Tucked away off a side street a stone’s throw away from Bank Underground Station is this tiny little courtyard that is now gated off to the general public.
There is nothing here to suggest that this was in any way connected to the Jack the Ripper investigation.
But this was once the location of the City of London Police Detective Department.
The responsibility for investigating the fourth murder of Jack the Ripper – that of Catherine Eddowes, which took place on 30th September 1888 – fell to the detectives of the City Police.
Catherine had been murdered in Mitre Square over on the City’s eastern fringe.
It transpired that for the hours prior to her murder she had, in fact, also been in the custody of the City of London Police since she had been arrested for being drunk and disorderly on Aldgate High Street on the evening of the 29th of September and had been taken to Bishopsgate Police Station where she was locked in a cell to sober up.
When she had, apparently sobered, she was released at 1am and, having bade the City Jailer a chirpy “good night old, cock,” she headed off into the night.
Here body was found in Mitre Square at 1.45am and the full force of the City of London Police detective department was put into finding her killer.
The detectives were based here in this, now nameless court, just off Old Jewry and, as it transpired, Jack the Ripper would prove as elusive to them as he would to the detectives of the Metropolitan Police who investigated the other Whitechapel Murders.