If you’ve read my about page, then you will know that I’m originally from London and I try and visit at least twice a year.
I have recently come back from a trip to London and decided to visit Hatton Garden in London. New York has the Diamond District and London has Hatton Garden. Hatton Garden is in central London, the nearest tube station is Farringdon or Chancery Lane, so it’s easy to get to. There’s a reason that I decided to visit Hatton Garden and I’ll tell you about that in my next blog post.
A little bit of history of Hatton Garden
Hatton Garden was originally the garden at Ely Place, the London residence of the Bishop of Ely. In 1581 it was given to Christopher Hatton by Queen Elizabeth I. The area has been the center of London’s jewelry trade since medieval times. Now it represents the largest cluster of jewelry retailers in the UK.
Hatton Garden has an extensive underground infrastructure of vaults, tunnels, offices and workshops. One of these vaults was broken into in 2015 and £200m worth of jewelry was stolen. It’s an interesting story and I’ll write another blog post about it in a few weeks.
Interestingly, Hatton Garden was also the home to the invention of the machine gun. Sir Hiram Maxim had a small factory at 57 Hatton Garden and in 1881 invented and started to produce the Maxim Gun, capable of firing 666 rounds a minute.
Here are some photos of my trip to Hatton Garden.
