London’s Alleys: White Bear Yard, EC1

This is a very short little stump of an alley in Clerkenwell that today leads to the side entrance to a warehouse office conversion.

The area developed from the 1600s onwards, and this 1676 map shows that the western side of the alley had developed, but the corner plot was still empty.

Ogilby and Morgan map 1676

A century later, and unsurprisingly, the whole area is fully developed, and this seems to be the first time that what was called White Bear Coach Yard can be seen on maps.

John Rocque map 1746

According to the Survey of St. Katherine’s, 1686, it’s likely that the alley’s name comes from the White Bear Brewhouse, although it had likely closed down by 1800. The White Bear was a popular name for pubs and inns, possibly named after one of Sir Francis Drake’s ships, The White Bear, which he used during his 1587 raid on Cadiz.

By the turn of the 19th century, the road layout was pretty much fixed as we know it today, and White Bear Yard (having lost the coaches by now) was the short stump of an alley we can see today.

It was to see one last major change though. Around the turn of the 20th century, most of the remaining small houses and shops were demolished to create much larger warehouses, which wrapped around the alley, as they do today.

The entrance to the alley is dominated by the modern offices on the western side with the large retail store on the ground floor and opposite the curved end of the Victorian warehouse building on the bullnose corner.

The alley is quite short, and the far end is dominated by the rear entrance to a 1920s warehouse building that was recently converted into offices. These days, the offices are occupied by a cluster of start-up firms, and the area has become popular for entrepreneurs.