[Music] hello and thanks for stopping by just south of spitalfields Market and east of Liverpool Street Station there lies ncane Warren of lanes and Alleyways one of which is a sound Contender for London's quirkiest street name fr Pan Alley Frying Pan Alley which connects sy's road to Bell Lane looks rather Bland nowadays a pedestrianized area lined on either side by modern buildings the only aspect which gives it any Ville character are these vintage and osts despite its nondescript appearance Frying Pan Alley is an important Survivor for it provides a reminder of a long forgotten era a time when frying pan was in fact a very common street name as this listing from 1783 shows there were at least 18 frying pan alleys dotted throughout London [Music] alone so why was the name so common well in the 18th and 19th centuries there were certain little passageways which became closely associated with iron mongers these folk would often hang a frying pan outside their premises as a means of advertising their wees not dissimilar to the fancy Merchant signs which can still be seen dangling over Lombard streets in the city's Financial heart such communities whose livelihood depended on pedaling cheap metal tended to be very poor meaning whenever you encountered a frying pan alley it was a sure sign you venturing into a deeply impoverished and sometimes dicey area the frying pan alleys which were dotted throughout London tended to be cramped overlooked places and as such they rarely appeared on maps although it is possible to find some mentions of their various incarnations hidden away in the newspaper archives we'll return to the spitter field Frying Pan Alley later but what I'd like to do now is show you the approximate locations of six other frying pan alleys which I've been able to find some record of [Music] going by the newspaper archives it would appear that for the first half of the 19th century London's most notorious Frying Pan Alley was located in Clark andwell this example used to be off of turnmill streets close to farington station and cited roughly here where broad yard now lies the old Frying Pan Alley however was anything but Broad in 1853 a report in the times stated that the entrance which was tucked away amongst a massive densely packed buildings was just 2 6 in wide the alley itself was only 20 ft long and as the report continued there would not be enough room to get a full-sized coffin out of this court without turning it on its Edge one of the earliest mentions of Clarken Bell's Frying Pan Alley comes from December 1763 when the Lloyd's Evening Post announced the death of Mrs Atkins an apparently well-known fortune teller who lived here it is incredible to imagine how many of the fair sex some of them persons of reputation curious of prying into Futurity used to visit her the obituary states such visits wouldn't have been without rislow for this Frying Pan Alley was considered a dangerous place so much so that it Formed part of an area known locally as Jack catch's Warren Jack catch having been a notoriously clumsy executioner who in the 17th century put a lot of folk from Clark andwell to a bloody botched death this area was certainly well known for harboring criminals after all it was close to Claren Bell's Frying Pan Alley on saffron Hill that's Charles Dickens based Fagan's den and indeed indeed a certain case from 1821 involving fry pan alley relates to two juvenile thieves who could have been plucked straights from the pages of Oliver Twist the two Lads in question George Cowley and Thomas head both aged 14 were pursued after a girl had a cloak stolen near saddler's Wells and they were eventually tracked down to a property on Frying Pan Alley where they were found sitting beside a fire and singing a flash song for their crime the pair would transported to Australia a sentence which they met in court with the most hardened indifference in 1866 it is reported that there were 12 houses crammed into Clarken Mall's Frying Pan Alley amongst which were packed 28 families amounting to some 200 people all of who shared just one outdoor lavatory at around this time the site was inspected by the great Victorian philanthropist the L of shrey who was told by one couple that they had to take it in turn to sit up at night in order to protect their baby from the rats which infested the alleyway eventually after being deemed dark without ventilation and therefore unfit for human habitation The Frying Pan Alley off of turnmill street was eventually Swept Away in a slam clearance Barra in suuk had a high concentration of frying pan alleys there were at least three located around here the first lurked off of the grimly named Dead Man's place which as the name hints took its name from a burial ground according to this map from 1746 you would have also found the charmingly named War's nest and uh naked boy yard here too let's move swiftly on the Dead Man's Place Frying Pan Alley would have existed just north of what's South FR street the spot is now home to a pair of chain hotels a rare reference to it can be found in a 1781 edition of the St james' Chronicle in which an individual called Jane writes what appears to be a resp response to an apparent slander which had been printed the week before suppose Mr Baldwin Jane writes my father was a carcass butcher wasn't he a dealer in Tripes Hogs puddings carves feet bulock liver and rumps and burs and didn't he keep a shop in Frying Pan Alley in Dead Man's place the second of Bar's frying pan alleys was described in one listing as being a few doors from London Bridge and leading into to Green Dragon yard it appears on a 1746 map and was located on a patch now occupied by bar Market this Frying Pan Alley was demolished in the 19th century to make way for the railways the third frying pan Ali in nura was based close to gu's Hospital off of a lane known as maiz which took its name from the great Ma pond a record of this alley dating from January 1836 which relates to the inquest of the death of an elderly resident named Mr McCarthy give some insight into the desperate poverty which existed in such places according to the report the poor fellow had starved to death after having his charity of three Shillings per week cut off