Site of the City of London School - Milk Street London EC2V 6DN

Milk Street in the

City of London The City of London, also known as ''the City'', is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county and Districts of England, local government district with City status in the United Kingdom, city status in England. It is the Old town, his ...

, England, was the site of London's

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...

milk market. It was the location of the parish church of St Mary Magdalen which was destroyed 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 Wednesday 5 September 1666, gutting the medieval City of London inside the old London Wall, Roman city wall, while also extendi ...

in 1666 and then of Honey Lane Market and the City of London School. The street was seriously damaged by German bombing during the Second World War and has since been completely rebuilt. Nothing remains of its former buildings.

Location

The street runs between

Gresham Street Gresham Street in the City of London is named after the English merchant and financier Thomas Gresham. It runs from the junction of Lothbury, Old Jewry and Coleman Street at its eastern end, to St. Martin's Le Grand in the west. Gresham St ...

in the north and

Cheapside Cheapside is a street in the City of London, the historic and modern financial centre of London, England, which forms part of the A40 road, A40 London to Fishguard road. It links St Martin's Le Grand with Poultry, London, Poultry. Near its eas ...

in the south. The southern end beyond Russia Row is pedestrianised. On its western side it is joined to Wood Street by Compter Passage (pedestrianised). On its eastern side it is joined by Russia Row.Multiple Ordnance Survey maps,

Digimap Digimap is a web mapping and online data delivery service developed by the EDINA national data centre for UK academia. It offers a range of on-line mapping and data download facilities which provide maps and spatial data from Ordnance Survey, Bri ...

. Retrieved 6 February 2018.

Early history

Archaeological investigations of a site on the corner of the modern Milk Street and Russia Row by the

Museum of London London Museum (known from 1976 to 2024 as the Museum of London) is a museum in London, covering the history of the city from prehistoric to modern times, with a particular focus on social history. The Museum of London was formed in 1976 by ama ...

in 1976–77 found Roman remains.Schofield, John, et a
"Medieval buildings and property development in the area of Cheapside"
'' Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society'', Vol. 41 (1990), pp. 39–237. A medieval Jewish

mikveh A mikveh or mikvah (, ''mikva'ot'', ''mikvot'', or (Ashkenazi Hebrew, Ashkenazic) ''mikves'', lit., "a collection") is a bath used for ritual washing in Judaism#Full-body immersion, ritual immersion in Judaism to achieve Tumah and taharah, ...

(ritual bath) was excavated here, and is now displayed in the Jewish Museum London. Milk Street is first mentioned as "Melecstrate" in a source dating from c. 1132–1150.Milk Street.

British History Online ''British History Online'' is a digital library of primary and secondary sources on medieval and modern history of Great Britain and Ireland. It was created and is managed as a cooperative venture by the Institute of Historical Research, Universit ...

. Retrieved 6 February 2018. It was the site of medieval London's milk market and is also recorded as "Melchstrate" (1227), "Melkestrate" (1231), "Melcstrate", "Melkstrete", "Milkstrate" (1278–79), "Milcstrate" (1279), and "Milkestretende". Sources record that there was a "great Fire in Milkstrete and Bread Street" in 1264.

Sir Thomas More Sir Thomas More (7 February 1478 – 6 July 1535), venerated in the Catholic Church as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, judge, social philosopher, author, statesman, theologian, and noted Renaissance humanist. He also served Henry V ...

, author of ''

Utopia A utopia ( ) typically describes an imagined community or society that possesses highly desirable or near-perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book ''Utopia (book), Utopia'', which describes a fictiona ...

'' (1516), whose parents lived in Milk Street, was later said, without documentation, to have been born there in February 1478,"Milk Street"
in and a plaque at the north end of the street marks the approximate spot. Sir Thomas Gresham was also in 1519, born in Milk Street. The south end of the street was the site of the parish church of St Mary Magdalen before the church was destroyed in the

in 1666. The parish was then merged with the adjacent

St Lawrence Jewry St Lawrence Jewry next Guildhall is a Church of England guild church in the City of London on Gresham Street, next to the Guildhall. It was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666, and rebuilt to the designs of Sir Christopher Wren. It is ...

and Honey Lane Market built on the site which at one time had 105 butchers' stalls. Edward Hatton noted in 1708 that the market was known for its meat, fish and poultry.

