Martin Lane is a narrow cobblestone passage next to London Bridge that was once longer, used to reach down to the riverside, and is linked to a rhyme about oranges and lemons.
For most of its life, the alley’s main feature was the church of St Martin Orgar, possibly named after Ordgarus, a Dane who donated the church to the canons of St Paul’s.
Sadly, most of the church was destroyed during the Great Fire of London. The badly damaged remains were restored and used by French Protestants right up to 1820. After they left, most of the remaining building was then pulled down, but the tower remained and was rebuilt in 1851-3 as the campanile of St Clement Eastcheap.
But they kept the clock, so at least a bit of it is original.
The old graveyard is now a private garden.
The church has an added fame, as it’s often considered to be one of the churches mentioned in the nursery rhyme Oranges and Lemons – “You owe me five farthings, Say the bells of St. Martin’s.”
The alley used to be longer, but was cut short by the rebuilding of London Bridge, which moved the bridge eastwards to its current location in 1830, and by several new roads cutting through the medieval street layout.
So, the bottom half of Martin Lane became the curved Arthur Street, which was recently an important site for the Bank tube station upgrade project.
Further down the alley past the modern offices is The Olde Wine Shades, a wine bar that claims to be in a building that survived the Great Fire of London, which is impressive considering that the church a few yards away was destroyed, and its proximity to Pudding Lane.
Remembering not to treat old maps as gospel, a map of London just after the fire doesn’t show any surviving buildings on Martin Lane, and even notes that the church is marked as destroyed.
However, much of its claim relies on a decorated lead cistern upstairs with 1663 on the side. I’ve struggled to find much reference to a wine bar on Martin Lane, and it’s maybe telling that old maps showing pub locations don’t mention it.
In the 1880s, the building was used as an auction house and later as an accountant’s office, although that may have been just the upper floors. There is also a reference to a bottled water wholesaler, Sterbing & Co, operating out of the building around the same time.
Significantly, I can’t find any reference to 6 Martin Lane as a wine bar until the 1920s.
I might generously suggest that it was a wholesale wine merchant, as there were many in the area, and later opened to the public as a wine bar.
The wine bar also claims to have been involved in smuggling, although as with most claims of smuggling, it’s probably not true. While there was said to be a tunnel to the old river foreshore, if it exists, it’s likely to be just a merchant’s access, as was commonplace at the time.
Having allegedly survived the Great Fire of London, it also barely survived the second fire of London, as its neighbour was destroyed during the WWII blitz.
That takes us to a curious relic around the side of the building. What is currently a side passage was once the neighbouring building, and sitting in the wall is an odd thing, now exposed by the WWII clearance.
It’s thought to be a lawyer’s document safe.
