Mincing Lane is a short one-way street in the

City of London The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London fr ...

linking

Fenchurch Street Fenchurch Street is a street in London linking Aldgate at its eastern end with Lombard Street and Gracechurch Street in the west. It is a well-known thoroughfare in the City of London financial district and is the site of many corporate office ...

Great Tower Street Great Tower Street, originally known just as Tower Street, is a street in the City of London, the historic nucleus and modern financial centre of London. It forms an eastern continuation of Eastcheap starting at Idol Lane, and leads towards Bywa ...

. In the late 19th century it was the world's leading centre for tea and spice trading.

Etymology

Its name is a corruption of Mynchen Lane — so-called from the tenements held there by the

Benedictine , image = Medalla San Benito.PNG , caption = Design on the obverse side of the Saint Benedict Medal , abbreviation = OSB , formation = , motto = (English: 'Pray and Work') , foun ...

'mynchens' or nuns of the nearby

St Helen's Bishopsgate St Helen's Bishopsgate is an Anglican church in London. It is located in Great St Helen's, off Bishopsgate. It is the largest surviving parish church in the City of London. Several notable figures are buried there, and it contains more monumen ...

church (from ''Minicen'',

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...

for a nun; ''minchery'', a

nunnery A convent is a community of monks, nuns, religious brothers or, sisters or priests. Alternatively, ''convent'' means the building used by the community. The word is particularly used in the Catholic Church, Lutheran churches, and the Anglican C ...

). ''A Dictionary of London'' by Henry A. Harben (1918) describes it as follows:

Mincing Lane :North out of
Great Tower Street Great Tower Street, originally known just as Tower Street, is a street in the City of London, the historic nucleus and modern financial centre of London. It forms an eastern continuation of Eastcheap starting at Idol Lane, and leads towards Bywa ...
to
Fenchurch Street Fenchurch Street is a street in London linking Aldgate at its eastern end with Lombard Street and Gracechurch Street in the west. It is a well-known thoroughfare in the City of London financial district and is the site of many corporate office ...
at No. 42 (P.O. Directory). In
Tower A tower is a tall Nonbuilding structure, structure, taller than it is wide, often by a significant factor. Towers are distinguished from guyed mast, masts by their lack of guy-wires and are therefore, along with tall buildings, self-supporting ...
and
Langbourn Langbourn is one of the 25 ancient wards of the City of London. It reputedly is named after a buried stream in the vicinity. It is a small ward; a long thin area, running in a west–east direction. Historically, Lombard Street and Fenchurch ...
Wards. :Earliest mention: "Menechinelane," 1273-4 (Ct. H.W. I. 17). :Other forms of name: "Mengenelane," 1290-1 (ib. 95). "Mangonelane," 1291 (ib. 96). "Monechenelane," 1291 (ib. 101). "Menchenelane," 1294-5 (ib. 119). "Manionelane," 1295 (ib. 121) and 1311 (Cal. L. Bk. D. p. 77). "Menchonelane," 1304 (Ct. H.W. I. 162). "Manchonlane," 1306-7 (ib. 184). "Menionelane," 1312 (ib. 230). "Mangonelane," 1320 (ib. 288). "Mengonelane," 1321 (ib. 292). "Mengeoneslane," 1324 (ib. 309). "Mengeonlane," 1330 (ib. 361). "Myniounlane," 1349 (ib. 577). "Munchenlane," 1348-9 (ib. 528). "Monechunelane," 1349 (ib. 553). "Manchonelane," 36 Ed. III. (Ch. I. p.m. pt. 2, 71). "Minchonlane," 1393 (Ct. H.W. II. 299). "Mynchenlane," 1398-9 (ib. 337). "Mynchyn lane," 28 H. VIII. (Lond. I. p.m. Lond. and Midd. Arch. Soc. VII. (p. 55). "Mynsing Lane," 1601 (H. MSS. Com. Salisbury, XI. 315). :The A.S. word "mynechenu" = female of "munuc" = monk. :
Halliwell Halliwell is a surname. It may refer to: People * Bryn Halliwell (born 1980), English football goalkeeper * Danny Halliwell (born 1981), rugby league footballer who played in the 2000s and 2010s * David Halliwell (1936–2006), British dramatis ...
in his ''Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words'' gives "Minch" = a nun, and it is suggested that this street derives its name through this word from the A.S. "mynechenu," the "mynchens" or nuns of St. Helens who held property there. :At the north-eastern end of this lane remains of a
Roman bath In ancient Rome, (from Greek , "hot") and (from Greek ) were facilities for bathing. usually refers to the large imperial bath complexes, while were smaller-scale facilities, public or private, that existed in great numbers throughout ...
,
hypocaust A hypocaust ( la, hypocaustum) is a system of central heating in a building that produces and circulates hot air below the floor of a room, and may also warm the walls with a series of pipes through which the hot air passes. This air can warm th ...
, etc., have been found, and Roman pavements on the western side of the street.

