Syson, as a
hosier's shop. The other buildings on both sides were small and
insignificant, and they were mostly pulled down when the Great Western
Railway Company tunneled under the street to make their line to Snow
Hill. "Taylor and Lloyd's" Bank was then in Dale End. The passage
running by the side of their premises is still called "Bank Alley."
Carrs Lane had a very narrow opening, and the Corn Exchange was not
built. Most of the courts and passages in High Street were then filled
with small dwelling houses, and the workshops of working bookbinders.
Messrs. Westley Richards and Co. had their gun factory in one of them.
The large pile of buildings built by Mr. Richards for Laing and Co., and
now occupied by Messrs. Manton, the Bodega Company, and others, is the
most important variation from the High Street of forty years ago. The
narrow footpaths and contracted roadway were as inconveniently crowded
as they are to-day. The house now occupied by Innes, Smith, and Co. was
then a grocer's shop, and the inscription over the door was "Dakin and
Ridgway," two names which now, in London, are known to everybody as
those of the most important retail tea dealers in the metropolis.
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