3. Harpur Street

Harpur Street has previously been known as Duck Lane, Aldermanbury, Sheps Chepping, Angell Street and White Horse Lane.

The street has usually been in two halves with Duck Lane north of Silver Street and Sheps Chepping to the south, and then later on White Horse Lane was north of Silver Street and Angel Street below.

Shep Chepping
John Speeds Map of 1610 has it listed as both Sheps Chepping and Duck Lane. Sheps Chepping means Sheep Market. Crawley and Freeman’s research suggests that the Sheep Market must have been ‘in the lower section of the street between St Paul's Square and Midland Road, on the eastern side where no buildings are illustrated.’

Aldermanbury would have been the official residence of the ‘earl’ in Saxon times. There are references to this being used for the part of Harpur Street near St Loyes during the 13th Century, although it is likely to have been used much earlier.

White Horse Inn

The White Horse Inn that gave the street its name from the 17th Century until 1929 was at the corner of the street where Marks & Spencer’s is now. The Inn was demolished to make way for the new store.



The White Horse Inn 1928





The back of The White Horse Inn c. 1929

The Inn was demolished in 1929 and it is possible that this work had begun when the above photograph was taken.

Harpur Street
The street was named Harpur Street in 1835 by the ‘Improvement Commission’, which had the job of deciding on an official name from all the different names streets had been known as over the centuries. At that time the street only ran from Horne Lane to Lime Street with the section from Lime Street to Dame Alice Street being called Harpur Place. The extension to must have happened after the 1835 Improvement Commission.