[50]
[45]
- Leather Lane
? thought to come not from ‘leather’ but from Leofrun, a personal name in Old English; formerly known as Le Vrunelane (13th century), Loverone Lane (14th century) and Liver Lane
[51]
[52]
- Leigh Place ? from the Barons Leigh, who bought land in the area from the Baldwin family in 1689
[23]
[24]
- Lily Place
- Onslow Street
- Portpool Lane ? thought to be a corruption of ‘Purta's Pool’, the local area is recorded as the manor of Purtepol in the early 13th century;
[53]
[54]
written "Purple Lane" in Arlidge's Survey
- Saffron Hill
and Saffron Street ? these used to be the gardens of the Bishops of Ely, where they grew
saffron
[55]
[56]
- St Cross Street ? originally Cross Street, as it crossed land belonging to the Hatton family; the ‘St’ was added in 1937 to avoid confusion with numerous streets of the same name
[57]
[58]
- Verulam Street ? from 16th?17th-century lawyer, scientist and philosopher
Francis Bacon
, later created
Baron Verulam
, who had chambers at Gray's Inn opposite
[59]
[60]
- Viaduct Buildings ? after their position directly adjacent to
Holborn Viaduct
[49]
- Waterhouse Square
? after
Alfred Waterhouse
, architect of
Holborn Bars
, also known as the Prudential Assurance Building, which surrounds the square
Street name etymologies of London
|
---|
|
Hatton Garden in fiction
[
edit
]
Michael Flanders
and
Donald Swann
, humorists in the 1960s and 1970s, celebrated Hatton Garden's connection with the jewellery trade in their song of a sewage worker, "Down Below":
- Hatton Garden is the spot, down below
- Where we likes to go a lot, down below,
- Since a bloke from
Leather Lane
,
- Dropped a diamond down the drain,
- We'll be going there again, down below.
In
Evelyn Waugh
's novel
Brideshead Revisited
, Rex Mottram takes Julia Marchmain to a dealer in Hatton Garden to buy her engagement ring:
He bought her a ring, not, as she expected, from a tray in
Cartier's
, but in a back room in Hatton Garden from a man who brought stones out of a bag in a little safe...then another man in another back room made designs for the setting with a stub of a pencil on a sheet of notepaper, and the result excited the admiration of all her friends.
[61]
Hatton Garden features in the children's novel
Smith
by
Leon Garfield
, where the main character tries to elude two pursuers through the crumbling streets of 18th-century Holborn.
In
Ian Fleming
's novel
Diamonds Are Forever
,
James Bond
visits the fictional House of Diamonds in Hatton Garden, where he meets the mysterious Rufus B. Saye.
The name of the street appears in a series of books
Poldark
by
Winston Graham
. (part 4 - 'Warleggan')
The Avengers
, Series 2, Episode 10, "
Death on the Rocks
," is set in the diamond business in Hatton Garden.
[62]
The diamond robbery in the film
A Fish Called Wanda
takes place in Hatton Garden.
The 1924 mystery novel
Inspector French's Greatest Case
by
Freeman Wills Crofts
takes place in and around Hatton Garden.
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
"Hatton Garden Jewellers London EC1"
.
www.hatton-garden.net
. Retrieved
6 March
2016
.
- ^
Rachel Lichtenstein (10 April 2015).
"Hatton Garden jewellery burglary: Extraordinary underworld of London's jewellery quarter"
.
The Independent
.
Archived
from the original on 9 May 2022.
- ^
H. Marryat and U. Broadbent,
The Romance of Hatton Garden
(James Cornish & Sons, London 1930).
- ^
P. Hunting, 'The Survey of Hatton Garden in 1694 by Abraham Arlidge',
London Topographical Record
XXV (1985), pp. 83?110.
- ^
The Romance of Hatton Garden
, pp. 19?38.
- ^
W. Bray (ed.),
Diary of John Evelyn
, 2 vols (M. Walter Dunne, New York/London 1901), I,
p. 328
.
- ^
Example
. The panelled room from No. 26 Hatton Garden, long preserved in the
Victoria and Albert Museum
(
The Panelled Rooms
Vol. V: The Hatton Garden Room (Victoria and Albert Museum)) is now considered not fully authentic, see N. Humphrey, 'The New British Galleries at the V&A',
Conservation Journal
April 1998,
Issue 27
.
- ^
Illustrated in
The Romance of Hatton Garden
, p. 30, and see p. 43.
- ^
The Romance of Hatton Garden
, pp. 44?48.
- ^
B. Porter, 'Monteage, Stephen',
Dictionary of National Biography
(1885?1900),
Volume 38
.
- ^
Monteage was apparently the agent, in Hatton's affairs, of Sir
Robert Clayton
and John Morris of the Scriveners' Bank, see F.T. Melton,
Sir Robert Clayton and the Origins of English Deposit Banking 1658?1685
(C.U.P. 2002),
pp. 74?75
.
- ^
Hunting, 'The Survey of Hatton Garden' (1985), p. 97.
- ^
Will of Abraham Arlidge (P.C.C. 1717); see Bowles's Map of 1775 at
MAPCO
.
- ^
Hunting, 'The Survey of Hatton Garden' (1985), passim.