his body was found lying upon the floor for he had neither bed nor bedstead and so emaciated was his corpse the bones could be seen protruding through his [Music] skin over in Lamberth a frying pan alley was located roughly where this branch of Albert embankment now runs right alongside white tart dock which Now lies grubby and abandoned although these benches fashioned from boats provide a subtle reminder of this location's Maritime heritage also as this map from 1799 shows Lamb's Frying Pan Alley was located beside another example of a street named after a naked boy naked boy Ally in this case seriously who on Earth was naming these [Music] places lambo's Frying Pan Alley is a rare example of one which happened to be photographed during its time it's undated but I think it's safe to say that this image was taken at some point in the mid to late 19th century can you imagine what it would have been like to live and work [Music] here the frying pan alleys we've encountered so far have all been in the capital's crowded Center but it would appear there was even one out in Barns a pleasant Riverside area in Southwest London thus demonstrating that in days gone by no area was free of abject poverty according to a letter written to the Richmond heav in December 1950 this Frying Pan Alley could once be found close to Barnes Bridge or more specifically according to the correspondant the passage behind the Terrace leading from long walk through the arch to Cleveland Gardens it was a collection of small dirty Cottages no Gardens doors always open crying children and neighbors quarreling and as a rule something frying hence the name now it has nice clean well-kept houses with Gardens going by this information it would appear that the bar's Frying Pan Alley was just moments from barbridge station and occupied the tucked away path now known as Malt House passage and yes it certainly is a lot nicer nowadays let's return now then to London's only surviving Frying Pan Alley the one in spitter Fields as with most of its long lost cousins this Frying Pan Alley dates back to at least the mid 18th century and as you can see from this Photograph it used to be a lot narrower than it is today for much of its life it would have also smelt the distinctly fishy too as spitter Field's Frying Pan Alley was famous for being home to barnets a company which specialized in smoking salmon barnets remained here all the way up until 1975 you can see their frying pan Addy Smokehouse in this old [Music] footage in the 19th century the East End became closely associated with Jewish communities and Frying Pan Alley was no exception a large Jewish school was built here on the South Side although sadly it was utterly destroyed during the blitz perhaps the most famous figure tell from this incarnation of Frying Pan Alley was Israel Jacob Solomon AKA Jack Solomons who was born and raised here in the early 20th century Jack is regarded to have been one of the greatest boxing promoters of all time during his long career he worked with Freddy Mills Randolph Turpin sugaray Robinson Henry Cooper and Muhammad Ali he also ran a gym in the West End on great windmill streets off of shury Avenue the site of which is now a bar although it's named in honor of [Music] Jack over the years spittle Field's Frying Pan Alley has inspired several works of literature in the 1870s Theresa Cornwallis West wrote a novel entitled Frying Pan Alley in which she described the cramped area as it appeared in those days such a place it was a narrow dark alley people were able to shake hands across from the upper Windows unsavory smells greeted you everywhere the walls were damp and filthy cabbage leaves from the Costa monger's barrows lay about the ground and the Wonder was that anyone could liveed there without being ill [Music] by far though the most famous appearance of spittle Field's Frying Pan Alley can be found in 1903s people of the Abyss an early example of undercover journalism which is written by the American Author Jack London famous for his fictional novels such as White Fang and Call of the Wild for people of the Abyss Jack immersed himself in London's poorest areas and documented what he saw chapter six of the book is entitled frying pan alley and the glimpse of The [Music] Inferno we cut off left into spitter fields and dived into Frying Pan Alley Jack tells us a spawn of children cluttered the slimy pavement for all the world like tadpoles just turned frogs on the bottom of a dry Pond Jack is then shown into a residence there were seven rooms in this Abomination called a house in six of rooms 20 odd people cooked ate slept and worked the seventh room we entered was the den in which five men sweated this referring to manual labor I.E a sweat shop it was 7 ft wide by 8T long and the table at which the work was performed took up the major portion of the space in the adjoining room lived a woman and six children in another V hole lived a widow with an only son of six 16 who is dying of consumption I know I started off this video by saying how bland frying pan naty looks today but my word I take this over those sorts of conditions every time thank you so much for watching I hope you found this Lookout to the many frying pan alies of London interesting and as always I'd love to hear your own thoughts when researching this video I found inventions of other frying pan alleys in bushy just outside of London and Manchester too are you aware of any other examples if so please do be sure to let me know in the comments if you haven't yet subscribed to robs London then I'd appreciate it very much if you could please consider doing so as this along with clicking the Bell icon to receive notifications would ensure that you don't miss out whenever I publish a new video plus of course it'll be wonderful to have you along if you're feeling extra generous you can also support my work with a tip via either my cofi account which I'll link below or the YouTube thanks button which appears as a heart icon beneath the video any such Financial donations are of course greatly appreciated and they really do help go towards creating content anyway on that note thanks again for for watching friends stay well and please be sure to stay tuned [Music]