Home / Coverage areas / Scrutton Street
A Warehouse That Once Printed Currency
Locksmith Scrutton Street: Where Banknotes Gave Way To Banksy
A Victorian warehouse here once printed official currency for governments overseas, long before an entirely different kind of creative work took over the building. Phone 020 8534 4949 for a locksmith genuinely familiar with this stretch.
- Round-The-Clock Response
- Period Buildings & Modern Offices
- Commercial & Residential
- Scrutton Street Coverage
Covering Scrutton Street, through Shoreditch. Open in Google Maps
Why This Street Is Different
A warehouse building that genuinely printed money
Zetland House is a Victorian warehouse conversion on this exact street. It carries a genuinely unusual trade in its own past. A printing firm called Waterlow operated from the building. By the 1960s, their work had grown considerably more significant than ordinary commercial printing. They produced Bank of England notes directly. Alongside that work came currency notes for a host of foreign governments and countries around the world. For a time, this single Shoreditch warehouse quietly printed money that circulated internationally.
That arrangement didn't last forever. Once Waterlow eventually left, the building was divided up considerably. Twenty separate printing firms ended up working from Zetland House at once, each occupying their own portion of a space built for a different scale of operation.
Where Printing Presses Gave Way To Street Art
Zetland House eventually found a completely different identity. The building became a genuine fixture of London's street art scene. It featured heavily in both the London Street Art Festival and London Mural Fest, showcasing work from artists including Rosie Woods and David Shillinglaw. Signal Gallery operated as a tenant there too. Banksy himself counted among Zetland House's own most successful artists-in-residence. We're concerned with something considerably more ordinary than currency or street art. A lock on Scrutton Street gets fixed properly, whatever banknote or mural once passed through the building nearby.
Short on time? solve a lockout right away, book a repair for later, or reach our night line whenever needed.
What Scrutton Street Businesses & Residents Call About
What this street brings us
Offices Inside A Converted Warehouse
Ground that once held industrial printing presses now hosts modern creative tenants instead. Security gets fitted to that current layout, never applied generically.
Book aheadPeriod Buildings With Genuine Character
Along this street, older architecture survives at points with genuine industrial character. We treat each on its own terms, never as interchangeable doors.
Book aheadStudios Serving A Creative Crowd
The creative and media tenants filling this stretch keep trade here steady. Swift lock replacement protects that custom when a unit jams.
Same-day priorityFlats Tucked Among The Studios
Commercial buildings here still hold a handful of genuine residential entrances. Each gets its own individual look, distinct from the units surrounding it.
Book aheadBroken Or Snapped Keys
A broken key doesn't always release easily from the older locks here. Our guide explains how we free one carefully.
Call nowEvening Lockouts
Quiet settles over this street fast once the working day finishes. Our turnaround stays the same whatever the hour.
Call nowA couple of things we leave to others: spare key cutting, and setting up card or intercom entry systems. Both run through the building's own management.
Locked Out On Scrutton Street
Busy by day, genuinely still by night
Studio and office traffic defines the daytime hours here, following this street's own creative rhythm closely.
Evening brings real contrast, the street settling into genuine quiet surprisingly fast.
Our method doesn't shift between the two. We always attempt gentler techniques first, calling on force only once nothing else will do.
The fix depends on how your key actually failed. Our broken keys page and lost keys page walk through each scenario separately.
Around Scrutton Street
What this street connects to
West of this stretch.
North of here.
East of this street.
South of here.
The wider district this street sits within.
South-west of this stretch.
What We Do
Services across Scrutton Street
What A Warehouse Carries, Trade To Trade
From currency presses to a genuine artists' colony
Few buildings manage quite this unlikely a career change. A warehouse once trusted with printing official currency eventually hosted one of the world's most famous street artists instead, with barely a backward glance at what came before.
Zetland House's own printing history and later transformation are detailed by this account of the building itself. Its physical character as a Victorian warehouse is covered further by this archival record of the property.
None of that history shapes how we approach a job. A lock here gets fixed based entirely on how it's actually performing.
Spotted an issue with your own lock? Share the details and we'll be straightforward about what we think.
The Process
Booking a locksmith Scrutton Street callout
- Get in touchYour address, which unit, and a line on what's wrong.
- We arrange entryAny access needed gets sorted before we travel.
- A real inspectionPricing follows the engineer seeing the door, never before.
- Checked and workingBoth lock and door are proven before we leave.
Access & Traffic
Getting to you along Scrutton Street
This street carries steady traffic as part of Shoreditch's own wider creative quarter. Loading restrictions apply throughout.
Old Street and Shoreditch High Street stations both lie within easy reach, often the quicker option when surface roads are congested.
Weekday daytime hours bring the street's main activity. Evenings settle into real quiet. We plan each visit around whichever applies.
Why People Call Us
What Scrutton Street tenants and residents rely on us for
- Only today's condition matters here. A trade long gone or an artist's own mural changes nothing on the door.
- We default to the gentlest method. A drill only enters the picture once genuinely nothing else resolves it.
- Studio crowds don't rattle us. Regular creative footfall is business as usual on our end.
- We don't rank flats below offices. Residential and commercial jobs both get our full effort.
- We're upfront about where we stop. Keys and card systems are handled by others entirely.
- The hour never changes our response. Loud afternoon or silent midnight, it's consistent either way.
Nearby
Areas around Scrutton Street
Common Questions
A Warehouse That Once Printed Money
Did a genuinely unusual trade once operate from this street?
Yes, a firm here printed official currency for other countries.
How widespread did that printing work actually become?
Remarkably so, covering governments and currencies around the world.
Did that single firm occupy the whole building eventually?
No, it later split into numerous separate printing businesses instead.
From Printing Presses To Street Art
Did this building eventually take on an entirely different character?
Yes, becoming a genuine hub for creative and artistic tenants.
Did any particularly famous artist work from here?
Yes, one of the world's most recognisable street artists.
Is that creative identity still part of the building today?
Very much so, with galleries and festivals both connected to it.
Booking On Scrutton Street
Which stretch does this page actually cover?
Scrutton Street itself, through Shoreditch.
Do you work on period buildings as well as modern offices here?
We do. This street has a genuine mix, and each building gets assessed on its own terms.
Can you reach a lockout during a busy weekday?
We can, though finishing on foot often works out faster once this stretch gets congested.
Is weekend cover realistic given how lively this area gets at night?
It is, every day, regardless of how busy the evening crowd gets.
Do you handle residential premises as well as offices here?
We do, though commercial work accounts for most of what we're called out for on this street.
What if my building has its own security procedures?
Let us know what they involve beforehand and we'll plan the visit around them.
A warehouse here once printed currency, then hosted Banksy himself. We'd rather your own lock needed nothing quite so unusual, just a proper fix.
Office, shop or flat on Scrutton Street — get in touch, and we'll send the right engineer.