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Where A Diarist Once Buried His Cheese
Locksmith Pepys Street: A Diary Writer's Thirteen Years On This Exact Ground
Samuel Pepys lived and worked right where this street now runs, and when the Great Fire threatened, he buried his best wine and his favourite parmesan to keep them safe. Phone 020 8534 4949 for a locksmith genuinely familiar with this patch of the City.
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Covering Pepys Street off Seething Lane, near Tower Hill. Open in Google Maps
Why Pepys Street Is Different
A street that runs through a diarist's own back garden
Pepys Street takes its name from Samuel Pepys, whose diary remains one of the richest first-hand accounts of 17th-century London life. The street itself occupies ground once filled by the Navy Office and its surrounding buildings, where Pepys lived and worked for thirteen years after his appointment there in 1660. This wasn't a passing connection. His house stood on this exact plot, his office sat beside it, and his daily routine for over a decade played out on the ground this street now crosses.
The Great Fire of 1666 came close enough to feel genuinely threatening. As flames spread through the City, Pepys and his neighbour, Sir William Penn, took the precaution of burying their best wine, along with Pepys's favourite parmesan cheese, in the garden to protect them. The fire ultimately stopped around sixty yards short of their homes, sparing the Navy Office entirely, though neither man could have known that while the flames were still advancing.
A Gate, A Church, And A Difficult Summer
A short walk from here, a gateway decorated with carved skulls still survives, a style known as memento mori, meant to remind passers-by of their own mortality. Pepys walked through it often, connecting his workplace directly to the churchyard next door, where he kept a private pew. The building he knew is gone, rebuilt after a second fire in 1673 and eventually demolished in 1788, but that gate has outlasted every version of the office it once served.
The year before the Fire brought its own test. During the Great Plague of 1665, Pepys sent his wife and household staff away from the City for their own safety, but chose to stay behind himself, walking repeatedly between his house, his office and the church as the death toll climbed through that summer. We're considerably less dramatic in what we do here. A lock gets fixed properly, whatever history happens to sit beneath the pavement outside.
In a hurry? deal with a lockout now, schedule a repair for later, or call past midnight if that's when it strikes.
What Pepys Street Businesses & Residents Call About
What this corner near Tower Hill brings us
Offices On Historic Ground
Genuinely old foundations sit beneath a mix of commercial tenants on this short street. Security gets fitted to the building as it stands, never to its past.
Book aheadPeriod Features In Modern Offices
Older features survive behind more recent fit-outs in a handful of buildings here. We respect that mix rather than treating it as an inconvenience.
Book aheadShops Serving Nearby Workers
Trade here depends heavily on the offices and visitors passing through daily. A fast lock replacement keeps a jammed unit from losing that custom.
Same-day priorityFlats Near The Historic Core
A small number of residential entrances sit among the commercial buildings here. Each one gets its own assessment, not grouped in with the units nearby.
Book aheadBroken Or Snapped Keys
The older locks here can be stubborn about releasing a broken key. Our guide covers the careful approach we take.
Call nowEvening Lockouts
Once the working day ends, this short street empties out fast. Our response holds steady regardless.
Call nowA point worth making clearly: duplicate keys and card or intercom setup both fall to other specialists, not us. The managing agent's own contacts handle those.
Locked Out On Pepys Street
A short working street, quiet beyond office hours
Daytime brings a steady trickle of office workers and visitors exploring the area's history.
Evenings bring something close to silence, given how little passes through here once the offices empty.
Whatever the hour, our approach doesn't change: every gentle option tried first, with a drill kept strictly as a last resort.
What's actually happened to your key decides our next move. See broken keys for a snapped one, lost keys for one that's simply gone.
Around Pepys Street
What this corner connects to
A short walk away.
The wider district this corner sits within.
North of here.
North-east of this corner.
North-west of here.
West, towards London Bridge.
What We Do
Services across Pepys Street
What Survives When A Building Doesn't
A diary outlasted the office it was written in
The Navy Office itself is long gone, rebuilt once and demolished entirely by the late 1700s. What survives instead is a written record detailed enough that we can still picture exactly where Pepys stood, worried, with a wheel of cheese in his hands.
The fuller story of Pepys's years on this ground, Fire and Plague included, is told by this account of his time at Seething Lane. The surviving skull gateway and his connection to St Olave's are covered by this piece on the church itself.
We take a plainer view of what's worth preserving. A lock earns our attention by still doing its job, not by having a diary written about it.
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 Pepys Street callout
- Reach outTell us the address, which unit, and what's wrong.
- Entry gets sortedAny sign-off a building needs happens before we travel.
- A direct lookPricing follows a genuine inspection, never a guess.
- Proof it worksLock and door both tested before we call it done.
Access & Traffic
Getting to you around Pepys Street
This short street sits just off Seething Lane, with Tower Hill's own traffic close by. Loading restrictions apply throughout.
Both Tower Hill and Fenchurch Street stations lie within easy reach, often the quicker option once surface roads back up.
Weekday office hours bring the busiest conditions, with evenings and weekends considerably quieter. We plan each visit around whichever pattern applies.
Why People Call Us
What Pepys Street tenants and residents rely on us for
- We assess the door, not the diary. Historic ground doesn't change what a lock needs today.
- We don't skip to force. Gentler methods get a proper try before a drill does.
- Comfortable with historic sites. Visitor interest and extra footfall don't slow us down.
- Homes matter here too. A residential job gets exactly what a commercial one does.
- Scope stated plainly. Spare keys and access-system programming aren't work we take on.
- Reachable at any hour. Busy weekday or a quiet evening street, it's the same to us.
Nearby
Areas around Pepys Street
Common Questions
A Diarist's Buried Treasure
Did a famous historical figure genuinely live where this street now runs?
Yes, Samuel Pepys, whose diary remains one of the most detailed records of 17th-century London.
Is there a specific story connected to the Great Fire here?
Yes, Pepys and a neighbour buried their best wine and a favourite cheese in the garden to save them.
Did the fire actually reach that far?
No, it stopped roughly sixty yards short, though nobody knew that would happen at the time.
A Gate He Walked Through Most Days
Does anything from Pepys's own daily routine survive nearby?
Yes, a gateway decorated with skull carvings, which he passed through regularly.
What was that gate actually used for?
It connected his workplace to the churchyard next door, where he had his own private pew.
Did Pepys show any particular courage during the Great Plague?
Yes, he sent his household away for safety but chose to remain in the City himself.
Booking On Pepys Street
Which area does this page actually cover?
Pepys Street itself, just off Seething Lane near Tower Hill.
Do you work on period buildings as well as modern offices here?
We do. This area 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 area gets congested.
Is weekend cover realistic in a mostly commercial area?
It is, seven days a week, whatever the streets happen to be 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 diarist once buried his cheese to protect it from fire. We'd rather your lock needed no protecting at all.
Office, shop or flat on Pepys Street — let us know what's wrong and we'll sort the right engineer.