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1.5 UPPER THAMES STREET

etween 1814 and 1820, the firm of Edward Eades closed its Wapping premises and opened up as Edward Eades and Son at 168 Upper Thames Street, in the area where both John and Richard Wesson were already working. William Gander was there by 1823 when the firm had moved across the street to No. 82 under the style of Eades and Young.

This area was the old centre of the import and export trade and once the most crowded and busiest part of the City. Its south side was wholly occupied by wharves, warehouses and working peoples dwellings, with narrow lanes leading down to the riverside stairs between the quays. On the north side and in the streets rising up the hill towards Cannon Street were the houses of the merchants and wealthier class. The many churches indicate the wealth and size of population of this important area in earlier times. As with nearly all the City of London parishes, All Hallows the Great parish was tiny, the entire parish boundaries could be walked in a matter of minutes and its inhabitants could be numbered in hundreds.

Thomas H. Shepherd's drawings of All Hallows the Great Church in 1829 looks west along the street from the parish of All Hallows the Less to that of All Hallows the Great. On the "left", the south side of the street, can be seen the old churchyard of All Hallows the Less and at No. 89 the Hour Glass Public House. Next to this is All Hallows the Great church with its adjacent churchyard on the south side which is hidden from this view. This was much higher than All Hallows Lane which ran next to it down to the river side.

This church was built by Wren to replace All Hallows the More, so called to distinguish it from All Hallows the Less, both destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666. This latter church was not re-built and the two parishes were then united.

Behind the Hour Glass public house between Cold Harbour and All Hallows Lane lay Felix Calvert and Co's large brewery which with the wine merchants created the bulk of the work for hoop benders in the area. Felix, Sir William and Charles Calvert were members of an influential family of brewhouse owners

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