London’s Alleys: Old Seacoal Lane, EC4
Once the site of a notorious prison, this little alley just to the north of Ludgate Hill in the City of London has an interesting way of advertising its cycle parking hub.
The Fleet Prison was built in 1197, sitting alongside the River Fleet, now long buried underneath Farringdon Street. Notorious for imprisoning debtors and for its poor conditions, it was destroyed during the Peasants’ Revolt in 1381 but quickly rebuilt. It was destroyed again during the Great Fire of London and rebuilt by the warden at his own expense, as he didn’t want to lose the lucrative income from charging prisoners for food and comforts.
Destroyed again during the Gordon anti-Catholic riots of 1780, it was rebuilt for the fourth and final time, finally closing in 1844. The site was sold to the City of London and later bought by the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway, which built the approach to Holborn Viaduct station there.
Early in its life, the prison was surrounded by a defensive moat fed by the River Fleet, but this had been filled in by the 1500s, and a road, Seacoal Lane, was built on top of the moat.
The prison’s rebuilding after the Great Fire of London seems to have lost the original Seacoal Lane, but a new unnamed lane appears where the alley is today. Possibly — it’s hard to be certain — lost again when the prison was rebuilt in the 1780s, the lane reappears when the prison is sold off and the land redeveloped as the railway station.
Originally, the new passage was called Fleet Lane, as it joins Fleet Lane at the northern end, but it was later renamed Seacoal Lane and, at some point before 1975, renamed again as Old Seacoal Lane.
There are suggestions that it might have been named after a wharf importing sea coal, but if so, there’s no confirmed early record of such a way that I can find, and certainly, nothing after the river was turned into a canal, especially as burning lime using sea coal was banned by then.
(not that banning the burning stopped people from burning it)
It’s more likely that while riverside wharf would have existed, and some did indeed import sea coal (coal dug up in Newcastle and shipped to London), the alley is named after the concept of the coal wharves than an actual wharf in the vicinity of the alley.
There was an incident of note in 1973, at the height of the IRA terrorist attacks, when an empty car was found in the lane, and inside, police could see an alarm clock and some wires. Being in the heart of the city and just around the corner from the Old Bailey, the area was sealed off, but when the window was smashed in, they found the alarm clock wasn’t connected to a bomb.
Several hours later, two young French tourists turned up, having parked their car there while sightseeing. To save money, they were sleeping in the car, hence the alarm clock, and the wires were for a makeshift radio.
Having smashed the car window, the police generously waived the £6 car pound fee for towing away the car.
When Holborn Viaduct station closed in 1990, the area was redeveloped with new offices built on top of the reduced railway that still ran through the site. It’s that office block which sits alongside Old Seacoal Lane today, with steps up to Limeburner Lane, and the main entrance to the office.
The passageway used to run through the gates and up to Fleet Lane at the other end, but in 2018, the northern end was blocked off by a retail store. In 2021, it was fenced off entirely, with the secured section used to store bicycles due to the increased need for the space in the office above.
Fencing off the passageway created space for a 167 bikes to be stored there.
A nice touch is the sign—it’s a sheet of metal cut in the shape of a bicycle that’s lit from above to cast a large shadow on the way.
Thank you for the enormous amount of effort you must put in to the website. This article is the quintessential example – the opening paragraph mentions the alley’s interesting way of advertising its cycle park but the article first talks about the Peasants Revolt, the Great Fire, the Gordon Riots, prisons, moats, wharves, IRA terrorism and French tourists before eventually getting to the cycle park sign – pure delight!
In 1965 my first job was as a Fleet Street messenger boy and Seacoal Lane was one of my shortcuts. Remember it well. There was a motor bike shop around there.