No. 47,  St. Martin's  Lane,  a  house  with  a  good  sized  warehouse  in  the
rear,  was  added  to  the  printing  office  in  1881. This  house  had  been
occupied  for  a  long  period  by  dealers  in  china  and  crockeryware,  indeed
Browne's  China  Shop  was  well  known  both  in  London  and  the  country
as  the  best,  if  not  the  only  place  for  obtaining  articles  to  match  sets  of
china  which  people  had  in  use. When  a  new  design  was  brought  out
the  proprietor  would  buy  a  quantity  from  Staffordshire  and  retain  it  for
the  purpose  of  matching  sets  in  later  years,  when,  no  doubt,  he  was  able
to  obtain  a  considerably  higher  price  for  single  articles  than  he  could
have  sold  them  for  in  the  set. His  business  flourished  best  before  the
day  of  the  railways,  when  the  long  delay  involved  in  sending  samples
to  the  Potteries  and  in  getting  the  goods  delivered  by  road  drove  people
to  avail  themselves  of  his  stock. It  gradually  dwindled  with  the  change
in  market  conditions  brought  about  by  the  more  rapid  communication
between  the  Potteries  and  the  Capital,  and  finally  succumbed,  like  many
other  individual  retail  businesses,  to  the  competition  of  co-operative  stores
and  the  other  large  modern  establishments  which  combine  a  dozen
trades  under  one  roof

Immediately  at  the  back  of  the  long  extended  workshops  of
45  and  46,  St. Martin's  Lane,  there  stood  a  court  or  blind  alley  which
was  entered  from  Bedfordbury,  and  which,  as  we  have  said,  in
conjunction  with  the  yard  of  45,  St. Martin's  Lane,  once  formed  a
thoroughfare  between  the  two  main  streets. In  the  year  1899,  when  it
was  absorbed  for  building  an  additional  printing  office,  it  consisted  of
five  small  houses  to  which  access  could  only  be  had  through  a  very
narrow  passage. It  was  inhabited  by  an  exceedingly  rough  class  of
people,  such  as  occupied  many  of  the  slums  round  Covent  Garden. The
Vestry  of  St. Martin's  had  the  privilege  of  providing  a  lamp-post  for
lighting  the  court,  and  of  cleansing  it,  but  rarely  of  collecting  their  rates ;
and  the  police  passed  down  the  narrow  passage  on  extremely  rare
occasions  and  with  the  utmost  caution. Under  the  circumstances  the
authorities  were  not  sorry  when  a  proposal  was  made  to  make  a  clean
sweep  of  the  five  houses  together  with  two  more  in  Bedfordbury,  and
erect   a  factory  upon   the  site. 