Erection date: 24/9/2020
Sir John Lyon House and the Tea Trade
{Much of the text on this plaque is a repeat of what we have found on other Tea Trade plaques – see our Tea Trade in London page.}
Sir John Lyon was a wealthy City merchant and a grocer. His family established Harrow School. This famous building was named after him. Sir John Lyon House became the epicentre of the tea trade from 1971 – 1990. The tea brokers Wilson Smithett (established 1865) and tea broker, Keith Loudoun Shand, set up Tea Trade Properties to take over the building for the tea trade. Large tea companies like Brooke Bond committed to three floors. Sir John Lyon House housed most of the tea-buying brokers, the tea-selling brokers, warehouse representatives, the United Kingdom Tea Association and the International Tea Committee offices.
The Tea Clearing House also operated from this historical building and they were responsible for all the sampling involved in the auctions.
In February 1971 the London Tea Auctions continued from the building until 1990.
The last tea connections with this historic building ended in 2005 when the International Tea Committee moved out.
This plaque is sponsored and erected by the London Tea History Association to commemorate trade of the world’s greatest beverage – TEA.
Site: Tea industry - the City (1 memorial)
EC4, High Timber Street, Sir John Lyon House, 8
From London Tea History: "The 3rd plaque, sponsored by Tata Consumer Products, has been erected at Sir John Lyon House in London EC4V 3PA - sadly due to Coronavirus a plaque ceremony could not take place. Tata Consumer Products are best known in the UK for Tetley tea. The tea trade shifted to this building in 1970 after the tea auctions moved out of Plantation House. Sir John Lyon House was the head quarters of the global tea industry for several years. Sir John Lyon House was synonymous with the tea trade who still have their links with this institution of a building till this day. Our third plaque commemorates the tea trade over 350 years. The tea trade operated in these streets for this period. Many old tea timers visit the area. We thank Tata for their kind sponsorship towards this plaque."
Luckily that page has an image of the plaque from which we took our transcription.
Oh dear, oh dear. When the plaque committee planned this commemorative tablet we're sure this was not how they envisioned it would be displayed. They actually planned the erection of a number of plaques, all in the same format, at a number of tea-related sites around London, and some of them have worked well - see Tea Trade in London, but this brand new building could almost have been designed to repel all plaques. There's just nowhere to put it, which is why it's ended up in the window, where the reflections make it impossible to read; almost impossible to see - we spent some time hunting around before we spotted it, and we knew it was there. Perhaps the lesson for plaque erectors is that each plaque needs to be designed for its intended site. But the success of the Blue Plaque scheme rather disproves this since the same design is used everywhere.
We took our photo of the building from the walkway, the stairs to which you can see in the reflection in the other photo. We were there on a Sunday and found a gap in the passing traffic to take our photo.
What with the pedestrian bridge, the tunnel, and the traffic on Upper Thames Street this is one of the nastier places in London. So, of course, it's an unavoidable section of the Thames Riverside Walk. It's probably a good thing that the tourists don't see the plaque, or they might be tempted to linger in this horrible place and read it.
The plaque repeatedly refers to "this historic building" which is odd since the host building was built in 2009. Nowhere can we find an image of the building that was here before, the one in which all the tea trade activities took place, 1971 - 2005.
