33-35 Highgate

On the corner of southern corner of the junction of Lowther Street with Highgate adjacent to 37 Highgate.

Curwen, 1900 p95

ON returning again into Highgate to take up our examination of the houses upon the east side, we notice the corner shop of Lowther Street, where Isaac Hadwen, maltster and corn factor, resided until his death in 1822.

In my illustration of the White Hall, there is a good view of this old shop, then tenanted by one Jackson, a tobacconist, with the trade sign of a Red Indian and his pipe, over the doorway. In America the pipe, as we know, has its native place, and the Red Indian is the great forbear or foster-father of all who smoke.

“We may get on without America,” said a witty Frenchman, from whose opinion, of course, we must plainly differ, “but we cannot get on without M. Nicott”—the French prototype of our Sir Walter Raleigh.

Here also the well-known firm of Messrs. Carr commenced their career of biscuit manufacturers. Jonathan, son of Henry Carr, a weaver on Far Cross Bank, first started for himself as a wholesale grocer in that ancient old building on Highgate Bank (121 Highgate), which had formerly been the “ Royal Oak” Inn, and shortly afterwards married a daughter of Jonathan Dodgson, another wholesale grocer in Stricklandgate. Their son, the worthy Jonathan Dodgson Carr, removed up to this house, but finding little scope, he ultimately removed to Carlisle, where the business has ever since grown to be of world wide fame. However, his brother Henry remained here, and I have before me a circular dated, Kendal 10th Month, 11th, 1833, in which “ Henry Carr II respectfully announces that he has entered upon these premises, where he purposes carrying on the wholesale and retail tea and coffee trade.” It is said that he also had thoughts of combining the tobacco trade, but the Society of Friends advised him better, saying that they “could not see that tobacco was a necessary of life but rather a bad habit of turning the money that would be useful to the poor into thin air”; so the project was abandoned. Henry at last removed also to Carlisle, and in 1837, Thomas Woof, tea dealer, carried on his business. In an upper front room the Plymouth Brethren first held their meetings.

Occupiers

Isaac Hadwen home until 1822 (maltster and corn factor).

Jonathan Dodgson Carr until 1833 (grocers shop).

Henry Carr II (wholesale and retail tea and coffee trade shop).

Jackson around 1900 (tobacconist shop).

Riggs 1950s (Riggs Cafe).