Glasshouse Yard is a short road behind the west side Goswell Road near Aldersgate Street. and. There are entrances from Goswell Road at either end. Its picturesque name stems (pardon the pun) from a glassworks factory set up here in 1660 by the Second Duke of Buckingham – or to give him his full name, Richard Plantagenet Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville. (Calling the roll at his school must have been a nightmare.)
Buckingham owned Rutland House, adjoining the Charterhouse, and this was his garden. The Duke’s glasshouse was one of the first in England to make Venetian-style rock-crystal glass.
The business apparently didn’t last long. The house was sold. Over the decades the land was subdivided and built on to create a new tightly-packed neighbourhood. In the 19th century it was a centre for small factories – a coach works, a tyre factory, a railway carriage manufactory. Many buildings were bombed in the War, and replaced by warehouses and offices by the 1970s.
No. 8 Glasshouse Yard is a plain two-storeyed office building on a concrete frame, built in 1957.
The rest of the buildings are related to the university.
Nos 20–25 Glasshouse Yard, which used to be called Ruth Potter House, is the corner building. It has three main storeys, with piers of blue engineering bricks and windows of varying width. It is now student accommodation in connection with the university.
Nos 26–28 Glasshouse Yard, which was once called The Glasshouse, was originally a warehouse and model-gown workshop built in 1955. It was revamped and given a new appearance in about 2001.
Nos 29–30 is an eight-storey building housing student accommodation. It replaced Therese House, a 1970s building which was used by the Post Office’s computer services.
