Many of the nation’s largest trading companies were headquartered in the coffee houses, and London’s stockbrokers operated within them for over a hundred years. Only when those establishments fell into decline did the brokers finally acquire their own quarters and establish an Exchange. For many years, the insurance institution Lloyd’s of London... See more

As a dynamic social and cultural force the coffeehouse died out in the mid-19th century, only to be reborn in the rock ‘n roll espresso bars of 1950s Soho. There was no shortage of colourful haunts there, either.

The weirdest was Le Macabre, on Meard Street. Inside this ‘cobweb-festooned house of horrors’, customers sat on coffins, dropped ash into... See more