Formerly Great Earl Street, this eastern stretch of Earlham Street was almost entirely rebuilt in the 1800s by Combe & Co. who extended their Wood Yard Brewery to take in both sides of the street. Nos. 29-39 (odd) were rebuilt between 1880 and 1886 as stables for the Brewery, in a distinctive austere style of stock brick with segmental arches to the windows. The original buildings on the site were demolished in 1880 and the original Coucumber Alley – a narrow pedestrian way through to Short’s Gardens – disappeared at that time. It was subsequently reinstated in the development of the Thomas Neal Centre. (It was here in 1989 that the northernmost evidence of Saxon London – Lundenwic – was found: remains dating from the mid-eighth century, including traces of wattle-and-daub houses and evidence of iron-working).
The brewery buildings were connected by high-level, cast-iron bridges over the street, but these were taken down after the brewery moved to Mortlake in 1905 and the buildings were then subdivided into warehouses and workshops.
