Beer Lane

Beer Lane (originally Bear Lane or Beare Lane) was a street that existed in the City of London up to the early part of the twentieth century. It ran from the east end of Great Tower Street (No. 37 opposite Seething Lane) to 53 Lower Thames Street, opposite the Custom House.[1][2] Stow said "At the east end of Tower Street, on the south side, have ye Beare Lane, wherein are many fair houses, and runneth down to Thames Street."[3]

Beare Lane on Hollar's map of London. Late 17th century.

Opposite its lower end, on the River Thames, was Bear Quay, later Great Bear Quay and Little Bear Quay, which was principally used for the landing and shipment of corn.[1] Edward Hatton, in his A New View of London (1708) wrote "Here is a very great market for wheat and other sorts of grain, brought hither from the neighbouring counties".[4]

In the early twentieth century, the firm of H.C. König & Co. had their offices there from where they distributed their Konig's Westphalian Gin.[5]

Bear Street is in the Leicester Square area of London and Bear Alley is off Farringdon Street.

See also

References
  1. Wheatley, Henry B. (1891). London past and present: Its history, associations, and traditions. Vol. I. London: John Murray. Cambridge University Press reprint, 2011. p. 139. ISBN 9781108028066.
  2. Lockie, John. (1810). Lockie's Topography of London. London: Couchman.
  3. Stow, p.51 quoted in Wheatley, 1891, p. 139.
  4. Hatton, Edward. (1708) A New View of London. John Nicholson. Volume II, p. 784. Quoted in Wheatley, 1891, p. 139.
  5. Advertising in the Royal Colonial Institute Year Book 1914 Royal Colonial Institute, London, 1914, p. v.


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