A quirk of history in London’s Mayfair
Weighhouse takes its name from Weighhouse Street
Any modern economy requires accurate measurement of time, length, volume and weight.
England introduced the short-cross silver penny in 1180. This specified coins of exact weight and purity, which drove renewed efforts to improve and regulate weighing.
City of London records show that the King’s Weigh House was already an important source of revenue for the Crown as early as 1268. Located on Cornhill from at least early 1500s, the King’s Weigh House moved to Little Eastcheap following the Great Fire of London in 1666.
It was upstairs in this building in 1695 that a meeting house for dissenters from the Church of England was set up, which would become known as the King’s Weigh House Chapel. The congregation moved to a larger building on Fish Street Hill in 1834 before making way for the construction of Monument Station in 1883. A new church was built in Mayfair, at the junction of Duke Street and Robert Street, to a design by Alfred Waterhouse, architect of the Natural History Museum, and consecrated in 1891.
This led to Robert Street being renamed Weighhouse Street. Today, the building houses London’s Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral.