Page 93 - Ian Marshall - London Coffe Houses - Standing Display January 2016

Pensilvania Coffee House
25, Birchin Lane
(1702 - 1788)

The spelling varies and is frequently shown as Pennsylvania. The
Carolina Coffee House occupied the same house in Birchin Lane and they
later appear to have merged. The first reference is in 1702 and in 1719 a
"bubble" .scheme was advertised "For raising and manufacturing madder
in Great Britain, Pensilvania Coffee House" (Madder being a root
yielding a red dye-stuff). In 1745 an odd advertisement appeared:
"Whereas about seven years ago an advertisement was published in some
of the Daily Papers offering a Reward for a Queen Anne's Farthing struck
in the year 1714. This is to inform the CURIOUS That a farthing of that
year of a very beautiful dye may be seen at the Bar of the Pensiylvania
Coffee-house in Birchin Lane. The impression is no ways defaced but as
entire as from the Mint." The property was marked as destroyed in the
Cornhill fire of 1748 but was shown in the 1749 directories. In 1760 an
auction of 2,270 Beaver skins and 300 Martin skins was recorded at the
Pensylvania and Carolina Coffee-house. The Pensilvania is consistently
mentioned between 1761 and 1788 with various merchants using it as
their business address but then there is no further mention until 1819
when the directories record the "Carolina and Pennsylvania Coffee
House, Birchin Lane" until 1822.

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A map showing some of the area destroyed by the Cornhill Fire of 1748