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Pearce & Plenty

London stubsRestaurants in London
Toussaint, Willem (1865 1929), Afb ANWS00244000084
Toussaint, Willem (1865 1929), Afb ANWS00244000084

Pearce & Plenty was a chain of working class restaurants in London, formed in the late 19th century. Its motto was "Quality, Economy, Despatch".The company was started by John Pearce as a coffee stall on the corner of East Road and City Road, which he operated from 1866 to 1879. He opened a shop in Aldersgate in 1879, moving it to Farringdon Street in 1882, and the company had 46 refreshment rooms by the 1890s. 14 were attached to hotels. According to The Caterer it catered to poor workers with "large appetites but small means", serving an average of 40,000 meals a day. The restaurants served coffee, tea and cocoa. Beef pudding was a popular dish.Most of the chain's patrons were workmen, the New Penny Magazine describing them as a "shouting, swallowing throng of newsboys, printers' "devils", bricklayers' labourers, carters and sweeps". Pearce went on to create another restaurant chain, "British Tea Table", aimed at city clerks.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Pearce & Plenty (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Pearce & Plenty
City Road, London Hoxton (London Borough of Hackney)

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Latitude Longitude
N 51.527044444444 ° E -0.088105555555556 °
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City Road

City Road
EC1V 2NJ London, Hoxton (London Borough of Hackney)
England, United Kingdom
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Toussaint, Willem (1865 1929), Afb ANWS00244000084
Toussaint, Willem (1865 1929), Afb ANWS00244000084
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Perilous Pond
Perilous Pond

The Perilous Pond, sometimes spelt Perelous, was an ancient pond fed by a spring in London located near the junction of modern-day Old Street and City Road. It gained its name from many tragic drownings there of people using it as a swimming hole. It was also used by fishermen and wildfowlers . In 1743 the pond was purchased by William Kemp, a jeweller, who developed it by enclosing it in stone edging and adding marble steps and a gravel bottom. He built a separate pond for fishing and renamed the site the more enticing Peerless Pool. The grounds were screened by trees and the pool was used as an ice rink in winter. Kemp imposed an annual admission charge of £1 10s. (or 1s. for day visitors). The pool was 170 ft long x 108 ft wide and from 3–5 feet deep. It was London's first outdoor public swimming pool. From 1790 there was also a small library and a bowling green attached. Around 1805, the lease was acquired by Joseph Watts, who drained the fish pond and constructed Baldwin Street on that part of the site. The business provided the family with a comfortable living. Richard Garnett mentions that his colleague Thomas Watts (1811-1869), "keeper of printed books at the British Museum" (i.e. what would now be a senior position at the British Library), had his education paid for by the profits from the family business. William Hone, the satirist, visited the pool in 1826 and described it thus:- “Trees enough remain to shade the visitor from the heat of the sun on the brink. On a summer evening it is amusing to survey the conduct of the bathers; some boldly dive, others timorous stand and then descend step by step, unwilling and slow; choice swimmers attract attention by divings and somersaults, and the whole sheet of water sometimes rings with merriment. Every fine Thursday and Saturday afternoon in the summer columns of Bluecoat boys, more than a score in each, headed by their respective beadles, arrive and some half strip themselves ‘ere they reach their destination. The rapid plunges they make into the Pool and their hilarity in the bath testify their enjoyment of the tepid fluid.” The pool was closed in 1850 and built over. Its gives its name to the nearby Peerless Street and Bath Street and obliquely to the Old Fountain public house.