London’s Alleys: Smart’s Place, WC2

This is an alley of mixed appearance in Holborn that starts at one end with large modern offices, but at the other still retains a bit of its older Victorian heritage.The alley is a lot older than that, though. It first shows up in the middle of the 1600s as Cole Yard and was slightly longer than it is today, extending a bit further south, where today a building blocks the passage. It’s possible, but unproven, that the name comes from the developer Bessitt Cole, who lived nearby.
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