The Mercers’ estate between Shelton Street and Long Acre has belonged to the company since 1530. It is a field of ten acres, the remnant of a larger bequest to the Company comprising some 149 acres of pasture and arable in what were then the rural Middlesex parishes of St. Martin-in-the-Fields and St. Margaret’s Westminster and Marylebone.
In 1542 Henry VIII forced the company to relinquish the ownership of most of this estate leaving them with only the field of ten acres, known as the Elm Field, situated between Drury Lane on the east and St. Martin’s Lane on the west. The boundary between the two properties was a foot-path known as the Long Acre.
By 1755, Long Acre was dominated by the coach building industry and its ancillary crafts, such as harness makers, joiners and wheelwrights. In 1906, forty-one buildings in the street were occupied by firms associated with transport, a mixture of traditional coach-builders and those connected with the motor trade. By 1916, the transition to motor cars and related trades was almost complete with showrooms for Austin Motors, Mercedes-Benz, Daimler and Fiat.
