Home / Coverage areas / Farringdon
A Name Nobody Could Spell The Same Way Twice
Locksmith Farringdon: One Goldsmith, Three Station Names
This whole district takes its name from a medieval goldsmith whose own surname was never spelled consistently. The station named after him changed its own name twice before settling. Call 020 8534 4949 for a locksmith who knows Farringdon properly, however you spell it.
- 24/7 Callouts
- Victorian & Modern Stock
- Residential & Commercial
- Farringdon Coverage
Covering Farringdon and the streets around the station. Open in Google Maps
Why Farringdon Is Different
Named after a man whose own name wouldn't sit still
This whole district owes its name to William de Faringdon, a City goldsmith and alderman active in the late 1200s. Surviving documents from his own lifetime spell his surname several different ways, sometimes within the same paragraph: Faringdon, Farindon and Farndon all appear. He may have taken the name from Faringdon in Oxfordshire, a market town that still spells it with a single R today. His son Nicholas purchased the ward outright in 1279. Edward II later appointed him Lord Mayor of London on an extraordinary condition: he could keep the job for as long as it pleased him.
The ward split into Farringdon Within and Farringdon Without in 1394, the names simply describing which side of the old City wall each half sat on. Farringdon Street itself didn't exist until 1737, when it was built directly over the newly covered River Fleet. The modern station eventually borrowed its name from this street.
A Station That Changed Its Own Name Twice
That station opened on 10 January 1863 as Farringdon Street, one of the original stops on the Metropolitan Railway, the world's first underground passenger line. Early trains ran on steam, hauled through gas-lit tunnels only a few years after the technology existed to build them at all. The station was renamed Farringdon & High Holborn in 1922, then simplified to plain Farringdon in 1936, the form that's stuck ever since.
So this entire district carries the surname of a medieval goldsmith who apparently never spelled it consistently himself. It's attached to a station that spent seventy years deciding what to call itself. We work on buildings across every phase of that long, slightly confused history, whichever spelling brought you to this page.
Pressed for time? Go directly to lockout assistance, arrange a repair visit, or check our out-of-hours availability.
What Farringdon Residents & Businesses Call About
The jobs this district actually brings in
Victorian Buildings Near The Station
Property raised around the original 1863 line has often seen decades of comings and goings. A measured lock repair works with that history, not against it.
Book aheadConverted Office & Warehouse Space
Former commercial buildings split into flats sometimes carry fittings meant for an entirely different layout. A proper lock replacement corrects that.
Book aheadLockouts Near A Major Interchange
Farringdon's Elizabeth Line connection brings heavy footfall at almost any hour. Fast, discreet entry matters on a street this busy.
Same-day priorityDesign & Media Businesses
The area's ongoing pull for creative and media firms means a steady flow of office moves and fit-outs, each needing solid commercial security.
Book aheadBroken Or Snapped Keys
Ageing Victorian barrels don't always tolerate a freshly cut key. Our broken keys page explains what a careful extraction involves.
Call nowOut-of-Hours Emergencies
Commuter flows mean this area keeps unusual hours. We staff the night and weekend line for exactly that reason.
Call nowScope, stated plainly: we take care of physical locks and door hardware — fitting, repairing, replacing. Anything involving key duplication falls outside that, as does a shared building's access system, which sits with property management.
Locked Out In Farringdon
The realistic picture on a Farringdon callout
Around the older stock near the station, expect a door that's already had several owners' worth of tinkering done to it. Rather than guess from that, we take a proper look before deciding anything.
Commercial buildings turned into flats bring their own quirk. Often there's a robust original entrance outside, hiding hardware picked much later for a completely different use inside.
In either case, we start soft and only escalate if we have to. Most doors here open without ever needing a drill.
A snapped key is usually the more forgiving problem, compared with one that's outright gone. Our broken keys and lost keys pages lay out the difference.
Around Farringdon
The streets nearby
The wider postcode this station sits within.
Sits just north of the station itself.
The diamond quarter, a short walk east.
