Poultry (formerly also Poultrey) is a short 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 f ...
, which is the historic nucleus and modern financial centre of
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
. It is an eastern continuation of
Cheapside
Cheapside is a street in the City of London, the historic and modern financial centre of London, which forms part of the A40 London to Fishguard road. It links St. Martin's Le Grand with Poultry. Near its eastern end at Bank junction, whe ...
, between
Old Jewry and Mansion House Street, towards
Bank junction.
Etymology
Poultry takes its name, like other roads nearby such as Milk Street and
Bread Street, from the various produce once sold at Cheapside (meaning "market-place" in
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th ...
).
John Stow
John Stow (''also'' Stowe; 1524/25 – 5 April 1605) was an English historian and antiquarian. He wrote a series of chronicles of English history, published from 1565 onwards under such titles as ''The Summarie of Englyshe Chronicles'', ''The ...
, writing at the end of the 16th century, noted that "the
poulterers are but lately departed from thence into other streets".
History
The thoroughfare was also known for some time as Conningshop Lane/Coneys shop lane due to the brace of three stuffed
coney skins over a notable poulterer's stall, thus who also served game. From the 15th to early 17th century, the lane had several taverns, but few were rebuilt after the
Great Fire of 1666.
[
Part of north side hosted the church of ]Saint Mildred
Saint Mildrith, also Mildthryth, Mildryth and Mildred, ( ang, Mildþrȳð) (born c. 660, died after 732), was a 7th and 8th-century Anglo-Saxon abbess of the Abbey at Minster-in-Thanet, Kent. She was declared a saint after her death, and later he ...
. Rebuilt after the Great Fire to the designs of Sir Christopher Wren
Sir Christopher Wren PRS FRS (; – ) was one of the most highly acclaimed English architects in history, as well as an anatomist, astronomer, geometer, and mathematician-physicist. He was accorded responsibility for rebuilding 52 church ...
, it was demolished in 1872 and its site used to build the Gresham Life Assurance office.[Wheatley 1891, Volume 3,p.116] In 1891, Henry B. Wheatley wrote that, with the removal of the church, "the clearing away of the old houses on both sides of the way, and the erection in their place of large blocks of offices and shops of considerable architectural pretensions, and the general widening of the thoroughfare, the Poultry has since 1850 been entirely changed in character and aspect."[Wheatley 1891, Volume 3, p.117]
The street gave its name to a prison, Poultry Compter
Poultry Compter (also known as Poultry Counter) was a small prison that stood at Poultry, part of Cheapside in the City of London. The compter was used to lock up minor criminals and prisoners convicted under civil law and was run by the ...
. It was a brick building in its heyday having fifteen wards, of which one for Jews. It was closed in the early 19th century and its prisoners transferred to the new White Cross/Whitecross Street Compter/Prison.
Notable buildings
Although short it is lined by notable buildings. No 1 Poultry
No 1 Poultry is a building in the City of London, allocated to office and commercial use. It occupies the apex where the eastern ends of Poultry and Queen Victoria Street meet at Mansion House Street, the western approach to Bank junction.
T ...
is a postmodern
Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or Rhetorical modes, mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by philosophical skepticism, skepticis ...
office and retail building which is home to the Coq d'Argent restaurant, which includes a rooftop terrace and formal garden, and takes up what were numbers 1 to 17. Opposite, a wide alley, Grocers' Hall Court, leads to the livery hall of the Worshipful Company of Grocers
The Worshipful Company of Grocers is one of the 110 Livery Companies of the City of London and ranks second in order of precedence. The Grocers' Company was established in 1345 for merchants occupied in the trade of grocer and is one of the Gr ...
, one of the City's original twelve great livery companies that ranks second in their order of precedence
An order of precedence is a sequential hierarchy of nominal importance and can be applied to individuals, groups, or organizations. Most often it is used in the context of people by many organizations and governments, for very formal and state o ...
. Its main entrance is on Princes Street.
The bulk of the north side 27–35 Poultry was the London headquarters of Midland Bank, a Grade I listed building.Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...
game show ''The Bank Job
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the ...
'', broadcast in 2012.
References
Sources
*{{cite book, title=London Past and Present: Its History, Associations and Traditions, last=Wheatley, first=Henry B., year=1891, publisher=John Murray, location=London, volume=3
Google Maps
Streets in the City of London