London Alleys: Whalebone Court, EC2

This short alley in the heart of the City has existed for hundreds of years, but in recent times, it has gained an unfounded and totally undeserved reputation.

The alley often claimed to be associated with the boiling of whale bones — actually baleen from whale mouths — to soften them for use in corsets, but the origins of the name are rather more wholesome.

The alley sits right over the Walebrok as it was known then, today better known as the River Walbrook, one of London’s more important buried rivers. You’ve probably already guessed how the River Walebrok gave its name to Whalebone Court.

The usual interpretation is that the river’s name may have been the brook that flowed through the Roman Wall, although a more commonly accepted idea these days is that it comes from weala broc, meaning “brook of the foreigners.” However, foreigners actually refer to ancient Britons — wealh — who lived there as separate from the Anglo-Saxons.

You also have to consider that this tiny residential alley in the city’s centre would be the last place anyone would let a noxious factory be set up. There are also no references in old newspaper articles to the industry being carried out here, and mainly to warehouses, merchants and private homes. No whales, boiled or otherwise, are to be seen.

Also, contrary to its modern gruiseome naming legend, John Strype’s survey of London in 1598 described Whalebone Court as being “pretty handsome, with a Free stone Pavement”.

Going back to old English, wealh is also the word that eventually gave its name to Wales, so you’re likely standing in an alley named after Wales rather than Whales. Fortunately, no boiling of the Welsh was going on.

I also lean towards Whalebone Court being named after the river rather than the mammal, as there were three other Whalebone Courts in the City of London in times past, all roughly aligned with the buried Walbrook River.

(There was an actual whale related whalebone court – in the Palace of Whitehall)

All the other whalebones have been lost to time, but this surviving alley seems to have emerged very early in London’s urban development. However, it’s always been such a small alley that it’s never named on maps until we get to the more detailed maps that emerged in the late Victorian era.

Although Whalebone Court has changed little in layout, the alleys and passages around it have changed considerably over the past couple of centuries, with many lost or cut back as smaller buildings were swallowed up by ever larger office blocks.

A look at Goad’s insurance map of 1887 shows how Whalebone Court was a small passage between Moorgate Street buildings and Telegraph Street. Today, most of Moorgate Street buildings have been lost, and the runt of the road was renamed Copthall Close.

Something else that’s been lost is the Butler’s Head pub, which used to be on the corner of the alley — possibily once called the Black Swan. However, the pub was demolished in 2000 when the western side of the alley was rebuilt. As part of the planning agreement, they included space in the modern building for a pub, which opened as The Telegraph.

The eastern block is a refurbished 1960s office block, but I love is how the rebuilding was unable to include a small corner shop, which is still there. It’s a former restaurant that’s been a barbers for many decades – although under a reguarly changing set of names.

It’s a quirky survior of the alley’s long past.