Dirty Dicks - an old corner of Bishopsgate

Nathaniel “Dick” Bentley was a Bishopsgate merchant in the mid 18^th Century. Tragically, his fiancée died on their wedding day. The wedding breakfast lay untouched for 30 years and the heartbroken Dick never washed or cleaned up again.

The dirty warehouse was known all over London, could the story have reached Charles Dickens and inspired Miss Havisham?

The original warehouse was demolished but the pub capitalised on the story and at one time was almost as dirty as the warehouse itself, beer puddles on the floor, cobwebs and dead cats hung from the cellar ceiling.

 Bishopsgate is seeing phenomenal changes, but still small sections, like this corner just past Liverpool Street Station, cling on and remind us of how things once were.