{{Short description|Former street in the City of London}} {{Use dmy dates|date=February 2017}} {{Use British English|date=February 2017}} {{Annotated image | image = Beare Lane, London from Hollar's map.jpg | image-width = 1200 | image-left = -350 | image-top = -400 | width = 300 | height = 300 | float = right | annotations = <!-- empty or not, this must be included --> | caption = The lane on Hollar's map of London. Late 17th century. Click for broader map and to enable varied magnification. }} {{Annotated image | image = Map_of_City_of_London_and_its_Environs_Sheet_036,_Ordnance_Survey,_1869-1880.png | image-width = 4000 | image-left = -1200 | image-top = -2250 | width = 300 | height = 400 | float = right | annotations = <!-- empty or not, this must be included --> | caption = The lane in about 1875.<ref>City of London and its Environs, sheet 36, Ordnance Survey, 1869-1880</ref> Click for broader map and to enable varied magnification.}} '''Beer Lane''' (originally '''Bear Lane''' or '''Beare Lane''') was a short street of the City of London from at least 1570 to 1910. It ran from almost the east end of Great Tower Street (latterly № 37), from opposite Seething Lane, to 53 Lower Thames Street, opposite the east warehouse block of Custom House.<ref name=Wheatley>{{cite book|author1=Wheatley, Henry B.|author-link=Henry B. Wheatley|title=London past and present: Its history, associations, and traditions|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yaRZ1cAMd2UC&pg=PA139|year=1891|publisher= Vol. I. London: John Murray. Cambridge University Press reprint, 2011.|isbn=9781108028066|pages=139}}</ref><ref name=Lockie>{{cite book|author=Lockie, John.|author-link=Lockie's Topography of London|title=Lockie's Topography of London|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nZwHAAAAQAAJ&pg=PT34|year=1810|publisher=London: Couchman}}</ref> John Stow (born 1525) wrote "At the east end of Tower Street, on the south side, have ye{{efn|the pronunciation is that for the English word ''the'' as use of "th" for the ð sound (phoneme) used to be an alternative orthography to ye}} Beare Lane, wherein are many fair houses, and runneth down to Thames Street."<ref>Stow, p.51 quoted in Wheatley, 1891, p. 139.</ref>
Opposite its lower end, on the Tideway's city bank, was Bear Quay, later Great Bear Quay and Little Bear Quay, principally used for the landing and shipment of corn.<ref name=Wheatley/> Edward Hatton, in his ''A New View of London'' (1708) wrote "Here is a very great market for wheat and other sorts of grain, brought hither from the neighbouring counties".<ref>Hatton, Edward. (1708) ''A New View of London''. John Nicholson. Volume II, p. 784. Quoted in Wheatley, 1891, p. 139.</ref>
In the early twentieth century, the lane hosted the office-warehouse of H.C. König & Co. from where they distributed their Westphalian Gin.<ref name=col2>[https://archive.org/details/1914yearbook00royauoft Advertising in the ''Royal Colonial Institute Year Book 1914''] Royal Colonial Institute, London, 1914, p. v.</ref>
==See also== *Beer Street and Gin Lane (fictional)
==References and footnotes== {{Reflist}} {{notelist}} {{Coord|51|30|33.08|N|0|4|46.63|W|scale:1563_region:GB|display=title}}
Category:Streets in the City of London Category:Former streets and roads of London