Can anyone please help me find out what this glorious-looking tool shop is on the right hand side of this picture? The picture was originally posted by @joeflanagan1 on Twitter. He posts some really beautiful pictures from 19thc London.
The picture is from around 1890, and it shows a few young ne’er-do-wells hanging around to relieve someone of the contents of their pockets. All well and good. But look to the right, a line of lovely braces, and on the window it mentions cabinet makers and tools.
The street is Cock Lane, (yes, if you’re already tittering, I know). If you think that’s funny, London street names get a lot worse.
The shop may well be fronting onto the adjacent street, I don’t know, it does appear to be No.25 though.
I really hope someone might be able to help, this really does look like a shop from the glory days.
Thank you.
Update: Quite a few people have been in touch with ideas. @peteri tweeted
@HackneyTools @joeflanagan1 are you sure this is cock lane(this is the giltspur end (link) nothing in trade directories too
The link shows this great-looking pub below, the ‘Fortune of War’. This pub does show the ‘Cock Lane’ sign on it’s wall high up there on the left. It also shows the Golden Boy Statue, mentioned by Bill Johnson, (below, in the comments section).
I’ve reproduced the map showing the area at the time, from the Pepys Small Change website. (Click to enlarge).
So, I’m still unable to find the name of the shop opposite the building in both of these pictures. I’m going to contact the excellent Bishopsgate Institute in London. If they manage to unearth anything, I will post the results.
Update: Stefan Dickers, the Library and Archives Manager at Bishopsgate Institute got back to me (and on Christmas Eve too, what a gent!). Thanks Stefan.
I’ve had a quick look for you (as we’re only open for a couple of hours today) and there was a Daniel Lovett, Carpenter, operating at 25 Cock Lane in 1894. The address then seems to disappear from the trade directories. There is also a different business operating at the address 10 years earlier which doesn’t really back up the ‘established 100 years’ claim in the window. Hmmm…
I’ll have a bit more of a dig in the New Year but I hope that’s of some interest.
Will follow this up in the new year, in the meantime will have to see if I can find more on this Lovett chap, as the ‘L’ on the main sign matches, so it could well be him, I guess.