DISPatch I have ever seen. The most extraordinary
piece I saw him make was a perfect daf_fo-
Diamonds in the Dark
dil, commissioned by a Russian princess,
made in eighteen-carat gold, the tiny sta-
mens encrusted with diamonds. It took
Rachel Lichtenstein on the hidden lives of Hatton Garden
him over three months to make.’
In those days every pearl, every pre-
If it is so that we go through the world
of business has been taking place in Hat- cious stone, every diamond – rough or
shedding phantom semblance’s of
ton Garden for over a century. It is a se- cut – came through Hatton Garden. All
ourselves to hover about those places
cret, private, hidden world that operates the big brokerage took place there and
we have lived intensely, then Hatton
under a strict set of unspoken internal the area had the best international reputa-
Garden should surely be full of illustri-
laws: never screw a partner and once tion for fine, hand-made jewellery. Today,
ous shadows.
a deal is done it is a mazen brucha and it only a small proportion of the jewellery
– The Romance of Hatton Garden (by H.
must be adhered to. sold in the street is made by hand, the
Marryat and James Cornish, 1nine.oldstylethree.oldstyle0)
In the mid 1nine.oldstyle80s, when the antique majority is either cast, or imported. A
business was no longer providing a viable few of the master craftsmen remain, but
O
ver the yearS my grandfather, income for my father, he began working when they die, their knowledge will be
uncles, parents and husband have full-time in Hatton Garden, manag- lost. The tradition of passing on skills
all worked in Hatton Garden. My memo- ing the shop of a childhood friend from from one generation to the next in the
ries of the place go back to childhood, Essex. I spent my summer breaks from garden has all but stopped.
when I would accompany my father there university helping out, working as a run- Hatton Garden is no longer the centre
on buying trips, searching for stock to ner; collecting jobs for customers from of the world jewellery market, although
sell at his antique stall in Portobello Mar- the workshops dotted around the area. it remains a major player, but it is the
ket. I remember following him through Whilst waiting for the finished item, I largest cluster of jewellery-based busi-
narrow entrances near to the shop-fronts, would stand and watch elderly craftsmen nesses in the UK, with over three hun-
up dark stairwells to tiny stuf_fy rooms at work, hunched over wooden jewellery dred separate companies that support the
on the floors above, to meet with one of benches in quiet concentration; weld- trade in the immediate area, and over
the many dealers in second-hand goods ing bands of platinum together with fifty retail shops in the street itself. From
who operated in the area. Security was miniature tools, inserting tiny sparkling the Holborn end of the street towards
tight. Entrance to these rooms was of- stones into clawed mounts, cutting deep Clerkenwell, rows of jewellery shops line
ten via three separate steel doors, each blue sapphires into shape with diamond the street on both sides. Another network
of which had to be shut before the next tipped saws. Most had developed their of hidden spaces exist both above and be-
could be opened. Once inside I would skills over decades, starting as fourteen- low these shops: heavily guarded under-
sit on a chair in the corner, often nerv- year-old apprentices sweeping up the ground vaults filled with wholesale stores
ously eyeing a large sleeping dog under shavings of gold left on the floor at night, of gold and silver, workshops where
a desk, and wait whilst my father talked before moving on to work at the jewel- specialist items are painstakingly made
business before examining the items lery benches. They described Hatton to order, small rooms where precious
he’d come to see. There was ritual in this Garden before the war as ‘a Dickensian- gem dealers operate and Hasidic diamond
process. Heavy, black, velvet-lined cases looking place with a patchwork of run- merchants sit examining glittering stones,
would be ceremoniously lifted out of the down houses. There would be a setter held tightly between silver tweezers.
cool depths of large green metal safes, in one room, a polisher in another, an Hatton Garden is a self-contained
before being placed on to a desk, lit by engraver in another and, if you opened place. Everything the business needs can
a bright overhead light. Then my father a door, sometimes a rat would run out.’ be found within one square mile: from
would slip his hand into the pocket of There were no retail shops in Hatton the diamond bourse, to the gold bul-
his sheepskin coat, and pull out his ten- Garden then, the public were not encour- lion dealers, to the suppliers of precious
power jeweller’s loupe, which he would aged to go there, it was primarily a place metals, stones, gems and jewels, to the
hold expertly against one eye by tightly of manufacture and the centre of the shops that sell the finished products. The
screwing up one side of his face. Then, world’s diamond trade. majority of people who work there, in all
slowly, he would pick up each diamond The men in the workshops told me aspects of the business, are Jewish. Or-
ring, Victorian cameo brooch, ruby pen- stories about the master craftsmen, who thodox Jews trade happily with assimi-
dant or other piece of antique jewellery once worked in great numbers in Hat- lated secular Jews like my father. There
and inspect them at great length under ton Garden. ‘There was a Russian Jew- are Jewish people working in Hatton
the white light, sometimes tutting a lit- ish jeweller called Zebedas, who came Garden today from Israel, Iran, America,
tle if he noticed an imperfection. After to my workshop in the late 1nine.oldstylethree.oldstyle0s,’ said Holland and many other countries, who
much haggling back and forth a price Stanley Isaacs, a diamond cutter. ‘He was have links to an international network of
would be agreed upon and the deal sealed over eighty when he arrived to us from jewellery markets in Antwerp, Tel-Aviv,
with a handshake before goods changed Paris, where he had been training since New York and the Far East, making Hat-
hands for cash. This is the way the flow the 1nine.oldstyle00s. His workmanship was the best ton Garden one of the most cosmopolitan
8
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