No. 43, Earlham Street
No. 43 Earlham Street is the side return of no. 25, Neal Street. It is part of the group of substantially scaled, mid-19th century, London Stock brick-faced, former brewery buildings, formally (grade II) listed as nos. 29-43 (odd), Earlham Street and nos. 8-26 (even) Short’s Gardens.
The group comprises a series of five, conjoined, three-storey buildings of similar scale and character extending for some nineteen bays along the street, screening the once open courtyard at the centre of the site, glazed-over and converted into a retail and restaurant centre - Thomas Neal’s/The Thomas Neal Centre in the early 1990s, now the Seven Dials Market.
After the closure and relocation of the brewery in 1905 much of this block became a box-factory for the once renowned caterers and food-manufacturers, J. Lyons & Co. The street-elevations possess a distinctly robust, industrial character with extensive deep-set window and other openings, with segmental, brick-arched heads – many double-arched at ground floor level.
Red brick bands are carried across some of the buildings. The lower parts of the jambs and cills of many of the openings at ground floor level are formed in grey granite. Many windows contain modern, subdivided casements, others, particular at ground floor level, retain, fixed, subdivided, cast-iron glazing in their upper parts above transoms spring from grey-granite cushions.
Towards the eastern end, inward-opening, timber-boarded hoist-doors and a small hoist survive at high level, together with the springing points of the former ironwork bridge that once crossed the street. No. 43, has a splay corner to Neal Street, containing large window and door openings serving the retail use within.
A listed complex of former industrial buildings of particular special architectural and historic interest and considerable townscape value contributing substantially to the character, appearance and significance of the Seven Dials Conservation Area.
Surviving external features of historic interest and significance should be retained.
43 Earlham Street
41-43a Earlham Street (1968). Courtesy London Metropolitan Archives.
41-43b Earlham Street (1968). Courtesy London Metropolitan Archives.
The Woodyard Brewery in 1888, showing the cast-iron bridges between buildings, spanning Shelton and Earlham Streets.
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