Former John Russell & Co Iron Tube Depot - Aldgate, London, UK - Converted Factories on Waymarking.com

This is a modestly sized, former factory premises on Commercial Street. The street was developed in 1843-45 to improve transport links between the London docks and north and central London. The street was mostly lined with warehouses and factory premises, with only a small number of residential dwellings. Increasingly over the years it became a focus for the garment industry and many of the former industrial buildings survive.

The factory building at number 58, on the east side of the road was built in around 1900 and is well preserved. It is best known as having been a London branch of John Russell & Co. The first floor features large show windows, whilst the third floor windows have stucco surrounds. There is a substantial pediment to the fourth floor and until recently the name John Russell was legible on the pediment, although it has now become difficult to see.

John Russell was a gun barrel maker who in 1816 established a metal tube factory in Walsall. The business developed into John Russell & Company, with a small number of factories across the English Midlands and warehouses in major population centres such as Bristol, London, Manchester and Leeds. The company made fittings for industrial and domestic boilers, plumbing tubes and fittings and steel tubes for the transportation industries. Interestingly, given the current use of the Commercial Street premises, they made tubes for bicycle manufacturers.

By the time it was occupied by John Russell & Co., the premises at 58 Commercial Street was principally a warehouse and showroom, with only relatively small-scale manufacturing and finishing taking place here. The company ceased to exist in 1929 when it was sold to Stewarts and Lloyds. This part of the business in Commercial Street has been in various commercial and retail uses in the years since.

Today the ground floor forms part of a bicycle shop, whilst there are residential apartments on the upper floors.

Address:: 58 Commercial Street Aldgate, London, United Kingdom E1 6LT Year built: c.1900 Year converted: Not Known Web page: [Web Link]

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Date Logged Log   10/30/2021 Master Mariner visited it