Mark Lane is a 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

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 ...

and

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 ...

. It gave its name to the nearby

Mark Lane tube station Mark Lane is a disused station on the London Underground. It was served by the Circle and District lines. In 1946 it was renamed Tower Hill. It was named after Mark Lane, the street on which it is located, slightly west of the current Towe ...

, which was opened in 1884, renamed Tower Hill in 1964, and closed three years later. For some 240 years, Mark Lane was known for the

Corn Exchange A corn exchange is a building where merchants trade grains. The word "corn" in British English denotes all cereal grains, such as wheat and barley; in the United States these buildings were called grain exchange. Such trade was common in towns ...

(which was the only market in London for corn, grain and seed); it occupied a series of properties on the east side of the southern end of the street.

Description

At its northern end, Mark Lane originates as a two-way side-road off Fenchurch Street, leading to Dunster Court, the home 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 ...

since 1456. From the south, it is a one-way turn off Great Tower Street; the one-way stretch ends at London Street. The street plays host to a number of offices and restaurants. The nearest London Underground station is

Tower Hill Tower Hill is the area surrounding the Tower of London in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is infamous for the public execution of high status prisoners from the late 14th to the mid 18th century. The execution site on the higher gro ...

(

Circle A circle is a shape consisting of all points in a plane that are at a given distance from a given point, the centre. Equivalently, it is the curve traced out by a point that moves in a plane so that its distance from a given point is const ...

and

District line The District line is a London Underground line running from in the east and Edgware Road in the west to in west London, where it splits into multiple branches. One branch runs to in south-west London and a short branch, with a limited serv ...

s) and the nearest mainline railway station is

(with services towards east London and Essex). Near the northern end of the lane stood the medieval Church of

All Hallows Staining All Hallows Staining was a Church of England church located at the junction of Mark Lane and Dunster Court in the north-eastern corner of Langbourn ward in the City of London, England, close to Fenchurch Street railway station. All that remains ...

, which was demolished in 1870 when its parish was united with nearby St Olave's Church, Hart Street. Only the 12th or 13th century bell tower survives at the junction with Dunster Court. It is a Grade I listed building. According to the

antiquarian An antiquarian or antiquary () is an fan (person), aficionado or student of antiquities or things of the past. More specifically, the term is used for those who study history with particular attention to ancient artifact (archaeology), artifac ...

John Stow, writing at the end of the 16th century, the name of the lane is derived from a former cattle market or "mart" once held there.

Corn exchanges

Microcosm of London Plate 033 - Corn Exchange

In the nineteenth century 'Mark Lane' was a

metonym Metonymy () is a figure of speech in which a concept is referred to by the name of something closely associated with that thing or concept. Etymology The words ''metonymy'' and ''metonym'' come from grc, μετωνυμία, 'a change of name' ...

for London's corn and grain markets.'The Leisure Hour', 1856, quoted i
victorianlondon.org
The first Corn Exchange opened on Mark Lane in 1747, bringing together the various agents who sold oats, beans and all kinds of grain on behalf of the farmers. (Corn, brought by river into the city, was customarily landed at Bear Quay, not far from the Exchange). The Corn Exchange, designed by

George Dance the Elder George Dance the Elder (1695 – 8 February 1768) was a British architect. He was the City of London surveyor and architect from 1735 until his death. Life Originally a mason, George Dance was appointed Clerk of the city works to the City of ...

in the

classical style Classical architecture usually denotes architecture which is more or less consciously derived from the principles of Greek and Roman architecture of classical antiquity, or sometimes even more specifically, from the works of the Roman architect V ...

, was built around a courtyard which was open to the sky. The courtyard was surrounded by stalls or counters at which samples were available of the goods being traded. Either side of the Exchange were coffee-houses, where further business was transacted. In 1826 a rival exchange was set up by a group of discontented traders (the London Corn Exchange). Permission having been granted by Parliament, they established their 'new' exchange, also in Mark Lane, immediately alongside the 'old'; it was designed, in the Greek style, by George Smith and opened in 1828. In 1882, the 'Old Exchange' was largely demolished and replaced by a far larger building (designed by

Edward I'Anson Edward I'Anson (25 July 1812 – 30 January 1888) was an English architect who was president of both the Royal Institute of British Architects and the Surveyors' Institution. He was a leading designer of commercial buildings in the City of Londo ...

) in the

Italianate style The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian R ...

. Both exchanges continued in operation until they were amalgamated in 1926. Smith's 'New Exchange' was demolished five years later; ten years after that, I'Anson's 1882 Corn Exchange was destroyed in

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 ...

. Its replacement, by Terence Heysham, was opened in 1952 (its operation funded in part by the commercial letting of an eight-storey office block built as part of the design). Twenty years later it too was demolished and rebuilt; but the Corn Exchange continued trading 'cereals of every kind, pulse vegetables, flour, seeds, animal feeds and fertilisers'. After several years' decline in trading the Corn Exchange building on Mark Lane closed in 1987; at the same time the market, and its remaining traders, relocated to the

Baltic Exchange The Baltic Exchange (incorporated as The Baltic Exchange Limited) is a membership organisation for the maritime industry, and freight market information provider for the trading and settlement of physical and derivative contracts. It was locate ...

in St Mary Axe. The name 'Corn Exchange' is preserved in the name of the building at number 55, Mark Lane.

In popular culture

Dornford Yates Cecil William Mercer (7 August 1885 – 5 March 1960), known by his pen name Dornford Yates, was an English writer and novelist whose novels and short stories, some humorous (the ''Berry'' books), some thrillers (the ''Chandos'' books), were be ...

used Mark Lane as a setting for some of the action in his 1939 thriller, ''

Gale Warning A gale warning is an alert issued by national weather forecasting agencies around the world in an event that maritime locations currently or imminently experiencing winds of gale force on the Beaufort scale. Gale warnings (and gale watches) a ...

''. It is the location of the fictitious "City Conservative Club".

Notable people

* Thomas Boddington, slave-owner and philanthropist, who shared an office in Mark Lane with his brother Benjamin in the 18th century *

Alexander Ellice (slave trader) Alexander Ellice (17431805) was a Scottish merchant, landowner and lawyer who made his fortune in the North American fur trade. Early life He was born in Auchterless, Scotland, the eldest of five sons of a successful miller, also named Alexande ...

established an office in Mark Lane

References

{{coord, 51, 30, 37, N, 0, 4, 50, W, display=title Streets in the City of London

Description

Corn exchanges

In popular culture

Notable people

See also

References