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Lant Street and
the area surrounding it have a history going back many hundreds
of years. Moreover, it has been the home of some important
characters both real and fictional. Although there is much new
building work going on, as you take a walk around the area you
will find yourself walking back in time. Little narrow
alleyways, crooked lanes, curious courtyards, beautifully kept
secret gardens and old buildings such as warehouses, apartments
and houses give us a fascinating glimpse of life as it used to
be in the age of Dickens and before.
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Some parts go back to the seventeenth century. Opposite Borough
Tube Station on the corner of Marshalsea Road is Brandon House,
now the headquarters of ACAS. Queen Mary gave the original house
which stood on this site to Archbishop Heath who pulled some of it
down and built cottages. The remaining building then became the
residence of Edward Bromfield who was Lord Mayor of London in
1637. In 1650, he purchased the house and estate and called it
Suffolk Place. His son John was created a baronet in 1661 who in
1679 married Joyce, the only child of Thomas Lant, son and heir of
William Lant, a merchant of London. In the marriage settlement
the estate became the property of the Lant family and an act was
passed for its improvement. Thomas Lant was empowered to have the
lease for fifty-one years. In 1773 it was let as seventeen acres
with 400 houses for a rent of £1,000 per annum.The entire estate
was sold in the nineteenth century in ninety-eight lots, the
rental of the estate having just been doubled. Lant Street is
named after the Lant family. |
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british-history.ac.uk |
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Charles Dickens has had a huge
influence over the area. A back attic of the house belonging to
an ‘Insolvent Court Agent’ in Lant Street was one of his
temporary homes when he was a boy. The Garland Family in The Old
Curiousity Shop are Insolvent Court Agents. This is why many
streets
near Lant Street have names called after Dickens characters. A
Dickensian character called Bob Sawyer lived in Lant Street: “A
bed and bedding were sent over for me and made up on the floor,”
he writes. “The little window had a pleasant prospect of a
timber-yard and when I took possession of my new abode, I
thought it was Paradise.” In The Pickwick Papers, Dickens tells
us what the area was like:
“There is a
repose about Lant Street which shades a gentle melancholy upon the
soul…its dullness is soothing…the majority of its inhabitants
either direct their energies to the letting of furnished
apartments or devote themselves to the healthful and invigorating
pursuit of mangling. The population is migratory…his Majesty’s
revenues are seldom collected in this happy valley, the rents are
dubious and the water communication is very frequently cut off.”How
little things have changed!
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Another famous resident was Sir
Joseph Lyons who was born at 50 Lant Street on 29 December 1847.
Joseph Lyons of course went on to own Lyons Cornerhouses where the
famous ‘Nippy’ waitresses in thei r
distinctive black dresses and lace hats would serve you meals
round the clock. He was a self-made businessman of huge energy
who was able to seize commercial and catering opportunities that
frequently required mammoth logistics to organise. Lyons was
educated at the Jewish School in Kennington and although he came
from humble beginnings he had a love of the arts. He began his
career as an apprentice to an optician and invented a device
called a chromatic stereoscope which he tried selling at
exhibitions and fair grounds. He was also talented watercolour
artists and exhibited at The Royal Institute where he sold some of
his works. He wrote detective stories and co-authored Master
Crime and Treasures of the Temple with Cecil Raleigh. As a youth
he composed music hall sketches and songs which he sold in the
vestibule of the Pavilion Theatre in Whitechapel. It was there
that he met Sarah Psyche Cohen who he married on 24 August 1881.
Outside of his
business interests he was also very active in the Territorial Army
and was responsible for introducing athletics into its training
curriculum. He received a knighthood in 1911 for his organisation
of the messing arrangements of the TA. He died at the Hyde Park
Hotel in 22 June 1917 aged 69. |
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The name LANT has
a rather strange origin. Lant is aged urine and had many
uses in pre industrial households because of its ammonia
content! According to some old housekeeping records a male
servant would collect the bedpans and put the contents aside
so it could age nicely like a lovely vintage wine! When
partly fermented, lant is mildly caustic and can be used to
do laundry or clean wooden floors. Lant was also
recommended to freshen the breath, to flavour ale and to
glaze hard pastries. In larger cottage industries, lant was
used in wool processing and as a source of saltpetre for
gunpowder. In times of need in areas where these were key
industries, the whole town was expected to contribute to its
supply!
"To leint ale, to
put urine into it to make it strong." - John Ray's North
Country Words, 1691
"Lant. Stale
urine. It was preserved in a tank and having been mixed with
lime used for dressing wheat before it was sown to keep the
birds from picking up the seeds" - Sidney Addys Glossary of
Sheffield Words 1888 |
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Source:
http://www.lantstreet.org/history.htmlhttp://www.lantstreet.org/history.html |
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