In addition, the entry "Mngenelane" in Harben's ''Dictionary'' suggests "Mngenelane = Mengenelane".

History

It was for some years the world's leading centre for tea and spice trading after the

British East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southea ...

successfully took over all trading ports from the

Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( nl, Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the VOC) was a chartered company established on the 20th March 1602 by the States General of the Netherlands amalgamating existing companies into the first joint-stock ...

in 1799. It was the centre of the British

opium Opium (or poppy tears, scientific name: ''Lachryma papaveris'') is dried latex obtained from the seed capsules of the opium poppy ''Papaver somniferum''. Approximately 12 percent of opium is made up of the analgesic alkaloid morphine, which i ...

business (comprising 90% of all transactions), as well as other drugs in the 18th century. Businesses in the British

slave trade Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...

, such as Hibbert, Purrier and Horton (founded 1770), were also based in Mincing Lane. It is mentioned in chapter 16 of

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...

' ''

Our Mutual Friend ''Our Mutual Friend'', written in 1864–1865, is the last novel completed by Charles Dickens and is one of his most sophisticated works, combining savage satire with social analysis. It centres on, in the words of critic J. Hillis Miller, quo ...

'', where it is briefly described: :''"

ella Ella may refer to: * Ella (name), most often a feminine given name, but also used as a surname Places United States * Ella, Kentucky, an unincorporated community * Ella, Oregon, an unincorporated community * Ella, Pennsylvania, an unincorporate ...

arrived in the drug-flavoured region of Mincing Lane, with the sensation of having just opened a drawer in a chemist's shop."'' It was mentioned by ''

Round the Horne ''Round the Horne'' is a BBC Radio comedy programme starring Kenneth Horne, first transmitted in four series of weekly episodes from 1965 until 1968. The show was created by Barry Took and Marty Feldman, who wrote the first three series. The fo ...

'' radio show scriptwriters, who regularly used the proper noun word 'Mincing' in the

Polari Polari () is a form of slang or cant used in Britain and Ireland by some actors, circus and fairground showmen, professional wrestlers, merchant navy sailors, criminals, sex workers and the gay subculture. There is some debate about its origins ...

-Adjectival sense, meaning an effeminate, male gait. In 1834, when the East India Company ceased to be a commercial enterprise, and tea became a 'free trade' commodity,

tea auctions Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by pouring hot or boiling water over cured or fresh leaves of '' Camellia sinensis'', an evergreen shrub native to East Asia which probably originated in the borderlands of southwestern China and north ...

were held in the London Commercial Salerooms on Mincing Lane. Tea merchants established offices in and around the street, earning it the nickname 'Street of Tea'. A notable building is the livery hall of the

Worshipful Company of Clothworkers The Worshipful Company of Clothworkers was incorporated by Royal Charter in 1528, formed by the amalgamation of its two predecessor companies, the Fullers (incorporated 1480) and the Shearmen (incorporated 1508). It succeeded to the position of t ...