Runs south along the old course of the Fleet.
Smithfield and St Bartholomew's, just south-east.
The six-postcode overview, for context on the wider patch we cover.
What We Do
Services around Farringdon
Old Name, New Building
Why the station's history changes how we read a door
The full history of the ward and its goldsmith namesake is set out on Wikipedia's page for Farringdon Within. It's one of two City wards still carrying the name today. It traces the family's tenure across several generations of aldermen.
Very little from William de Faringdon's own century survives above ground here. Most of what stands now dates from the Victorian rebuild around the railway, with later twentieth-century infill filling gaps left by wartime damage and subsequent redevelopment.
That mix means two buildings on the same block can easily date from different decades, whatever their frontages suggest at a glance.
If your building's age isn't obvious to you, that's fine — describe it on the phone and we'll work out the plan once we see it.
The Process
Booking a locksmith Farringdon callout
- Get hold of usBy phone or WhatsApp, whichever suits.
- Sketch out the situationWhat kind of building matters for how we approach it.
- Assessment comes firstA price only follows a proper look.
- Wrapped up in one tripReturn visits are the exception, not the rule.
Access & Traffic
Getting a van (or a walk) to your door
Farringdon sits at a genuinely major interchange now, with the Elizabeth Line adding to existing Underground and rail services. That brings heavy pedestrian traffic at peak times, though road access itself stays relatively manageable.
Loading restrictions apply along several streets immediately around the station, so the last few minutes to your door are sometimes made walking.
The area's excellent transport links cut both ways: useful for getting an engineer to you fast, but also a reason the surrounding streets rarely empty out completely.
Why People Call Us
Why people keep this number saved
- We verify rather than presume. What a building looks like isn't always what's fitted.
- Careful before forceful. A drill only comes out once everything else has failed.
- Comfortable with every building era. Old or new, each gets treated properly.
- No difference between home and business. Residential and commercial jobs held to one standard.
- Plain about our limits. Key duplication and entry-system programming sit outside what we do.
- Actually available at any hour. We answer, whatever time it is.
Nearby
Areas around Farringdon
Common Questions
The Name & Its Goldsmith Origins
Did the name genuinely come from one person's surname?
Yes, most historians trace it to William de Faringdon, a City goldsmith and alderman active in the late 1200s.
Was his name really spelled differently across different documents?
Yes, surviving records show several spellings, sometimes appearing more than once in the same document with slightly different letters.
Is there a real place elsewhere in England with a similar name?
Yes, a market town in Oxfordshire is spelled with a single R, and is thought to be where the family name may have originated.
Did his son inherit the position, or earn it separately?
He purchased the ward outright himself, then went on to hold the office of Lord Mayor on unusually generous terms from the king.
The Station's Own History
Did the station really change its name more than once?
Yes, twice. It opened under one name, adopted a second for several decades, then settled on its current name in 1936.
Was this genuinely one of the first Underground stations ever built?
Yes, it opened as part of the Metropolitan Railway in 1863, widely credited as the world's first underground passenger railway.
Has the area changed much since the Elizabeth Line arrived?
Noticeably, yes. Footfall and development around the station have both increased since that connection opened.
Booking In Farringdon
Is the coverage limited to the streets immediately around the station?
Yes, the whole area counts as one patch to us, station-adjacent or not.
Does the station's crowd slow your response to a lockout?
Yes, station-hour congestion is something we plan our routing around, not something that catches us out.
What if I'm unsure which spelling of the area's name is correct?
It makes no difference to us. We recognise the area under either spelling.
Is genuine out-of-hours cover realistic near such a busy interchange?
Yes, genuinely round the clock. A busy interchange doesn't get quiet hours, and neither do we.
Do you charge extra for a callout close to the station itself?
No, what you're quoted depends on the work involved, not how close you are to any landmark.
A goldsmith's name, a station's three tries. Us, on the first call.
Period stock or modern conversion, home or workplace — phone or WhatsApp us and we'll send someone who takes this district's odd naming history in their stride.