The Streets Of London – Part One Hundred And Four
Hare Place, EC4
Today Hare Place is not much to look at, a little side alley which runs from the southern side of Fleet Street into Old Mitre Court, a matter of a few yards. I used to walk through the alley on my way to El Vino’s which fronts on to Fleet Street and runs along Hare Place. The wine bar had a seedy feel to it, at least in the first decade of the 21st century, its heyday long past, when journalists from the Fleet Street would congregate. There were still some old telephones in situ down which, I fondly imagined, some correspondent would file their copy to an eager sub-editor before settling back down to their glass of wine.
El Vino’s in Fleet Street was one of five established in London by Alfred Bower, a free vintner which meant that he was able to sell wine without the need to hold a licence. This loophole in the law was not closed until as recently as 2005. The interior of the Fleet Street bar was full of mirrors which made it seem roomier than it actually was, a testament to its former life when it was a Hall of Mirrors. I had always put any visual distortions down to the amount of wine I had consumed but it may have been the mirrors, after all.
The bars originally traded under Bowers’ own name but in 1915 he developed some political ambitions, wishing to become Lord Mayor of London and sought election as an Alderman. He was informed, discretely as was the custom in those days, that if he sought political office, he would need to stop trading in the City as Bower’s. El Vino was the registered trademark of the firm’s sherries and so, in 1923, the bars were rebranded as such. Bower achieved his ambition, becoming Lord Mayor between 1924 and 1925. In 2015 El Vino’s were taken over by Davy’s.
Hare Place is now what is left of a much longer street, Hare Alley, which ran along the boundary between the Serjeant’s Inn on Fleet Street to some buildings at its western end. It may have taken its name, as the nearby Hare Court does, from Sir Nicholas Hare, a Master of the Rolls from 1553 to 1557. There were two inns of the Serjeants-at-Law in London, one dating from 1416 in Chancery Lane and the other in Fleet Street, occupied from 1443. The Serjeants, an order of elite barristers, surrendered their lease on the Fleet Street premises in 1730 when the two inns merged. In 1737 the lease was acquired by the Amicable Society for a Perpetual Assurance Office, the world’s first life insurance company.
As is the way with life insurance companies, they built a rather splendid headquarters on the site, designed by Robert Adams. It was destroyed during the blitz in 1941 as was much of the surrounding area. The Serjeants sold their Chancery Lane premises in 1877 and although the order was not formally dissolved then, the members divvied up the proceeds between them, the last member, Lord Lindley dying in 1921.
The post-Second World War development of the area was not kind to Hare Place, the expansion of Mitre Court encroaching considerably on its turf, leaving it as the small ginnel that it is today. But for me it has a special place in my heart, as I raced up it in eager anticipation of a piece of El Vino’s delicious Dundee cake, washed down by a glass (or two) of Tokaji.