. The current building, opened in 1958, is the sixth to stand on the site; the fourth was burnt down in the

Great Fire of London The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through central London from Sunday 2 September to Thursday 6 September 1666, gutting the medieval City of London inside the old Roman city wall, while also extending past the ...

and the fifth was destroyed during

the Blitz The Blitz was a German bombing campaign against the United Kingdom in 1940 and 1941, during the Second World War. The term was first used by the British press and originated from the term , the German word meaning 'lightning war'. The Germa ...

of World War II. A modern landmark partly bounded by Mincing Lane is

Plantation Place 30 Fenchurch Street is one of the largest office developments in the City of London, the primary financial district of London. Until October 2020, the building was known as Plantation Place, taking its name from a previous Plantation House, once ...

, completed in 2004, and its sister building

Plantation Place South Plantation Place South is an office building in the City of London. It consists of nine floors and forms part of a complex consisting of the larger 30 Fenchurch Street to the north. The building was designed by the Arup Associates architects' gr ...

Minster Court

Minster Court is a complex of three office buildings, completed between 1991 and 1992 and designed by architects GMW Partnership. During the final phase of fitting-out on 7 August 1991, there was a fire in the atrium of No. 3 Minster Court which caused a serious delay in completion. The style has been described as "''postmodern-gothic''". Wild horses wouldn't drag me in here - geograph

Wild horses wouldn't drag me in here - geograph

In the forecourt, on Mincing Lane, are three bronze horses that are each over 3 metres tall, sculpted by

Althea Wynne Althea Kathleen Wynne (6 October 1936 – 24 January 2012), also known by her married names of Dresman and Barrington Brown, was an English sculptor and art teacher, and a Fellow of the Royal British Society of Sculptors. She specialized in ...

; they have been nicknamed "''Dollar''", "''Yen''" and "''Sterling''". It appeared briefly in

Disney's The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...

1996 live-action movie '' 101 Dalmatians'' as the exterior of

Cruella De Vil Cruella de Vil is a fictional character in British author Dodie Smith's 1956 novel ''The Hundred and One Dalmatians''. A pampered and glamorous London heiress and fashion designer, she appears in Walt Disney Productions' 17th animated feature fi ...

's haute couture fashion house, "''House of DeVil''". It also appeared as the location of the architectural practice of Peter Manson (played by

Trevor Eve Trevor John Eve (born 1 July 1951) is an English film and television actor. In 1979 he gained fame as the eponymous lead in the detective series '' Shoestring'' and is also known for his role as Detective Superintendent Peter Boyd in BBC telev ...

) in the 2010 remake of '' Bouquet of Barbed Wire.'' The stairs leading to the forecourt also appeared briefly in the 1999 music video for the song "

Coffee & TV "Coffee & TV" is a song by the British rock band Blur. It was written by the band's guitarist, Graham Coxon, who also sang lead vocals rather than frontman Damon Albarn. The song appears on Blur's sixth studio album, '' 13'' (1999), and was t ...

" by the British rock band Blur.

London Underwriting Centre

Situated in No. 3 Minster Court, the London Underwriting Centre (LUC) is intended to run in parallel with the Underwriting Room at

Lloyd's of London Lloyd's of London, generally known simply as Lloyd's, is an insurance and reinsurance market located in London, England. Unlike most of its competitors in the industry, it is not an insurance company; rather, Lloyd's is a corporate body gov ...

, providing a facility for insurance underwriters to meet

broker A broker is a person or firm who arranges transactions between a buyer and a seller for a commission when the deal is executed. A broker who also acts as a seller or as a buyer becomes a principal party to the deal. Neither role should be confu ...

s at a single venue (the

Lloyd's building The Lloyd's building (sometimes known as the Inside-Out Building) is the home of the insurance institution Lloyd's of London. It is located on the former site of East India House in Lime Street, in London's main financial district, the City of ...

itself being only open to Lloyd's syndicate underwriters). The LUC specialises in international insurance and

reinsurance Reinsurance is insurance that an insurance company purchases from another insurance company to insulate itself (at least in part) from the risk of a major claims event. With reinsurance, the company passes on ("cedes") some part of its own insu ...

, and can be visited by up to 4,000 brokers each day.

References

External links

Spice Trading

The history of spices is the history of trade
{{coord , 51, 30, 39, N, 0, 04, 54, W, display=title Streets in the City of London