- ^
'A Survey of Hatton Garden by Abraham Arlidge 1694' (full colour print),
London Topographical Society
Publication no. 128 (1983), with note by Penelope Hunting.
- ^
Court Minute Books of the Carpenters' Company, Guildhall Library, London, MS. 4329/15, sub anno.
- ^
The Romance of Hatton Garden
, p. 66, citing
The Great Robbery in Hatton-garden: a true account how about twenty thieves on Sunday the 29th of Decemb. 1678, in the evening, entred a gentlemans house there under pretence of a search and putting the family in fear of their lives rob'd them of about 400 ounces of plate, two diamond rings ... near twenty pounds in money &c
(for L.C., London 1679).
- ^
Willey, Russ.
Chambers London Gazetter
, pg 230
- ^
"Hatton Garden safety deposit box vault burgled"
.
BBC News
. 7 April 2015.
- ^
a
b
Rose Troup Buchanan (9 April 2015).
"Hatton Garden jewellery burglary: How was the £200 million heist pulled off?"
.
The Independent
.
Archived
from the original on 9 May 2022.
- ^
Catherine Neilan (9 April 2015).
"Hatton Garden jewel thieves used used heavy duty drill Hilti DD350 to bore holes into vault ? but did not break into the building"
. City AM.
- ^
a
b
"Hatton Garden jewellery heist: Final three guilty over £14m burglary"
.
BBC News
. 14 January 2016
. Retrieved
6 March
2016
.
- ^
a
b
Fairfield, S.
The Streets of London ? A dictionary of the names and their origins
, p19
- ^
a
b
Bebbington, G. (1972)
London Street Names
, p32
- ^
Fairfield, S.
The Streets of London ? A dictionary of the names and their origins
, p25
- ^
a
b
c
d
Bebbington, G. (1972)
London Street Names
, p59-60
- ^
Fairfield, S.
The Streets of London ? A dictionary of the names and their origins
, p34
- ^
Philpotts, Trey.
A Companion to Little Dorrit
. Helms Information Ltd. 2003, p. 172.
- ^
Bebbington, G. (1972)
London Street Names
, p50
- ^
Fairfield, S.
The Streets of London ? A dictionary of the names and their origins
, p45
- ^
Fairfield, S.
The Streets of London ? A dictionary of the names and their origins
, p65
- ^
Bebbington, G. (1972)
London Street Names
, p82
- ^
Fairfield, S.
The Streets of London ? A dictionary of the names and their origins
, p74
- ^
Bebbington, G. (1972)
London Street Names
, p90
- ^
Fairfield, S.
The Streets of London ? A dictionary of the names and their origins
, p100
- ^
Fairfield, S.
The Streets of London ? A dictionary of the names and their origins
, p111
- ^
Bebbington, G. (1972)
London Street Names
, p123
- ^
Fairfield, S.
The Streets of London ? A dictionary of the names and their origins
, p118
- ^
Mills, A.,
Oxford Dictionary of London Place Names
(2000)
- ^
Bebbington, G. (1972)
London Street Names
, p128-9
- ^
Fairfield, S.
The Streets of London ? A dictionary of the names and their origins
, p140
- ^
Bebbington, G. (1972)
London Street Names
, p149
- ^
Fairfield, S.
The Streets of London ? A dictionary of the names and their origins
, p145
- ^
Fairfield, S.
The Streets of London ? A dictionary of the names and their origins
, p155
- ^
a
b
Bebbington, G. (1972)
London Street Names
, p167-8
- ^
Fairfield, S.
The Streets of London ? A dictionary of the names and their origins
, p161
- ^
Lethaby, William
(1902).
London before the conquest
. London: Macmillan. p.
60
.
- ^
Besant, Walter
; Mitton, Geraldine (1903).
Holborn and Bloomsbury
. The Fascination of London (Project Gutenberg, 2007 ed.). London:
Adam and Charles Black
. Retrieved
13 August
2008
.
- ^
a
b
Bebbington, G. (1972)
London Street Names
, p174
- ^
Fairfield, S.
The Streets of London ? A dictionary of the names and their origins
, p183
- ^
Fairfield, S.
The Streets of London ? A dictionary of the names and their origins
, p190
- ^
Bebbington, G. (1972)
London Street Names
, p198
- ^
Fairfield, S.
The Streets of London ? A dictionary of the names and their origins
, p252
- ^
Bebbington, G. (1972)
London Street Names
, p262
- ^
Fairfield, S.
The Streets of London ? A dictionary of the names and their origins
, p275
- ^
Bebbington, G. (1972)
London Street Names
, p282
- ^
Fairfield, S.
The Streets of London ? A dictionary of the names and their origins
, p277
- ^
Bebbington, G. (1972)
London Street Names
, p285
- ^
Fairfield, S.
The Streets of London ? A dictionary of the names and their origins
, p327
- ^
Bebbington, G. (1972)
London Street Names
, p331-2
- ^
Evelyn Waugh (1945).
Brideshead Revisited
. Chapman & Hall. p. 183.
- ^
"The Avengers: Series 2: Death on the Rocks"
.
www.dissolute.com.au
. Retrieved
17 September
2020
.
Media related to
Hatton Garden
at Wikimedia Commons
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