The Livery Newsletter and Gazette Issue 32 Spring 2020 | Page 26

Halls and Taverns: the historic meeting places of
The Worshipful Company of Tobacco Pipe Makers
Since the Company’s revival in the 1950s, our Court
meetings and dinners have taken place in the beautiful
and historic surroundings of various City Livery
Halls. However, in previous centuries our peripatetic
forebears met in more down-to-earth surroundings
– the inns, taverns and alehouses tucked away in the
myriad ancient alleys and side streets that made up the
City of London before the Blitz.
August 1807 saw a Special Court taking place in the
Castle Tavern, Cateaton Street to decide what to do
about a new manufactory being set up by pipe-makers
who were not Company Freemen. Cateaton Street
(or Catte Street) no longer exists, but if you stand on
Gresham Street just outside St Lawrence Jewry you
can imagine its original route. In 1845, Gresham
Street was created by widening and amalgamating
Cateaton Street, Maiden Lane, St. Anne’s Lane and
Lad Lane. Cateaon Street was that part of Gresham
Street which now extends east from Ironmonger Lane,
past St. Lawrence Jewry, to Milk Street. Its name is
retained in the Cateaton Meeting Room, for hire at 85
Gresham Street. As to the Castle Tavern, next time
you visit St Lawrence Jewry, pause for a moment on
the west corner of King Street where it meets Gresham
Street and look up. Mounted on the wall you’ll see a
stone sign for the Castle Tavern.
certainly not far from its original location, a reminder
of London past and past meetings of our Livery
Company.
2 October 1809 saw the Company meeting at the
Edinburgh Tavern, Sweeting’s Alley, Cornhill,
discussing an “unnecessary and improper conspiracy”
amongst Master Pipe Makers to increase prices by 25
per cent, risking damage to the trade of many licensed
victuallers in the City.
Swithin’s or Sweeting’s Alley / Sweeting’s Rents
was situated at the east end of the Royal Exchange.
In 1760, an Edinburgh Coffee House is recorded
in Sweeting’s Alley. This probably became the
Edinburgh Tavern, which was still in existence at 1
Sweeting’s Rents in 1832 but had disappeared by 1840,
swept away with the rest of Sweeting’s Alley to make
way for the new Royal Exchange Buildings which
opened in 1844. The site is now covered by the paved
area of Exchange Buildings leading to Threadneedle
Street.
Such signs, made in stone or wood, were a common
sight in the City until early Victorian times. Many
are now stored in the Museum of London and put out
occasionally during a temporary display. This sign is
26
On 19 January 1819, the Company met at the Peacock
Tavern at 34 Lower Whitecross Street, Cripplegate
to agree the price of pipes following a wage rise for
Journeymen. At that time, Whitecross Street ran from
Old Street in the north to Cripplegate in the south.
The Peacock brewhouse dated from at least 1550 and
the Peacock tavern (the brewery tap) had been called
a “House of Humming Stingo” by Ned Ward in his
famous London pub guide of 1718. It moved to 12
Whitecross Street during the latter part of the 19th
century but was destroyed during the Blitz when