SLICE OF OLD LONDON.

Press, Volume L, Issue 14985, 4 June 1914, Page 3

SLICE OF OLD LONDON.

(l-iOM OTJB OWN* CORRESPONDICvT.) LONDON, April 24. Tho three houses in the Strand that are to make way for the New Zealand Government Office, in the course of the next few mouths, are practically the oldest now existing in this famous thoroughfare. Two of them, Nos. 413 and 415, now occupied as a second-hand trunk shop and a musical instrument shop respectively, are 200 years old _nd po-.ess very fine eaves and cornice carried round the entire building. Deeds in the possession of the owners, the Corps of Commissionaires, take them back to 1747. Mr J. Dallas has occupied No. 415 for thirty years, and he has discovered bricked-in windows in his cellars, which formerly opened into Heathcock Court, the narrow alley between the houses! Before Mr Dallas took the house it was a billiard saloon with a money-len-j-,. business attached. No. 413_wa._ form" erly an oyster saloon, and No. 416 has been tenanted by an optician for many years. Once upon a time gardens ran along the backs of the houses. Tbe property was sold freehold 22 years ago for £2700, and to-day the value has increased over ten-fold.