Hatton Garden is a wide thoroughfare with some modern offices and many older houses, with bracketed doorways and carved woodwork. It has long been associated with the diamond merchant's trade, and now diamond merchants occupy quite half of the offices. It is also the centre of the gold and silver trade. The City Orthopædic Hospital is on the east side.
In Charles Street is the Bleeding Heart public-house, which derives its name from an old religious sign, the Pierced Heart of the Virgin. This is close to Bleeding Heart Yard, referred to in "Little Dorrit," and easily recalled by any reader of Dickens.
In Cross Street there is an old charity school, with stuccoed figures of a charity boy and girl on the frontage. The Caledonian School was formerly in this street; it was removed to its present situation in 1828. Whiston, friend of Sir Isaac Newton, lived here, and here Edward Irving first displayed his powers of preaching.
Kirkby Street recalls what has already been said about the first Bishop of Ely, who purchased land whereon his successors should build a palace. It is a broad street, and in times past was a place of residence for well-to-do people.
The lower part of Saffron Hill was known at first as Field Lane, and is described by Strype as "narrow and mean, full of Butchers and Tripe Dressers, because the Ditch runs at the back of their Slaughter houses, and carries away the filth." He also says that Saffron Hill is a place of small account, "both as to buildings and inhabitants, and pestered with small and ordinary alleys and courts taken up by the meaner sort of people, especially to the east side into the Town. The Ditch separates the parish from St. John, Clerkenwell, and over this Ditch most of the alleys have a small boarded bridge."
We can easily picture it, the courts swarming with thieves and rogues who slipped from justice by this back-way, which made the place a kind of warren with endless ramifications and outlets. All this district is strongly associated with the stories of Dickens, who mentions Saffron Hill in "Oliver Twist," not much to its credit. In later times Italian organ-grinders and ice-cream vendors had a special predilection for the place, and did not add to its reputation. Curiously enough, the resident population of the neighbourhood are now almost wholly British, with very few Italians, as the majority of the foreigners have gone to join the colony just outside the Liberty, in Eyre Street Hill, Skinner's Street, etc. Within quite recent times the clergyman of the parish dare only go to visit these parishioners accompanied by two policemen in plain clothes. Now the lower half is a hive of industry, and is lined by great business houses. Further north, on the east side, the dwellings are still poor and squalid, but on one side a great part of the street has been demolished to make way for a Board school, built in a way immeasurably superior to the usual Board school style. Opposite is the Church of St. Peter, which is an early work of Sir Charles Barry. This is in light stone, in the Perpendicular style, and has two western towers. It was built at the time of the separation of the district, about 1832.
In Hatton Wall an old yard bore the name of Hat in Tun, which was interesting as showing the derivation of the word. Strype mentions in this street a very old inn, called the Bull Inn. The part of Hatton Wall to the west of Hatton Garden was known as Vine Street, and here there was "a steep descent into the Ditch, where there is a bridge that leadeth to Clerkenwell Green" (Strype). In Hatton Yard Mr. Fogg, Dickens' magistrate, presided over a police-court.
Leather Lane is called by Strype "Lither" Lane. Even in his day he reviles it as of no reputation, and this character it retains. It is one of the open street markets of London, lined with barrows and coster stalls, and abounding in low public-houses. The White Hart, the King's Head, and the Nag's Head, are mentioned by Strype, and these names survive amid innumerable others. At the south end a house with overhanging stories remains; this curtails the already narrow space across the Lane.
On the west of Leather Lane, Baldwin's Buildings and Portpool Lane open out. The former consists largely of workmen's model dwellings, comfortable and convenient within, but with the peculiarly depressing exteriors of the utilitarian style. Further north these give way to warehouses, breweries, and manufactories. East of its southern end in Holborn were two old inns, the Old Bell and Black Bull. The former was a coaching inn of great celebrity in its day, and picturesque wooden balconies surrounded its inner courtyard. It has now been transformed into a modern public-house. It was the last of the old galleried inns of London. The Black Bull was also of considerable age. Its courtyard has been converted into dwellings.
Brooke Street takes its name from Brooke Market, established here by Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, but demolished a hundred years ago. It was in Brooke Street, in a house on the west side, that poor Chatterton committed suicide. St. Alban's Church is an unpretentious building at the north end. An inscription over the north door tells us that it was erected to be free for ever to the poor by one of the humble stewards of God's mercies, with date 1860. Within we learn that this benefactor was the first Baron Addington. The church is well known for its ritualistic services.