(The above is a millinery shop in Paris c. 1822)
Cranbourn(e) Alley (or Street) was a paved pedestrian thoroughfare that led from Castle Street to the north east corner of Leicester Square. Beginning in 1678, it was long populated by milliners and other clothing items.
London, Past and Present, 1891
By the Regency era, it was the premier destination for purchasing head wear, particularly for middle class ladies. The Alley was filled with “She Barkers”, or “women employed to harass ladies whose bonnets” were raggedy or outmoded (https://london-ghosts.com/page/2/). An excerpt in London In the Nineteenth Century describes this practice:
“Woe used to betide the woman of the middle classes who passed through Cranbourne Alley with an unfashionable bonnet! It was immediately seen from one end of the place to the other and twenty barkers beset her, each in turn, as she walked forward, arresting her course by invitations to inspect the ware that was for sale within. Many a one has had her cloak or shawl torn from her back by these rival sisters of trade during their struggles to draw her within their den, each pulling a different way.”
Another practice for advertisement during the era would be for wall-chalking and whitewashing to increase signage for businesses (London In the Nineteenth Century, 2007).
Naturally, there were milliners in many other places in London and the UK, but Cranbourn represented such a niche shopping experience that no doubt it was frequented by many.
In December of 1843, the southside of Cranbourne Alley was taken down and the street widened to allow for a new carriage way to join Coventry Street to Long Acre.
I have included below a collection of descriptions and sentimental reminisces about Cranbourne Alley, a place at once vulgar and yet “paradise”.
View from the Metropolis, 1803
Household words, 1852
London, Past and Present, 1891
Old and new London: a narrative of its history, its people and its places, 1880
