Hatton Garden has long been known as the center of Britain’s jewelry trade. Now, independent makers and small businesses are trying to ensure it keeps that role.
LONDON — Barry Coumbe was describing operations at F. Sinclair, his polishing business in Hatton Garden, when he recalled that wheelbarrows were piled high with its commemorative gold ingots for Queen Elizabeth’s 1977 Silver Jubilee to move them between the company’s two workshops.
“You’d have 2,000 ingots with the queen’s head stamped on them, and they were always in demand,” Mr. Coumbe, 70, said with a smile.
Today, security concerns in the historic jewelry district would make such transport of precious cargo unthinkable, particularly since the infamous 2015 Hatton Garden heist. Ten people have been convicted in connection with stealing $20 million worth of goods from an underground safe deposit facility, a crime that prosecutors called the largest burglary in English history. But security is not the only thing that has radically changed in what locals call The Garden.
The area, which is about a mile across and developed around the street called Hatton Garden, is tucked between the City of London and Holborn, about two miles from the glittery, global luxury brand-dominated jewelry boutiques of the West End’s Bond Street.
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