We Relocate to EC2A

(3 minute read)

We dig a little deeper in London’s most sought-after postcode

4 weeks ago, STORMBRANDS moved to a new office in Shoreditch. For us, staying here was a no-brainer. Creativity pulses through this postcode. It’s there in the street art, the murals, the fashion, and even in the ever-increasing raft of bars and restaurants vying to out-do each other with ever more esoteric ingredients and outlandish serving vessels.

This is a place where a global brand like Nike can make a home for itself within one of the area’s many railway arches. It’s where high-end Japanese fashion stores can live on the same street as low-rent takeaways, with both equally a part of the fabric of the place and both equally in demand.

We knew that we’d never be comfortable in some faceless serviced office surrounded by identikit sandwich joints. We wanted somewhere where big ideas aren’t just taking place in the office but in its surrounding environment too. In this part of London, inspiration can strike anywhere. And we love it.

But the Shoreditch we know now – home to an array of trendy haircuts, bars and bikes – certainly wasn’t like this even fifteen years ago. Like other parts of the East End, this place faced dark times in the aftermath of WW2 as industry moved out and not a lot came to take its place. The once-bustling warehouses stood empty and the area declined. It was only in the 1980s, when artists like Turner Prize winners Gilbert and George began seeing Shoreditch’s latent potential (and, crucially, dirt-cheap rents) that things began to change and the place developed a reputation as an artistic hub, with Alexander McQueen, Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin all following suit and eventually using this part of East London as a base too.

As we researched further and inevitably went down an internet rabbit-hole about our new place of residence, we found out a lot. And what we noticed was that though times may change, some things always stay the same…

Shoreditch has always got people talking: Controversy over its name

Just how Shoreditch got its name is hotly debated: Fittingly for somewhere as diverse as this place, there’s the edgy version, the posh version and the gritty version. Many believe the name comes from the fact that Jane Shore, the mistress of Edward IV was supposed to have been found dead in a ditch here. Others believe that it derives from Sir John de Soerdich, who was Lord of the Manor in Edward III’s times. Lastly – and many historians argue more plausibly – some claim the etymology is taken from ‘Sewer Ditch’, on account of the fact that there was once a boggy watercourse in the area. More recently, Shoreditch has even inspired its own neologism – Shoreditchification – to describe the process where hipsters gentrify a place, attract people with money, send property prices skywards and then get priced out themselves.

Shoreditch has always been at the forefront of what’s hot: This was somewhere you could see Shakespeare, you know, before he got too mainstream

Beards have always been big in Shoreditch and in the 16th century, one notable hirsute Shoreditch resident was William Shakespeare. His plays Romeo and Juliet and Henry V were performed at ‘The Theatre’, built by actor and theatre manager James Burbage in 1576 and now marked by a commemorative plaque in Hewett St. One of the reasons Shoreditch originally gained such a reputation as a place to see cutting-edge theatre in Shakespeare’s time was that it was outside the jurisdiction of those who ran the City itself. Put simply, it could put on the edgy stuff that those who ran the City turned their noses up at.

It’s always had a reputation for being somewhere you could make your fortune: Shoreditch and nursery rhymes.

First there was the theatre, then the furniture trade and now Silicon Roundabout. Though it may have faced a few rough patches through the ages, Shoreditch seems to have always had a reputation as somewhere you could make a few quid. And oddly enough one of the ways we know this is through two of the songs we’re all familiar with from the playground. One of Shoreditch’s weirder claims to fame is the fact it punches above its weight when it comes to citations in British nursery rhymes.

St Leonard’s Church on Shoreditch High Street gets a mention in Oranges and Lemons, with ‘When I grow rich, say the bells of Shoreditch’ while none other than The Eagle pub in Hoxton gets a mention in Pop Goes the Weasel, with the lyrics “Up and down the City Road, in and out The Eagle; that’s the way the money goes, pop goes the weasel”. Given that The Eagle is still in rude health to this day (though now a trendy gastro pub, natch) it is safe to say a fair bit of money has flowed into it over the years.

Visit us: STORMBRANDS, 61 Charlotte Rd, Shoreditch, London EC2A 3QT

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