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A Coffee House's Price List Became A Coat Of Arms
Locksmith Old Broad Street: Where A Handshake Became An Institution
What started as informal price sheets in a City coffee house grew into a regulated exchange with its own motto: my word is my bond. Dial 020 8534 4949 and reach someone genuinely familiar with this stretch.
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Covering Old Broad Street in the City's financial district. Open in Google Maps
Why Old Broad Street Is Different
An informal habit that grew into a regulated institution
So, share trading near Old Broad Street began nowhere near as formally as the name London Stock Exchange suggests. By 1698, a broker named John Castaing was publishing regular price lists at Jonathan's Coffee House nearby, covering everything from gold to pieces of eight, simply to give traders a shared reference point. Instead, there was no building dedicated to the practice, no membership, just merchants gathering where the coffee was good and the prices were posted.
That informality hardened gradually into something more structured. By 1773, a members' club in Sweeting's Alley had taken the name Stock Exchange outright, with a proper dealing room and its own coffee room upstairs. A further reorganisation in 1801 moved things to Capel Court with new membership rules, trading legitimacy for a measure of exclusivity. The clearest marker of how far the institution had travelled came in 1923, when the Exchange received an official coat of arms along with a motto that still sums up the whole idea of a trading floor built on spoken agreements: Dictum Meum Pactum. My word is my bond.
A Tower, A Bomb, And A Quiet Departure
Eventually, the Exchange outgrew its older premises entirely, moving in 1972 into a purpose-built tower at 125 Old Broad Street, opened in person by Queen Elizabeth II. For over three decades, this building housed the actual trading floor where brokers once conducted business face to face. Even so, it wasn't entirely free of trouble. In July 1990, a bomb exploded in a toilet behind the visitors' gallery. That area had already been cleared beforehand, and nobody was hurt, though the incident was a stark reminder of the security concerns facing the City at the time.
Meanwhile, the trading floor's own relevance faded faster than any bomb could have managed. A 1986 deregulation known as the Big Bang shifted trading onto electronic systems almost overnight, and the physical floor that once defined this address became something closer to a tourist attraction before finally closing to visitors in 1992. Eventually the Exchange moved on entirely in 2004, relocating to Paternoster Square near St Paul's. So what's left on Old Broad Street today is a building that outlived the very practice it was built for. We're simply here for the locks, whatever trade happens to be conducted behind them now.
Pressed for time? sort a lockout straightaway, book a repair for a quieter moment, or ring our night line whenever suits.
What Old Broad Street Businesses & Residents Call About
What this stretch of the Square Mile brings us
Offices In Former Financial Buildings
Even so, a number of buildings here once served the trading world before being repurposed entirely. We fit security to current use, leaving the grander past where it belongs.
Book aheadHigh-Rise Office Towers
Even so, access volume here is shaped by the modern towers lining this stretch. Repairs need to hold up under that kind of constant daily use.
Book aheadShops & Cafés Serving Office Workers
Whether daytime trade holds up here depends almost entirely on the surrounding offices staying busy. Swapping a jammed lock quickly protects that custom.
Same-day priorityFlats Among The Commercial Towers
Even so, a small number of residential entrances sit among the offices on this stretch. Each one gets its own assessment, not grouped in with the commercial units.
Book aheadBroken Or Snapped Keys
A snapped key doesn't always come free easily from the older locks here. This page explains the careful method we follow.
Call nowEvening Lockouts
This stretch empties out quickly once the office crowd heads home. Our response holds regardless of the hour.
Call nowFor the record: we don't cut duplicate keys, and we don't configure a building's own card or intercom access. Both belong with the managing agent's own suppliers.
Locked Out On Old Broad Street
Trading hours' pace, then a quiet evening
Heavy office traffic defines this stretch through the day, a direct legacy of its financial heritage.
Evening brings a sharp contrast, with the streets here emptying out fast.
Neither pattern changes our method. Soft techniques always get a full run before a drill is ever brought out.
