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In 1882, two levels below ground, The Chancery Lane Safe Deposit Company opened for business on 61-62 Chancery Lane. It was only the country's second non-bank private safe depository, used by London's wealthy and aristocracy to safeguard their household silverware, jewellery, personal documents and valuables whenever they left London for their country homes. Originally, the corridor resembled a row of prison cells; the near-four-foot-thick walls were lined with steel, and the vaults were secured with iron doors and guards sporting truncheons and rifles.
Jewellers, goldsmiths and precious stone dealers in nearby Hatton Garden, the epicentre of the jewellery and silversmithing trade, would use the vaults each night to stow their valuable pieces and collect them in the morning, ready for daily trading. By 1890, the safe deposit company had 6,000 safe boxes for 3,000 customers.
By the 1930s, many of the original wealthy clientele had disappeared. They were replaced by London’s silver dealers who needed more than just a safety deposit box and started to use the large vault rooms to store their stock.
During the London Blitz of the 1940s, a bomb destroyed the original Victorian building above ground, but the subterranean strong rooms escaped and remained intact along with their contents. During the Second World War silver dealers found a lucrative market selling their goods to the American officers stationed in London, many of whom had a larger disposable budget than the British population at the time. Their purchases found favour with their wives who also began to visit The London Silver Vaults when stationed in the UK, France and Germany in the post-war years. This particular ‘special relationship’ between American customers and The London Silver Vaults continues to this day.
Dealers were trading as shops from the vaults around 1941, but it was when the replacement building was reconstructed above ground in 1953, that the underground vaults were officially recognised as a shopping destination, renamed and put on the map as The London Silver Vaults. Inside, the vaults, previously piled high with stacks of silverware, started to metamorphose into comfortable and welcoming retail spaces, behind the legendary three-feet-thick steel vault door that remains in operation today.
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The Silver Vaults is a centre of excellence and expertise, the place you should begin your journey when looking to invest in silverware. This precious metal has a long, fascinating history and its place in our homes goes back many thousands of years as people chose it for its unmatched gleam and sparkle. Did you know, for example, that the first ever mirrors were made of silver? Or that the reason newborn babies are traditionally given silver, in many cultures, is to wish good luck and a prosperous life? Hence the term, ‘born with a silver spoon’.
When looking to pass wealth to children and grandchildren, silver is not only precious but surprisingly practical too and something they will be able to use every day. Its remarkable ability to retain hot and cold temperatures makes it perfect for the kind of exquisite tea and coffee pots you will find in The Silver Vaults. And unlike other metals, silver is naturally anti-septic, ideal for cutlery and flatware. And an ideal wedding present too. You may choose a contemporary piece from a famous British designer such as Stuart Devlin, or a Chinese antique with a captivating story behind it. The experts at The London Silver Vaults can advise on all things silver, from deciphering the hallmark on an item to the best way to clean and take care of it (you may be surprised at how easy that is).
Although considered a hidden gem nestled in the centre of London, The London Silver Vaults’ address is in the little black book of international royalty, film stars, specialist collectors, top interior designers and discerning shoppers seeking fine silverware. Many familiar faces have passed through the huge steel vault doors: Mick Jagger, Princess Margaret, J K Rowling, Liberace, Anthony Hopkins, Diana Ross, Woody Allen and Gregory Peck, to mention a few. Royal families from Europe, the Far East and the Middle East shop here, as do peers of the realm and members of our own nobility.
Over the years The London Silver Vaults has become famous in its own right, featuring in both mainstream and social media as well as providing the silverware to lend authenticity to film and TV productions such as Downton Abbey. The London Silver Vaults featured in Ben Aaronavitch's excellent Rivers of London (Midnight Riot in the US) urban fantasy novel.