If you’ve ever found yourself wandering just beyond the polished sheen of Hatton Garden, perhaps looking for a shortcut between Clerkenwell and Farringdon, you may have stumbled upon Saffron Hill. A name that sounds quaintly botanical, as if it should be lined with lavender-clad townhouses, but the reality is something far grittier. Once a den of crime, espionage, and Dickensian squalor, Saffron Hill has a history that could out-scandal most of London’s better-known streets.
The Saffron That Was
Let’s start with the name. Saffron Hill is, as you might guess, named after the saffron that was once grown here. In the medieval period, this area was part of Ely Place, the grand residence of the Bishops of Ely. The good bishops had a taste for the finer things in life, including vineyards and gardens filled with the saffron crocus, whose valuable stigmas were worth their weight in gold.
Saffron was big business. Used for everything from seasoning food to dyeing cloth and treating the plague (dubious, but people tried), it was one of the most sought-after commodities in Europe. The Ely Bishops’ gardens flourished until Henry VIII, in one of his more predictable moves, seized the land during his grand dissolution of the monasteries. From there, things started to slide. The gardens vanished, and by the 17th century, Saffron Hill had become something quite different—a slum of growing notoriety.
London’s Underworld HQ
Fast forward a few centuries, and saffron was no longer the hot commodity of Saffron Hill. Crime was. By the 18th and 19th centuries, the area had become one of London’s most notorious slums, filled with thieves, fences (the criminal kind, not the picket kind), and dubious lodging houses where a man could disappear if he knew the right people. Or the wrong ones.
One of Saffron Hill’s most infamous inhabitants was Jonathan Wild, the self-proclaimed ‘Thief-Taker General’ of London. Wild was the ultimate double agent—pretending to be the city’s great crimefighter while secretly running London’s biggest criminal empire. He recovered stolen goods for a fee, conveniently having arranged their theft in the first place. His underworld dealings eventually caught up with him, and in 1725, he was hanged at Tyburn before an enormous, jeering crowd.
But even after Wild’s downfall, Saffron Hill remained a magnet for crime. It became a hub for London’s growing Italian community in the 19th century, many of whom arrived as skilled craftsmen or street musicians. Yet it also gained a more sinister reputation as the headquarters of London’s “Italian colony,” home to a network of forgers, pickpockets, and con artists. The notorious Charles Dickens—who had a habit of sniffing out London’s grimiest corners—immortalised Saffron Hill in Oliver Twist, describing it as:
“A squalid street full of filth and misery… the haunt of the lowest and most debased of London’s population.”
Saffron Hill was the base of Fagin’s gang, Dickens’s gang of child pickpockets, inspired by real-life criminals operating in the area. Whether they had a kindly old leader teaching them the ways of thievery is another question, but the street’s reputation for crime was well-earned.
Ely Place: London’s Hidden Time Capsule
While Saffron Hill’s fortunes changed dramatically over the centuries, one small part of the old bishops’ estate remains remarkably untouched: Ely Place. Tucked just off Holborn Circus, this short, cobbled street is one of the last remnants of a time when the area was a world unto itself. Once the grand London residence of the Bishops of Ely, the medieval palace was largely demolished after the Reformation, but Ely Place retained an air of exclusivity and secrecy well into the modern era.
Ely Place is famously home to Ye Olde Mitre, a pub dating back to 1546, supposedly founded for the servants of the bishop’s household. Legend has it that Queen Elizabeth I once danced around a cherry tree in the courtyard, though whether this is historical fact or just a good marketing strategy is up for debate. Either way, the Mitre is one of London’s great hidden drinking spots, largely unknown to those who don’t go looking for it.
The street itself, however, mostly dates from the late 18th century, when it was redeveloped into an elegant Georgian enclave. This was no ordinary London street—Ely Place remained privately owned, technically separate from the rest of the city, and operated under its own jurisdiction. Until well into the 20th century, it was patrolled not by the Metropolitan Police but by its own private beadles—an archaic form of security guard in traditional uniform. Even today, the street has an air of separateness, a curious pocket of the past preserved in the modern city.
At the far end of the street stands St Etheldreda’s Church, the only real medieval survivor of the old bishop’s estate. Dating back to the 13th century, it’s one of the oldest churches in London still in use, a rare fragment of medieval London tucked away behind the Georgian façades. Given the sheer amount of history contained within Ely Place—bishopric grandeur, royal visits, secret drinking spots, and peculiar legal quirks—it’s astonishing how few Londoners have ever walked down it.
Spies, Diamonds, and a Hidden River
By the early 20th century, Saffron Hill was still shadowy, but it had developed a new specialty—spies. During both World Wars, it was known as a haunt for intelligence operatives, informants, and suspiciously well-dressed men speaking in hushed tones in the pubs and cafés. The area’s proximity to Fleet Street and legal London meant it was always crawling with journalists and lawyers—ideal cover for a spy or two.
Meanwhile, next door in Hatton Garden, London’s diamond district, another kind of business was flourishing. The area became the heart of the jewellery trade, home to diamond dealers, goldsmiths, and pawnbrokers. Naturally, where there are jewels, there are heists. In 2015, the infamous Hatton Garden safe deposit robbery took place just around the corner from Saffron Hill. A group of elderly career criminals—later dubbed ‘The Bad Grandpas’ by the press—drilled through a 50cm-thick vault wall and made off with an estimated £14 million in gems and cash. If there was ever a reminder that the old Saffron Hill spirit still lingers, that was it.
Beneath all of this, quite literally, runs the Fleet River—London’s forgotten subterranean waterway. Once a bubbling stream running through Saffron Hill, the Fleet was gradually forced underground, becoming one of the city’s infamous ‘lost rivers.’ Today, it flows beneath Farringdon Road in a series of murky tunnels, largely unseen but never entirely forgotten.
These days, Saffron Hill is almost unrecognisable from its squalid past. The area is now home to sleek office buildings and trendy apartments, but beneath the moneyed sheen the ghosts of the past still exist.
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