This is a rather curious little alley, offering a convenient if easy to miss passage between two side streets.
Lined in white tiles, this otherwise grim little passage is nicely lifted and its short length helps to overcome claustrophobic sensations.
It’s difficult to find out much about this alley though.
It seems to have once been called Sun Alley, and then renamed about a hundred years ago to Prudent Passage, for reasons that are unclear.
However, Cross’s London Guide of 1844 is suggestive that Trump Street continued where the alley once stood, but by 1868 this was now undeniably a short alley called Prudent Passage.
More curiously, it seems to have been slightly to the south of its current location, but these could be the usual inaccuracies of old maps, as the rather grand building it sits underneath was built in 1836, and the alley hasn’t shifted since then.
It’s clearly a useful little alley though, considering how long I had to wait to get a photo without anyone walking down it.
Do look at the base of the Ironmonger Street side, there’s quite a nice stone nameplate.
Photo I took of Prudent Passage three years ago:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/irontongue/14518530023/in/album-72157645071792409/
One of many street signs and blue plaques I photographed on that trip.
“the 15th of July, at eight o’clock in the morning, I was on duty in King-street, Cheapside, and saw the prisoner standing at the corner of Prudent-passage” – Old Bailey court report of Tuesday, August 24th, 1841 https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?div=t18410823-1966