Later history

By 1835 the market had closed and the

City of London School The City of London School, also known as CLS and City, is a Private schools in the United Kingdom, private day school for Single-sex education, boys in the City of London, England, on the banks of the River Thames next to the Millennium Bridge, ...

was built on the market site on the corner with Russia Row."Honey Lane Market"
in Hibbert et al., ''The London Encyclopaedia'', p. 413. It was paid for with money bequeathed for the purpose by

John Carpenter John Howard Carpenter (born January 16, 1948) is an American filmmaker, composer, and actor. Most commonly associated with horror film, horror, action film, action, and science fiction film, science fiction films of the 1970s and 1980s, he is ...

, city clerk in the reign of

King Henry V Henry V (16 September 1386 – 31 August 1422), also called Henry of Monmouth, was King of England from 1413 until his death in 1422. Despite his relatively short reign, Henry's outstanding military successes in the Hundred Years' War against ...

. It outgrew this site and in 1883 the school moved to the

Victoria Embankment Victoria Embankment is part of the Thames Embankment (the other section is the Chelsea Embankment), a road and river-walk along the north bank of the River Thames in London, England. Built in the 1860s, it runs from the Palace of Westminster to ...

. The street was seriously damaged by German bombing on 29 December 1940"Milk Street EC2" in Al Smith (1970) ''Dictionary of City of London Street Names''. Newton Abbot: David & Charles. p. 139. at its southern end and at the north end on the western side. It has since been completely rebuilt with offices and some retail premises at ground level. The east side between Gresham Street and Russia Row is an office building of known as 30 Gresham Street that was developed by

Land Securities Land Securities Group plc, trading as Landsec, is the largest commercial property development and investment company in the United Kingdom. The firm became a real estate investment trust (REIT) when REITs were introduced in the United Kingdom i ...

in 2002–03. It was described at the time as "the biggest speculative office development in the capital". As a result of Second World War bombing and post-war redevelopment, nothing remains of Milk Street's original buildings or of the small courts and alleys that once joined it on both sides: Mitre Court and Feathers Court on its western side, and Mumford Court and Honey Lane Market on the eastern side. Robin Hood Alley, which has also been called Robinson's Court, Robin Hood Court and Robin Court, once joined it to Russia Row but that alley also no longer exists.

Gallery

File:City of London School J.Woods after Hablot Browne & Garland publ 1837 edited.jpg, City of London School, Milk Street. Hand-coloured engraving by J. Woods and

Hablot Knight Browne Hablot Knight Browne (10 July 1815 – 8 July 1882) was a British artist and illustrator. Well known by his pen name, Phiz, he illustrated books by Charles Dickens, Charles Lever, Augustus Septimus Mayhew and Harrison Ainsworth. Early life Of Fr ...

after a sketch by Robert Garland. Published 1838. File:Morley's warehouses, corner of Milk Street and Gresham Street, c. 1840.jpg, I & R Morley's warehouses, corner of Milk Street and Gresham Street, c. 1840. Lithograph by Martin & Hood after an original by William Wallen. File:Milk Street 1875 Ordnance Survey map.jpg, Milk Street (centre, vertical) on an 1875 Ordnance Survey map.Ordnance Survey, 1875. Digimap. Retrieved 6 February 2018. File:City of London Bomb Damage Map Wood Street and Milk Street.jpg,

London Blitz London is the capital and largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Western Europe, with a population of 14.9 million. London stands on the River Tha ...

bomb damage map, c. 1945 (purple: damaged beyond repair; scarlet: seriously damaged, doubtful if repairable; other colours: lower levels of damage)The meticulously hand-coloured bomb damage maps of London – in pictures.
''The Guardian'', 2 September 2015. Retrieved 4 February 2018.

References

External links

{{coords, 51.5150, -0.0936, display=title Streets in the City of London