What's actually happened to your key shapes what comes next. See broken keys for a snapped one, lost keys for one that's simply gone.
Around Old Broad Street
What this corner of the City connects to
Bank and Poultry, bordering this stretch.
The full EC2 overview, all six postcodes.
North-east of here.
North of this stretch.
West, past the Guildhall.
Guildhall and the wider civic quarter.
What We Do
Services across Old Broad Street
A Word That Outlasted The Handshake
What a 1923 motto still says about this street
Trading floors and coffee-house price lists have both largely vanished from daily life here. The motto granted alongside the Exchange's own coat of arms somehow hasn't, still summing up an entire way of doing business in four Latin words.
The Exchange's own institutional timeline is set out in detail by this record of its history. A walking tour covering the old Stock Exchange site itself fills in more of the building's later story.
A lock gets a similarly plain assessment from us. Its surroundings matter less than whether it still does the job it's there for.
Uncertain what your own lock needs? Walk us through what it's doing and we'll be upfront about what we think.
The Process
Booking a locksmith Old Broad Street callout
- Send us the detailsYour address, the unit, and a sense of what's wrong.
- We settle accessAny sign-off needed gets arranged ahead of time.
- Inspection comes firstPricing only follows a genuine look at the door.
- Confirmed before we leaveBoth lock and door get tested, nothing assumed.
Access & Traffic
Getting to you around Old Broad Street
Even so, this stretch carries heavy office traffic through most of the working day, reflecting its long financial heritage. Loading restrictions apply throughout.
Even so, both Bank and Liverpool Street stations lie within easy reach, often the quicker option once surface roads back up.
Even so, weekday office hours mark the busiest stretch here, easing considerably by evening and over weekends. Our routing reflects whichever pattern applies.
Why People Call Us
What Old Broad Street tenants and residents rely on us for
- We judge the door, not the history. Whatever a building once was, that's not what decides its current needs.
- We don't skip to force. Instead, gentler methods always get a proper try first.
- Comfortable with high-rise access. Even so, towers with their own security layers are routine for us.
- Homes matter here too. A residential job gets exactly what a commercial one does.
- Scope stated plainly. Even so, spare keys and access-system programming aren't work we take on.
- Reachable at any hour. Busy trading hours or a quiet evening, it's the same to us.
Nearby
Areas around Old Broad Street
Common Questions
From A Coffee House To A Coat Of Arms
Did London's stock market really begin in a coffee house?
Yes, informal price lists were being published at Jonathan's Coffee House as early as 1698.
When did it formally take the name Stock Exchange?
A members' club calling itself exactly that opened in 1773, in nearby Sweeting's Alley.
Is there a specific motto associated with the Exchange?
It is, granted alongside its coat of arms in 1923: Dictum Meum Pactum, Latin for my word is my bond.
A Tower With Its Own Difficult Moment
Did a member of the Royal Family open the modern tower here?
Yes, Queen Elizabeth II opened the Stock Exchange Tower in 1972.
Did this specific building face any security incident?
Yes, a bomb exploded here in 1990. The affected area had already been evacuated, and nobody was hurt.
Why did trading eventually move away from a physical floor?
Deregulation in 1986 shifted trading to electronic systems, making the old trading floor increasingly redundant.
Booking On Old Broad Street
Which stretch does this page actually cover?
Old Broad Street itself, in the heart of the City's financial district.
Do you work on period buildings as well as modern towers 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 in a mostly commercial postcode?
Absolutely, all seven days, independent of what the offices nearby are doing.
Do you handle residential premises as well as offices here?
We do, alongside commercial work, which makes up the larger share of callouts here.
What if my building has its own security procedures?
Walk us through them in advance and we'll build the visit around that.
A coffee-house habit became an institution with a motto. We'd just like your lock to keep its own word too.
Office, shop or flat on Old Broad Street — let us know what's wrong and we'll sort the right engineer.