A Lunch Break in Clerkenwell

Sunset at the Naked offices often involves a mad scramble up the stairs to our boardroom to Instagram the sun descending over many of London’s epic landmarks. Having spent the past few years living in Australia, where a 100-year-old building is revered as historic, even a lunchtime stroll around our Clerkenwell neighbourhood is like an episode of Time Team without the digging.

Just round the corner you’ll see a medieval gate that wouldn’t be out of place in Game of Thrones. It’s now a museum but around the 12th century, crusading knights from the Order of St John used to be based here: their Order took care of the sick, and we now know them as the St John’s Ambulance.

Image via Mike T, Flickr. License: CC BY-ND 2.0.

The Clerk’s Well itself is still visible from a residential building on Farringdon Lane. It was thought to be lost, but then rediscovered during building works in 1924. Apparently, in the 12th century, clerks performed mystery plays based on biblical themes around the Well. Clerkenwell Green is where Fagin and the Artful Dodger induct Oliver into pickpocketing amongst shoppers in the busy market once held there.

The eeriest spot I’ve discovered is next to the Sainsbury’s in St. John Street: here you’ll feel the breath of Jack the Ripper on your neck as you make your way down St John’s Path, or the Passing Alley. It’s a dank and shadowy lane way: apparently it was once one of the numerous open public conveniences and became known as Pissing Alley.

Image via rob Sinclair, Flickr. License: CC BY-SA 2.0.

Our offices themselves once housed Pollard’s Shopfitting Works. Pollards held the English patents for the American invention ‘invisible glass’, used in shopfronts. They installed invisible-glass windows in several important London stores, including Simpsons of Piccadilly (now Waterstones), where they remain intact.

And that’s all just on the way to Pret, can’t wait to venture further afield!

Laura Ohrman
Account Director UK