Hatton Garden is a street and area near Holborn

Holborn

Holborn is an area of Central London. Holborn is also the name of the area's principal east-west street, running as High Holborn from St Giles's High Street to Gray's Inn Road and then on to Holborn Viaduct...

 in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, England. It is most famous for being London’s jewellery quarter and centre of the UK diamond trade, but the area is also now home to a diverse range of media and creative businesses.

The name ‘Hatton Garden’ is derived from the garden of the Bishop of Ely

Bishop of Ely

The Bishop of Ely is the Ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Ely in the Province of Canterbury. The diocese roughly covers the county of Cambridgeshire , together with a section of north-west Norfolk and has its see in the City of Ely, Cambridgeshire, where the seat is located at the...

, which was given to Sir Christopher Hatton

Christopher Hatton

Sir Christopher Hatton was an English politician, Lord Chancellor of England and a favourite of Elizabeth I of England.-Early days:...

 by Elizabeth I

Elizabeth I of England

Elizabeth I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty...

 in 1581, during a vacancy of the see.

The area around Hatton Garden has been the centre of London's jewellery

Jewellery

Jewellery or jewelry is a form of personal adornment, such as brooches, rings, necklaces, earrings, and bracelets.With some exceptions, such as medical alert bracelets or military dog tags, jewellery normally differs from other items of personal adornment in that it has no other purpose than to...

 trade since medieval times. The old City of London had certain streets, or quarters, dedicated to types of business, and the area around Hatton Garden became a centre for jewellers and jewellery.

Nearly 300 of the businesses in Hatton Garden are in the jewellery industry and over 55 shops represent the largest cluster of jewellery retailers in the UK. The largest of these companies is De Beers

De Beers

De Beers is a family of companies that dominate the diamond, diamond mining, diamond trading and industrial diamond manufacturing sectors. De Beers is active in every category of industrial diamond mining: open-pit, underground, large-scale alluvial, coastal and deep sea...

, the international family of companies that dominate the international diamond trade. De Beers has its headquarters in a complex of offices and warehouses just behind the main Hatton Garden shopping street.

Hatton Garden also has a large number of media, publishing and creative businesses, including Grey (advertising agency), Terrapin (conference organiser), Publishing Events (contract publisher), Thomson Reuters (business information publisher), The Domarn Group (design agency), Knightstone Publishing (book publishing) and The Energy Exchange (conference organiser).

The nearby streets including Hatton Place and Saffron Hill

Saffron Hill

Saffron Hill is the name of a street in the south eastern corner of the London Borough of Camden, between Farringdon Road and Hatton Garden. The name of the street derives from the fact that it was at one time part of an estate on which saffron grew....

 have become more residential in recent years with the building of several blocks of 'luxury' apartments, including the architecturally distinctive Ziggurat Building.

Ely Place, off Hatton Garden, is home to St Etheldreda's Church

St Etheldreda's Church

St Etheldreda's Church is located in Ely Place, off Charterhouse Street, Holborn, London. It is dedicated to Æthelthryth, or Etheldreda, an Anglo-Saxon saint who founded the monastery at Ely in 673. The building was the chapel of the London residence of the Bishops of Ely.The chapel was purchased ...

 – one of the oldest Roman Catholic church in England and one of only two remaining buildings in London dating from the reign of Edward 1.

Michael Flanders

Michael Flanders

Michael Henry Flanders OBE, was an English actor, broadcaster, and writer and performer of comic songs. He is best known to the general public for his partnership with Donald Swann performing as the duo Flanders and Swann....

 and Donald Swann

Donald Swann

Donald Ibrahím Swann was a British composer, musician and entertainer. He is best known to the general public for his partnership of writing and performing comic songs with Michael Flanders .-Life:...

 (humorists of the 1960s and 1970s), celebrated Hatton Garden's connection with the jewellery trade in their song of a sewage worker, "Down Below":

Hatton Garden is the spot, down below

Where we likes to go a lot, down below,

Since a bloke from Leather Lane

Leather Lane

Leather Lane is a street one block west of Hatton Garden, in the Holborn of London. It is home to a well-used weekday market which specialises in clothing and footwear....

,

Dropped a diamond down the drain,

We'll be going there again, down below."

A building with statues of charity school

Charity school

A charity school, also called Blue Coat School, was significant in the History of education in England. They were erected and maintained in various parishes, by the voluntary contributions of the inhabitants, for teaching poor children to read, write, and other necessary parts of education...

 children is former chapel and parish school, now known as Wren House.

Hatton Garden features in the 1967 children's novel Smith by Leon Garfield

Leon Garfield

Leon Garfield was a British writer of fiction. He is best known for his historical novels for children, though he also wrote for adults...

, where the main character tries to elude two pursuers through the crumbling streets of 18th century Holborn.

In 1962, Lawrence Graff

Lawrence Graff

Laurence Graff is an English jeweller. He is best known as a supplier of unique jewellery and rare jewels to the wealthy. In 2008, he bought the Wittelsbach Diamond for £16.4 million...

 of Wittelsbach-Graff Diamond fame, opened the first retail jewellery store here.

External links

• Hatton Garden official website
• http://spotonhatton.blogspot.com/ - celebrity spotting on Hatton Garden!
• http://www.jewelleryquarterbirmingham.com/ The Jewellery Quarter Birmingham
• http://www.zigguratonline.com The Ziggurat Building in Saffron Hill
• http://www.stetheldreda.com St Ethelreda Church, the oldest Roman Catholic church in England