Throgmorton Restaurant
The Throgmorton
Restaurant, situated at the heart of London's business centre
between the Stock Exchange and the Bank of England, was
opened on 15 October 1900. Lyons had secured an 80-year
lease on a property in Throgmorton Street in 1897 from the
Worshipful Company of Drapers and spent £30,000 in
building the restaurant and offices above. It became a celebrated
eating place by stockbrokers, bankers and insurance brokers
who dominate, and have done so for generations, this part
of the City of London; the most important business centre
in the world.
Throgmorton
Street was named after Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, who joined
the household of Catherine Parr and became Elizabeth I's
ambassador to France and Scotland. Henry VIII's minister,
Thomas Cromwell, also had a house here and made himself
very unpopular with his neighbours because of his encroachments
onto their property. One of these neighbours was John Stow's
father who was a tailor*. It is reported that Cromwell dug
out of the ground Stow's house, put it on rollers and pulled
it 20 feet away from his boundary so that he could extend
his garden further down the street. After Cromwell's execution
in 1540 the Drapers Company took over his house for their
Hall and their present Hall stands on the site. The Stock
Exchange is on the south side of the road.
The Throgmorton
Restaurant's main dining areas, which are below ground level,
were approached by a marble staircase lined with gold mosaic
and semicircular in shape. Later a lift was added. At the
bottom of the stairs was an oak panelled restaurant (The
Oak Room) decorated with marbles and a decorative frieze
and paved with mosaic. Beyond was another dining room (The
Long Room) richly decorated with marble-lined walls and
bevelled wall mirrors giving the room a sense of spaciousness
and brightness. To the right was a Grill Room. In the early
days there was another small room, referred to as the Millionaires'
Room. Here the silk-hatted brokers came, in pre-war days,
for fabulous lunches of oysters and Champagne. In this room
was a long pole with a large iron loop projecting from its
end; rather like a butterfly net but without the net, and
its use was to lift the glossy top hats of the customers
to and from the highest pegs of the great hat rack. In more
recent times this room was converted to a cloak room. It
is also worth recording that Lyons, who had their own wine
cellars, blended a brand of whisky which they called Throgmorton
Whisky.
The restaurant
underwent a number of refurbishments in the eighty years
it was owned by Lyons the last during the 1970s just prior
to the disposal of the restaurant business. Its rooms were
also used during the evenings for business diners, retirements
and Christmas parties. Just how many deals were brokered
during business lunches over a bottle or two of claret and
a fine cigar will never be known!
*John Stow
trained as a tailor himself and became a chronicler and
antiquary and a freeman of Merchant Taylors Company in 1547.
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