London’s jewellery district sparkles again
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Hatton Garden’s links to the jewellery trade date back to the late 16th century when Sir Christopher Hatton, Lord Chancellor and consul to Elizabeth I, renamed the garden of his London estate, Ely Place.
On his death, relatives sold parts of the estate off to local wealthy merchants and businesses. It’s where Hatton Garden’s reputation for trusted jewellery experts and quality craftsmen was born. It has remained London’s jewellery quarter and the centre of the UK’s diamond trade ever since.
Five centuries on, Hatton Garden, which runs between Holborn and Clerkenwell Road, on the western edge of the City of London, is bristling with an influx of creativity.
“You can feel its old energy here,” says Alec Doherty, a jeweller specialising in gem-set gold and silver rings and pendants. “I really love that.” As Doherty’s fledgling business took off, he found his casting house at the famous EC1 address. Hatton Garden was an “intimidating place” to walk into as a novice, he says.
“It was difficult at first, because a lot of the casting houses were quite old-school and, when I went in there, I was this [beginner] who didn’t really know about jewellery. As I made more pieces, I guess I earned their respect.”
Jewellers working behind the shop counters share some of that old-school way of thinking — as shown by the disapproving glares they give me when I mention I’m “just browsing”.
“The attitude is that you’re always trying to make a buck,” says Jack Cannon, co-founder of the men’s jewellery brand Hatton Labs, whose range of bracelets, chains, rings and pendants is stocked by Selfridges, End and Farfetch.
Cannon says he spent a lot of his childhood “running in and out of stone dealers and polishers”, because his dad worked in jewellery. It led him and his business partner Joe Gelb to name their brand in honour of the area.
“You can get anything done there,” adds Gelb. “You can go with an idea in your head, find the person to sketch it for you, do the 3D [sample] then get the diamonds. It’s a small street, so once you’ve walked down and ping-ponged from shop to shop, by the end of it, you really do have your product. It’s got a charm, Hatton.”
Like most of London, Hatton Garden balances maintaining its heritage with the inevitability of gentrification. On one end, there’s a WeWork within walking distance of the nearest Pret. Adjacent to it, down a dead end, sits St Etheldreda’s Church, one of the last in London from the reign of Edward I. On
